The Experience Architecture (XA) program at Michigan State University has recognized five students with its top honors for 2026, including the second group of students to receive the Bill Hart-Davidson XA Leadership Award.
The 2026 recipients of the Bill Hart-Davidson XA Leadership Award are Alex Guo and Maren O’Connor. The 2026 XA Outstanding Senior Award winners are Zach Anderson, TreShai Hubbard, and Charlotte Miner.
The following is more information on each of these awards and the 2026 recipients.
Bill Hart-Davidson XA Leadership Award
The Bill Hart-Davidson XA Leadership Award recognizes outstanding leadership in XA within and beyond the Arts and Humanities. It celebrates individuals who demonstrate exceptional vision, innovation, and dedication to enhancing the field of XA by leading the way.
Recipients of this award are leaders who inspire collaboration, drive impactful projects, and contribute significantly to the advancement of designing usable, accessible, and sustainable systems. Their work embodies the spirit of the humanities, fostering empathy, inclusivity, and meaningful engagement.
The award honors the memory of Bill Hart-Davidson, a former Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures (WRAC) and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Arts & Letters, who passed away in April 2024. He was a pioneer in the XA field as one of the co-creators of MSU’s XA program, which is housed in the College of Arts & Letters, shared between WRAC and the Department of Art, Art History, and Design.
Alex Guo
Alex Guo, from Albion, Michigan, has dual majors in Humanities-Prelaw and XA and two minors in Business and Leadership in Integrated Learning. She plans to graduate in Fall 2026.
Guo recently was named MSU’s sole student recipient of the 2026 Inclusive Excellence Award from the Office for Inclusive Excellence and Impact, recognizing her contributions to making MSU’s campus a more welcoming place for all.
Since Spring 2024, Guo has worked as an Undergraduate Learning Assistant for MSU’s College of Social Science, supporting student success in the classroom. For the last two years, she served as the Finance Lead and sole member of the Finance Team for the MSU Designathon, raising more than $8,000 for the event. She also has served as an Outreach Assistant for MSU’s Gender and Sexuality Campus Center and was the first transgender chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for the Associated Students of MSU, serving from April 2024 to May 2025 and representing more than 40,000 students.
Guo also serves on Michigan’s statewide Collegiate Student Advisory Task Force, selected as one of 23 students from nearly 100 statewide applicants, and is currently interning for Teach Access, a nonprofit organization that bridges the accessibility skills gap between education and industry.
After graduation, Guo plans to attend law school to become a prosecutor focused on making the criminal justice system more equitable.
Maren O’Connor
Maren O’Connor, from Rochester Hills, Michigan, is an Honors College student and is graduating in Spring 2026 with a B.A. in Experience Architecture. She also earned the 2026 Board of Trustees Award for having maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average during her undergraduate education.
At MSU, O’Connor served as Logistics Team Lead for the second annual MSU Designathon held in March 2026. In this role, she helped plan the event, coordinated catering and schedules, and managed the group of volunteers who contributed their time to make the MSU Designathon possible.
O’Connor is currently a Student Research Assistant for Knowledge Commons, an open-access digital network managed by Michigan State University that is designed for scholars, researchers, and practitioners to share work, collaborate, and build community.
Since March 2024, she has interned with TechSmith, starting as a Customer Care Intern and then becoming a User Experience (UX) Intern where she gets to apply both her customer knowledge as well as the UX design and research methods learned in her classes to her work with the TechSmith’s UX Team.
XA Outstanding Senior Award
The XA Outstanding Senior Award recognizes exceptional students who embody the core values of the Experience Architecture program and who are dedicated to creating improved and just experiences in the world through their work in XA and beyond. These seniors are future change agents, committed to designing usable, accessible, and sustainable spaces and systems.
Zach Anderson
Zach Anderson, from Farmington Hills, Michigan, is graduating in Spring 2026 with a B.A. in Experience Architecture. He earned the 2026 Board of Trustees Award for having maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average during his undergraduate education.
At MSU, Anderson served as Co-Director of the MSU Designathon and as Events Coordinator for the MSU UX Association. He interned as a Product Innovation Intern at PNC Bank in Summer 2025, a Development Intern at the University of Michigan Hillel in Summer 2024, and a Web Design Intern at Ann Arbor SPARK in Summer 2023.
Anderson founded MyWebCreate, LLC at age 16 to design websites for local businesses and co-founded Krazy Komix Comic Books Store with his father. He transferred from Eastern Michigan University to MSU to focus on user-centered design.
TreShai Hubbard
TreShai Hubbard, from Battle Creek, Michigan, is graduating in Spring 2026 with a B.A. in Experience Architecture and a focus on UX/UI design, user research, and digital accessibility. Hubbard interned with UL Research Institutes for two summers — first as a Digital Media Intern in 2024 and then as a Digital Assets Intern since June 2025, where she applied WCAG and ADA accessibility standards and built a searchable digital asset library cataloging more than 1,000 assets. She also serves as an Accessibility Assistant with MSU Information Technology Educational Technology, where she develops training materials and workshops for faculty and staff on accessible course materials.
On campus, Hubbard served as the Events Vice President of the MSU Designathon, Lead Ambassador for MSU Women in Engineering Outreach, and Vice President of Women of Color in STEM MSU, a club she co-founded in April 2023.
Charlotte Miner
Charlotte Miner, from Brighton, Michigan, is graduating in Spring 2026 with a B.A. in Experience Architecture and minors in Graphic Design and Writing. She is a member of the Honors College and earned the 2026 Board of Trustees Award for having maintained a perfect 4.0 grade point average during her undergraduate education. She also received the 2026 Outstanding Senior Award for the Minor in Writing.
Within the XA program, Miner focused on user-centered design, UX research, and UX writing. She served as Co-President of the MSU UX Association (formerly the Experience Architecture Club).
Also at MSU, she served as an Associate Editorial Assistant for JOGLTEP, the Journal of Global and Local Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies. She was a member of VIM Magazine, the MSU Libraries Student Advisory Committee, and has been a member of Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity since Spring 2023. During the 2023-2024 academic year, she was a member of Tower Guard.
During Summer 2025, Miner was an intern within the Training and Development Team at Imperial Supplies where she had the opportunity to translate her user experience skills into the world of instructional design.
