Douglas Riccardi

Instructor, Continuing Education

Douglas Riccardi is the owner and Creative Director of Memo Productions, a Manhattan-based agency specializing in branding for culinary entrepreneurs working on food halls, brands poised for growth, and restaurant startups. Memo’s work spans the gamut from high-end single-unit restaurants to multiple-unit fast casual concepts. Memo helps clients express their mission, fuel connections with their customers, and create sustainability. His favorite foods are: Chiles rellenos, a classic fried shrimp basket, his mother’s chicken parmigiana, and any cocktail containing tequila. He also bakes a mean linzer tart. Follow Douglas on Instagram @memonewyork

  • 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.