MICA Welcomes New Faculty and Staff
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is pleased to welcome new faculty and staff members who have joined our community this fall. The new faculty and staff represent the multi-disciplinary education MICA prides itself on offering its students as part of its mission to empower students to forge creative, purposeful lives and careers in a diverse and changing world. New faculty additions have expanded MICA’s expertise in graphic design, game design, painting, ceramics and product design.
Lishan AZ, GAME DESIGN
Game Designer-in-Residence in MICA’s new B.F.A. in Game Design Program, Lishan AZ, is a game designer and writer who was selected as one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Gaming. Her work explores Black women’s resistance, identity and historical perspectives. She earned an M.F.A. in interactive media and game design from the University of Southern California, and her thesis, Tracking Ida, was awarded Best Gameplay at Games for Change 2017.
Joseph Carr, FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE
A filmmaker and multimedia designer working and teaching in Baltimore, Joseph Carr received an M.F.A. in studio from the Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His creative interests are in technical photography, scientific illustration, and documentary. For the past two years he has worked with English Language Learners (ELL) in Art Matters courses at MICA.
Stephen Ellis, LEROY E. HOFFBERGER SCHOOL OF PAINTING MFA
Interim director of the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting, New York-based Stephen Ellis is part of a group of American artists who rebelled against self-referential formalism and returned abstraction to a more active engagement with the world. His work is in collections including The Brooklyn Museum and The Ashmolean Museum, and he has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Joan Mitchell Foundation, among others.
Minsun Eo, GRAPHIC DESIGN
Joining the Graphic Design faculty as a teaching fellow, Minsun Eo’s New York-based studio explores graphic design methodology through core-contemporary design practice and media — including brand identity development, exhibition and environmental design, and print and digital. He holds an M.F.A. Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design. His projects have been selected by Type Directors Club (TDC), Art Directors Club (ADC), Adobe Design Achievement Awards, and Output Awards.
Emily A. Gibson, MASTER OF ARTS IN TEACHING
Emily A. Gibson sees teaching and making art as symbiotic, and she finds these endeavors work best in tandem like a set of rolling wheels. A graduate of MICA, Gibson earned an M.F.A. from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She began teaching in the South Bronx and received her certification through Pratt Institute. She has also taught at the Cooper Hewitt Museum and the Jewish Museum.
Kira Nam Greene, PAINTING
The McMillan/Stewart Endowed Chair in Painting, Kira Nam Greene was born in Seoul, Korea, and is now based in Brooklyn. She received her M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. Greene explores female sexuality, desire and control through lush still-life paintings of food, surrounded by complex patterns and abstract design. Her work has shown at venues including Brown University and Bronx Museum of Art.
Jerome Harris, GRAPHIC DESIGN
Jerome Harris holds an M.F.A. in graphic design from Yale University. After his graduation, he was an active designer in the greater New Haven area, working for Yale and with local arts nonprofit Artspace. He designed the identity for the Black Pulp! Exhibition, which examines evolving perspectives of Black identity in American culture and history from 1912 to 2016, curated by William Villalongo and Mark Gibson.
William Hartland, ANIMATION
New York-based Willy Hartland has carved out a distinguished career in animation. A recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Film, and many international film awards, Willy writes, directs, and animates his own projects for the Web, TV, and Film. He has also worked as a storyboard artist on three features, and numerous TV shows, among them MTV’s Daria.
Victoria Jang, CERAMICS
Victoria Jang is a ceramic mixed media artist from San Francisco and the recipient of the 2017–18 AICAD teaching fellowship. Jang earned her M.F.A. at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and received the Headlands Center for the Arts Fellowship, the Retired Professor’s Award by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, and Murphy Cadogan Contemporary Arts Award.
Vanessa López, MASTER OF ARTS IN TEACHING
Vanessa López received her M.A. in Art Education from MICA. She taught art for ten years in Baltimore City Public Schools, is an actively practicing artist, and her writing has been included in publications including the Art Education Journal and the book Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons. She has served on the Fine Arts Education Advisory Panel for the Maryland State Department of Education.
Victoria Rose Pass, ART HISTORY
Victoria Rose Pass comes to MICA from Salisbury University. Her research considers the history of fashion culture in the 20th century and focuses on gender and race. Current president of the Design Studies Forum, an affiliated society of the College Art Association, Pass holds an M.A. in Art History from the Art Institute of Chicago, and Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester.
Wendy Price, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR ACADEMIC SERVICES
Before coming to MICA, Wendy Price was Associate Dean of Washington and Lee University, where she was charged with oversight of all buildings, operating and capital budgets and academic services staff. She sees her role at MICA as empowering the student learning process by facilitating the framework — the spaces and equipment — for students to master techniques, nurture creativity and gain a broader perspective of community and culture.
Terra Schehr, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR EDUCATIONAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Terra Schehr comes to MICA from Loyola University where she was the Assistant Vice President of institutional research and effectiveness, and was responsible for the coordination of assessment, accreditation, and the support of the professional development of faculty in these areas. Through her role at MICA, Schehr will support faculty in exploring ways to enhance the learning experience for students, especially in light of the College’s new Mission and Vision Statements.
Amy Sherald ’04 (LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting M.F.A.), PAINTING
Also joining the Painting faculty as a McMillan/Stewart Endowed Chair is Amy Sherald, recently commissioned to paint former first lady Michelle Obama’s official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery. The first woman to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition grand prize, Sherald’s solo shows have been held at venues including Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum. Her work is in the public collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, among many others.
Leslie Speer, PRODUCT DESIGN
The inaugural chair of MICA’s Product Design program, Leslie Speer is a designer and educator with a long time passion for helping people use design to improve their world and others’ lives. She was previously professor in industrial design at San José State University and professor and assistant chair at the California College of the Arts. Recipient of the prestigious 2009 Educator of the Year award from the Industrial Designers Society of America, she has worked professionally for companies and clients including Dupont, Oracle/Sun Microsystems and the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture. She has extensive consulting experience in developing markets in Mexico, Costa Rica, China
and Cameroon working on initiatives using design to create economic stability. She earned a bachelors in industrial design from California State University at Long Beach and her master’s in design (MDES) from Middlesex University in the UK.
Sukyun Weaver, LIBERAL ARTS
Graduate English Language Learning (ELL) Specialist and Liberal Arts faculty member, Sukyun Weaver received an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Her research interests include culturally and linguistically responsive student support, intercultural training and corpus-based linguistics. She has held ELL-related positions at NYU, Columbia, Pace, and Johns Hopkins. In the classroom, Weaver believes in empowering students to gain authentic language through autonomous learning for lifelong success.
