ALLYSON ‘M’ TAYAO :-)
hi, I’m M! I’m an interdisciplinary artist and creative project manager based in pittsburgh, pennsylvania.
my work centers around themes of ecological hope, deep memory, interdependence, and critical joy. I care about what we owe each other, when we need each other, and how we play together.
connect with me: allysontayao@gmail.comscroll here for an abbreviated RESUME
(email me for a print version!)
Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
BA (with Honors)
Art + Global Studies,
Minor in Game Design
August 2019 - May 2025
Selected Experience Workshop Educator:
Interactive Fiction
Carnegie Mellon University Summer Pre-College
Pittsburgh, PA
Jun 2025
Research Assistant +
Publication Designer
Collaborative Ecologies
Pittsburgh, PA
Oct 2021, Sep 2023 - Jul 2024
Shift Lead (Front of House, Barista)
Georgie’s Corner Cafe
Pittsburgh, PA
Aug 2023 - Jul 2024
Exhibition Designer
Emerging Horizons: Carnegie Mellon University School of Art
Jan 2023 - May 2023
Gallery Assistant
Miller Institute for
Contemporary Art
Pittsburgh, PA
Aug 2022 - May 2023
Game Designer + Art Director
Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
@ CMU
Pittsburgh, PA
Nov 2021 - May 2022
Undergraduate Research Fellow
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Remote
May 2020 - October 2020
Skills
Ableton 10 + 11
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Lightroom
Autodesk Maya
Aseprite
Google Suite
HTML/CSS
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Project
Procreate
p5.js
Toon Boom Harmony
Unity
Creative project management
Educational programming
Facilitating arts spaces
Game design
Game writing
Leading workshops
Print design
Handweaving
2D Animation
Writing for TTRPGs
Rock climbing :--)
AwardsCarnegie Mellon University
Intercollege Honors
2025
Frank-Ratchye STUDIO
Further Fund
2022
Samuel Rosenberg Award
2022
California Scholar of the Arts
2016
Press
‘Questions for a Sustainable Future’ by Amy Boyle
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
‘Emerging Horizons: CMU Senior Art Exhibition’
Miller Institute for Contemporary Art
2023
‘Morianum: Decolonizing tabletop play’
Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
2022
Last Updated 24.10.31scroll here for some
SELECTED WORKS
AN EDUCATIONAL SETBUILDER ABOUT ANIMAL BIOLOGY
An Immense World, card-based set-builder
CMU Entertainment Technology Center
2025
A miniature set-builder (24-card deck) for 3 players, inspired by award-winning science writer Ed Yong and his most recent book, An Immense World.
In a celebration of global research in animal sensory biology, Yong explores in joyful detail the wondrous variety of ways that animals experience the world. My goal was to design a game that would teach players about this fascinating subject, and help them tap into what it might feel like to be able to behave the way those animals do – almost like being given superpowers. This game is for players of intermediate skill who are fans of games like Wingspan and Mahjong.
Read the rules HERE.
A LITTLE GAME ABOUT BIRDS WITH BIG DREAMS
Birds With Dreams, desktop clicking game
itch.io 20-Second Game Jam
2025
I drew some birds who have mighty aspirations in life and put them in this game. Created in collaboration with Cece Shen, Lucia Shen, and Martin Baker.
Play our game HERE.
A GIANT HANGING MOBILE ABOUT FILIPINO HANDWEAVING AND COLONIAL HISTORIES OF COMPUTING
Core Memory, mixed media installation
Miller Institute for Contemporary Art
2023
In 1974, less than three decades after the Philippines won independence from the United States, Intel became the first American multinational tech corporation to build an assembly and testing site in the arkipelago. They broke ground in Makati, eight miles from my father’s childhood home in present-day San Andres. It was from this side of the nascent Digital Revolution that my family rode the fourth and current wave of Filipino immigration to the States.
Drawing from archival research and family interviews, Core Memory offers a microcosm of the manifold invisibilized histories underlying the birth of the Information Age.
Note: The weaving in this installation is an approximation of the Ilocano binakol / kusikus weave.
A GAMES RESEARCH PROJECT ABOUT DECOLONIAL TABLETOP ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Morianum (and the s0lstice system)
Tabletop setting (powered by the Apocalypse)
2022
Morianum is a fictional continent intended for use as a setting for
collaborative storytelling and tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). The
project included the visual development of eight interdependent regions, a constructed language
anchored in the tenets of a deep ecological and polytheistic mythology, 4 playable character archetypes, and a 40-page player handbook.
I proposed this project and secured funding from my university’s interdisciplinary arts research studio. For half a year I managed a 5-person team through the entire production pipeline and successfully launched a public playtest and digital beta release.
See the complete research proposal and project management plan HERE.
A ZINE DOCUMENTING A WORKSHOP ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL ETHNOGRAPHIES AND TRANSFORMATIONAL JUSTICE
Collaboraive Ecologies
CMU Department of History, Wenner-Gren Foundation
Workshop in 2021, contract design work until 2023
I worked as a research assistant for a conference of ethnographers across the United States who were involved in research collaborations with environmental justice coalitions worldwide. When the gathering was moved to a remote format, I designed a publication that served as a record of these researchers’ exploratory imagining and a playbook/toolbox for others like them.