Montana State alumna named in Interior Design magazine’s 30 under 30 for work in architectural design

BOZEMAN - Alyssa Parsons' designs are everywhere. Her skyscrapers tower over Seattle and touch the clouds. Her murals are splashed across Uber, Snapchat and Amazon workplaces in the West.

Each structure is like an art installation, meant to leave a lasting impression on the employees or residents who walk through it, said Parsons, a Montana State University alumna of the School of Architecture. And a lasting impression is exactly what she left on the design field this year.

In August, Parsons was named one of Interior Design magazine's 30 under 30 designers for 2025. The global publication was founded in 1932 and features news, research and innovative products in the design world.

"This was like my first feeling of, 'OK, it paid off. All this hard work finally means something,'" said Parsons, who graduated from MSU with a bachelor's degree in environmental design in 2017 and a master's in architecture in 2018.

Parsons is a Seattle-based experiential designer for the global firm IA, Interior Architects, where she creates models of buildings' interior architecture, branding and design elements making each space an immersive experience.

She takes on a handful of clients each year and is currently designing a workspace for a leading tech company whose brand revolves around interconnectedness and global reach. Parsons said she plans to expose and paint the building's intricate network of ceiling pipes to represent the concept abstractly.

She uses software like Rhino and Revit, which she mastered at MSU, to model each building in 3D. With her expertise, clients can walk virtually through a space before approving the design. She said that before she joined IA, the firm created mockups of experiential design elements in Adobe Photoshop and did not have the ability to visualize them as complete 3D elements.

Her passion for 3D modeling began as an undergraduate at MSU but evolved into a master's studio project that was named the top project in her class by both faculty and students - one of only a few designs in program history to be chosen for both awards, which are given to master's projects each year. Using the program Grasshopper, she created an algorithm for scanning a building site with lasers and modeling a 3D structure based on the site's best views and building code requirements. She even contacted Grasshopper's developers to gain their insight, said Michael Everts, director of MSU's School of Architecture and Parsons' project adviser.

"There are no barriers for her. She just goes after things," he said. "Alyssa falls into the category of designers who don't rely on what's been done before. And then she's got this incredible work ethic to be able to communicate her ideas visually and verbally to get other people enthused about an idea that might not otherwise be possible."

As Parsons presented her project in 2018, it caught the attention of an MSU alumnus and partner of the Seattle-based LMN architecture firm, who happened to walk by during the presentation. The School of Architecture introduced the pair, and Parsons joined LMN after graduation, designing large-scale structures like skyscrapers and Washington's Microsoft campus.

Working in the design field, she discovered it was simple to learn technical skills and building codes on her own, but it's more difficult to "learn good taste." She said MSU's emphasis on artistic architecture was formative, particularly in studio classes, where students model and present designs in front of their peers after receiving a hypothetical client.

"MSU shaped the way I think," Parsons said. "I can visualize and conceptualize and be really abstract, and I've learned that solely through studio classes at MSU."

Studio classes were her proving ground for out-of-the-box course projects, ranging from a glass house for Mike McCready, who is the lead guitarist of Pearl Jam, to a high school built to accommodate students with attention deficit disorders.

Parsons herself has ADHD and dyslexia, and her biggest worry heading into college was that she wouldn't have the testing and tutoring accommodations she used in high school. However, she found both - as well as math and writing centers - were accessible and free at MSU, and she said professors were willing to take the extra step of sending her exams to a quiet testing space in the library.

High school was also where Parsons discovered her knack for design and creating furniture. It's a passion she brought from Moraga, California, to Cheever Hall's Fabrication Lab, where she spent nearly every day assisting other students with their coursework and creating her own pieces in the woodworking area. The woodshop, along with the architecture program's art focus and kind faculty, drew her to MSU, she said. Parsons' hands-on experience helped her develop a unique portfolio of designs and find a job after graduation.

"Now, I get paid to design things that have never been built before," she said. "And then you see people walking through the space and experiencing it - there's nothing more rewarding."