Cooper Union

Emily Waters

Adjunct Instructor

Emily Waters has lived in New York City for many years and has designed for such clients as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Guggenheim Museum.

She now teaches design at the Cooper Union and at Parsons The New School. Emily received her BFA from the University of Illinois and finished her design education at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland.

Identity and environmental graphics for The Museum of Modern Art

Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.
“My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”
From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.
Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.