Faculty

Dana McMahan

Professor of the Practice

Carroll 238

Office hours: TuTh 12:15 to 2 p.m.

dmcmahan@email.unc.edu

Dana McMahan joined the faculty in 2008.

Prior to coming to the school, McMahan began her own fashion and lifestyle company that included retail operations, new product design and interior design. She formed the company after more than a decade as an advertising and marketing creative and continues to run it today.

McMahan began her career in advertising as an art director at New York’s McCann-Erickson and creative director at Charron, Schwartz and Partners. Upon moving to North Carolina, she consulted extensively with McKinney as a creative in new business. Her national and global clients have included L’Oreal, Tiffany & Company, GE, Coca-Cola, WestPoint Home, Ralph Lauren, Nautica Home, ABC, Jameson Irish Whiskey and Disney to name a few. She’s also worked with an extensive roster of local and regional nonprofits. Most notably she was part of the leadership teams that opened SECU Family House at UNC Hospitals and Chapel Hill’s Kidzu Children’s Museum.

She founded Workroom FashionMash in 2009, a product and experiential design incubator in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media centered around fashion and lifestyle brands. The program has expanded extensively, winning grants from the Burt’s Bees Greater Good Foundation, the Triad Foundation, the Curtis Media Foundation and, in 2016, a permanent endowment from the Goodwyn Family Foundation. The program includes hands-on projects with global fashion brands, travel opportunities for students to meet industry professionals and two university-wide clubs that produce fashion magazines and shows on campus.

McMahan is the 2011 recipient of the Ed Vick Prize for Innovation in Teaching and was honored with the David Brinkley Teaching Excellence Award in 2014 and the Chancellor’s Student Undergraduate Teaching Award in 2019.

EDUCATION