Amanda Cardwell-Aiken is the Costume Studio Manager and Draper at the University of Portland where she is designing costumes, mentoring student designers and teaching the art of costume construction and alteration.

She graduated from Utah State University with an MFA Theatre Arts in Costume Design and Technology. She received KCACTF Honorable Mention for her Costume Design for Spring Awakening,  Hair and Makeup for Miss Bennet Christmas at Pemberley and Theoretical Costume Design for Pipeline. Since graduating she has worked with Lyric Repertory Theatre, Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre, Arizona Opera, Snow, College, 21TEN, Corrib Theatre, Artists Repertory Theatre (Portland, OR)

Originally from Salem, OR she studied at the University of Oregon for a BA Theatre Arts focusing on Costume Design and Stage Management under the mentorship of Sandy Bonds. She was awarded KCACTF Meritorious Achievement in Stage Management and a KCACTF Region 7 1st place Theoretical Costume Designs of Sweeney Todd in 2011. In Eugene they worked with the Oregon Contemporary Theatre and the Actor's Cabaret of Eugene and moved to Ithaca, NY to be a Stage Management(EMC)/Production Intern at the Kitchen Theatre Company.  They later returned to the Kitchen Theatre to later Costume Design productions of: Peter and the Starcatcher, I and You, Sunset Baby and Seminar. After they moved to New York City and worked with several small companies including the New York Shakespeare Exchange and Sanguine Theatre Company as well as TV and Film as a Wardrobe Assistant on Hometown Homicide, Deadline Crime with Tamron Hall and background productions including Orange is the New Black and Girls.