Full-Time Faculty
Katherine Akey Lee
Katherine was raised between Richmond, Virginia and Athens, Greece. Her work about polar exploration, World War I and early aviation is inspired in part by her experiences as the daughter of archaeologists.
Suse Anderson
Suse Anderson, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor, Museum Studies at The George Washington University.
Catherine Anderson
Catherine Anderson has worked at several architecture & interior design firms during her career and now dedicates her time to educating students on understanding architectural concepts.
Robert Baker
Robert Baker is a singer who has performed with the Metropolitan Opera, the Washington National Opera, the National Symphony, and with choral organizations across the country. In addition to teaching voice lessons and in the classroom, he is the current Program Head for Music.
David Bjelajac
Professor of Art History and American Studies, David Bjelajac received his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Modern European History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his Ph.D. in Art History from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill.
Douglas Boyce
Douglas Boyce writes chamber music that draws on Renaissance traditions and modernist aesthetics, building rich rhythmic structures that shift between order, fragmentation, elegance, and ferocity.
Mary Buckley
Mary Buckley is Associate Professor of Dance and Director of the EJS Women’s Leadership Program at George Washington University.
Dana Tai Soon Burgess
Dana Tai Soon Burgess's work has tended to focus on the "hyphenated person" - someone who is of mixed ethnic or cultural heritage - as well as issues of belonging and societal acceptance.
Michele Carlson
Michele Carlson is a multidisciplinary practitioner working across the fields of art, writing, publishing, and collective practice.
Mel Chin
Mel Chin was born in Houston, Texas in 1951. Chin’s art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification.
Mary Coughlin
Professor Coughlin has an interest in the conservation challenges of contemporary museum collections, particularly with respect to plastic.
Andrea Hunter Dietz
Andrea Dietz is an architect, curator, and writer. Her creative and scholarly practice is focused on “architecture(s) of and on display” – or the translation and exhibition of the built environment.
Alexander Dumbadze
Alexander Dumbadze is Associate Professor of Art History.
Matt Eich
Matt Eich is a photographic essayist working on long-form projects related to memory, family, community, and the American condition.
Janis Goodman
Janis Goodman is a DC based visual artist.
Carl Gudenius
In addition to teaching scenic and lighting design at GW and directing its Graduate Production Design Program, Professor Gudenius is an active professional designer.
Philip Jacks
Philip Jacks is a Professor in the Art History Program within the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design.
Leslie Jacobson
Leslie Jacobson has spent over 40 years producing, writing, directing, and teaching theatre committed to addressing societal challenges and to giving voice to people often marginalized by the dominant culture.
Sara Jamshidi
Sara Jamshidi is a research-based designer with a practice that spans between the realms of archives and special collections, museum and education, with an editorial design approach.
Sigridur Johannesdottir
Sigridur is a costume designer who specializes and focuses her teaching on reproducing historical costumes based on research as well as dance costumes.
Scott Jones
Scott Jones is an Assistant Professor of Interior Architecture, and an active professional industrial designer with a focus on furniture, lighting, product and interior design.
Loren Kajikawa
Loren Kajikawa is an associate professor of music. His main area of research and teaching is American music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with special attention to the dynamics of race and politics.
Jodi Kanter
As a scholar, she has been trained to apply the theoretical lens of performance to everyday practices and so, while her methodology is consistent, the subjects of her work vary wildly—from, for example, end of life health care to contemporary dramatic literature to the American Presidency.
Dean Kessmann
Professor Kessmann has had one-person exhibitions at Furthermore, Washington, DC, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO, Humanity Center Galleries, California State University, Chico, CA, White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO, and the Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
Erin Kuykendall
After spending several summers as an archaeologist at Jamestown with Preservation Virginia, Erin Kuykendall shifted her studies of American history, architecture, and decorative arts to the world preserved above ground, and worked for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Mount Vernon, the Reeves Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain at Washington & Lee University, and the Philadelphia Athenaeum.
Jae Rhim Lee
Jae Rhim Lee is an award-winning designer, entrepreneur, and transdisciplinary artist whose living units and wearables reimagine basic life systems and propose alternative and occasionally transgressive relationships between the body and the built and natural environment.
Lisa Lipinski
Lisa Lipinski's teaching and research interests include modern and contemporary art and theoretical approaches to the visual arts, Surrealism and the art of René Magritte, the body in modern and contemporary art, and Abraham Lincoln’s influence on America art and culture.
Kerry McAleer-Keeler
Ms. McAleer-Keeler serves on the Board of Directors of the College Book Art Association, working to advance and promote academic book arts education by encouraging its development and practice.
Cristin McKnight Sethi
Professor McKnight Sethi is a curator and historian of South Asian art. Her research and teaching interests include textiles and folk art, the intersection of gender and practices of making, networks of circulation and exchange, the anthropology of art, and postcolonial theory.
Eugene Montague
Eugene Montague joined the faculty at the George Washington University in the fall of 2009, having previously taught for several years at the University of Central Florida.
Maria del Carmen Montoya
Maria del Carmen Montoya´s studio practice combines participatory art, sculpture and digitalia.
Mika Natif
Dr. Mika Natif (Ph.D., New York University – Institute of Fine Arts, 2006) is a historian of Medieval art focusing on the intercultural exchanges and global connections that Muslim societies forged with the European sphere in the pre-Modern era.
Bibiana Obler
Professor Obler's research and teaching interests include modern and contemporary art and craft from the late nineteenth century to the present, with emphases on twentieth-century avant-gardes, theories of gender and cross-cultural representation, photography, applied arts, and intellectual history.
Turker Ozdogan
As a professional artist, Turker Ozdogan has achieved national and international recognition through a variety of research grants and awards, juried expositions, and solo exhibitions.
Kevin Patton
Kevin Patton is an artist and speculative designer whose primary mode of making is through creating interactive systems.
Kym Rice
Kym Rice is the Interim Director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, and Full-Time Faculty in the Museum Studies Program at GW University.
Siobhan Rigg
Professor Rigg explores local relationships through experimental forays between personal conversations, and recycled literary, documentary, and media materials.
Lilien F. Robinson
Born in Slovenia, raised in Serbia and briefly in Switzerland, Professor Robinson's early education was in Serbian and French schools, and thereafter in Washington DC primary and secondary schools.
Laura Schiavo
Before joining the Museum Studies faculty in 2009, Professor Schiavo worked in museums in the DC area, including the City Museum, Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, and the National Building Museum, where she curated Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s.
Johan Severtson
Mr. Severtson participated in the first international invitational exhibition, Cybernetic Serendipity, of computer-related art and design at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and in the Art and Technology show at the Museum of Modern Art and Brooklyn Museum.
James Sham
James Sham is an inter-disciplinary artist whose research includes themes of translation, performance, social practice and innovation.
Erin Speck
Professor Speck's areas of expertise include AutoCAD, Revit, research methods, lighting, preservation, and building technology.
Heather Stebbins
Heather Stebbins is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music that highlights her fascination with the kinetic and emotive properties of sound.
Susan Sterner
Susan Sterner started her career as a photojournalist freelancing with national and international publications while based in New Orleans, La.
John Traub
John Traub currently serves as the Assistant Professor of Production Management and Technology at The George Washington University, Program of Theatre & Dance.
Stephanie Travis
Stephanie received her Master of Architecture with distinction and Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Max van Balgooy
Max A. van Balgooy is a national leader in historical interpretation and community engagement, with extensive experience in developing solutions in collaboration with diverse audiences, including volunteers, staff, trustees, residents, scholars, design professionals, business leaders, and elected officials.
Allyson Vieira
Professor Vieira has exhibited extensively both internationally and in the U.S., including institutional projects at Kunsthalle Basel, CH, Swiss Institute, NY, Storm King Art Center, NY, PinchukArtCentre, UA, Non-Objectif Sud, FR, Frieze Projects, NY, The Public Art Fund, NY, The Highline, NY, and SculptureCenter, NY, as well as recent solo gallery exhibitions at Daniel Faria, Toronto, CA, Company, NY, Klaus von Nichtssagend, NY, Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo, BR, The Breeder, Athens, GR, and Laurel Gitlen, NY.
Nadia Volchansky
Nadia Volchansky is an Assistant Professor of Interior Architecture at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.
Barbara von Barghahn
Professor von Barghahn is Professor and Program Head of Art History. She teaches Northern Renaissance and Baroque art, Spanish and Portuguese art, colonial art of Latin America and Brazil.
Tanya Wetenhall
A specialist in dress history, Professor Wetenhall’s teaching encompasses fashion and costume history, world dress practices, ballet design history, material culture and the decorative arts.
John Wetenhall
A museum director for over two decades, John Wetenhall served for nine years as Executive Director of The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, leading a $150 million capital and endowment transformation.
Matt Wilson
Matthew R. Wilson is a union actor, director, and movement/combat choreographer, as well as a published playwright and theatre scholar.
Maida Withers
Maida Withers was born in Kanab, Utah and was able to define her career with early experiences with legendary artists including Mary Wigman and Folkwangschule (Germany), Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, Anna Halprin, Welland Lathrop, Hanya Holm, and, most importantly, John Cage.
Ning Yu
Praised for her "taut and impassioned performance" by the New York Times, pianist Ning Yu performs with vigor and dedication for traditional and avant-garde repertoire of the 20th and 21st century on stages across the United States, Europe and Asia.
