Studio Arts Faculty

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Omya Alston

Professorial Lecturer, Photography, Studio Arts Program

Professorial Lecturer, Photography, Studio Arts Program.
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Kara Braciale
Kara Braciale

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Kara Braciale is an artist and educator based in northern Virginia. Her work takes a variety of forms including paintings, digital works and textile objects alongside more conversational and social works such as the collaboratively run Proof Gallery, a project space in South Boston active from 2007-2018.
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Michele Carlson
Michele Carlson

Associate Professor, Fine Arts, Studio Arts program; Undergraduate Advisor BA & BFA, Fine Arts

Michele Carlson is a multidisciplinary practitioner working across the fields of art, writing, publishing, and collective practice. Carlson is one of three founding members of the arts collective Related Tactics, which facilitates projects at the intersection of race, art, and culture.

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Kelly Carr

Professorial Lecturer, Photography, Studio Arts Program

Professorial Lecturer, Photography, Studio Arts Program.
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Chan Chao

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Chan Chao was born in Kalemyo, Burma. In addition to teaching photography at GW, he has published three photography books, contributed to five different magazine publications, and had his work in five galleries and ten museums nationwide.
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Natalie Cheung
Natalie Cheung

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Natalie Cheung is originally from Falls Church, Virginia. Cheung is a professional artist, her artwork is represented by Morton Fine Art in Washington, DC and The Art Registry in Denver, CO.
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Matt Eich
Matt Eich

Assistant Professor, Photojournalism Undergraduate Advisor, B.A. & B.F.A. in Photojournalism

Matt Eich is a photographic essayist working on long-form projects related to memory, family, community, and the American condition. Matt was an Artist-in-Residence at Light Work in 2013, and at a Robert Rauschenberg Residency in 2019.

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Stephen Elfers
Stephen Elfers

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Steve Elfers has been a visual journalist for 30 years and has covered military conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia.
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Michelle Frankfurter

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Born in Jerusalem, Israel, Michelle Frankfurter is a documentary photographer from Takoma Park, MD.
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Janis Goodman

Professor, Art and Design, Studio Arts Program

Janis Goodman is a DC based visual artist. She has been the arts reviewer for the Washington PBS affiliate WETA TV, Around Town television program since 2003. Her work is in numerous American and international public collections.
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Maren Henson

Professorial Lecturer, Painting & Drawing, Fine Arts

Professorial Lecturer, Painting & Drawing, Fine Arts.
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James Huckenpahler
James Huckenpahler

Professorial Lecturer & Instructional Lab Coordinator, Digital Studios, Studio Arts Program

James Huckenpahler is a Professorial Lecturer & Instructional Lab Coordinator for the Digital Studios, Studio Arts Program. James is an artist, educator, curator and lifelong Washingtonian. His laptop is his studio, and his practice firmly grounded in the digital realm.
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Kamille Jackson
Kamille Jackson

Program Administrator and Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Kamille is an interdisciplinary artist and professor from Alexandria, Virginia.

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Daniel Jonas
Daniel Jonas

3D Instructional Technologist in Wood and Metal

Daniel received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Maine and his Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Towson University. He has previous experience as a studio technician, teaching at the collegiate level, metal designer and fabricator, and most recently as an instructor and fabricator at the Woodworkers Club in Maryland.
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Dean Kessmann
Dean Kessmann

Program Head, Studio Arts Professor, Photography

Professor Kessmann's photographs–alternately made with scanners, cameras, camera-less darkroom processes, and most recently, screenshots from computer monitors–comment on image-making technologies and contemporary consumer culture. Professor Kessmann teaches at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
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Minah Kim
Minah Kim

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program.
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Richard Leiby

Professorial Lecturer, Fine Arts

Richard Leiby is a longtime editor and writer at The Washington Post. He has reported from various conflict zones, including Gaza, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Kerry McAleer-Keeler

Associate Professor, Art and Design, Studio Arts Program

Ms. McAleer-Keeler currently serves on the Steering Committee of the College Book Art Association, working to advance and promote academic book arts education by encouraging its development and practice. Her studio is part of the Liberty Town Arts Workshop in Fredericksburg, VA.
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Jim Mole

Professorial Lecturer, New Media Photojournalism, Studio Arts Program

Jim Mole, a painter and sculptor by training, is a versatile, deeply knowledgeable Internet strategist and usability advocate with more than twenty-five years of experience in advertising, marketing, web design and development. Read More  


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Maria del Carmen Montoya

Associate Professor Sculpture and Spatial Practices, Studio Arts Program; Graduate Advisor, M.F.A. in Fine Arts and Social Practice

Maria del Carmen Montoya operates in the contested ground between art and social activism. Her primary medium is the communal process of making meaning. As an artist, she seeks ways to catalyze this natural social phenomenon with situations that insist on the power of human-scale intervention in the presumed inevitability of everyday life.
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David Page

Professional Lecturer, Fine Arts, Studio Arts Program

David Page is an artist and educator who has exhibited in over 60 shows, including solo shows, biennials, and trade show expositions.
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Ada Pinkston
Ada Pinkston

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Ada Pinkston is a multimedia artist, educator, and cultural organizer living and working in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Ryan Rakhshan
Ryan Rakhshan

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Professorial Lecturer, Photography, Studio Arts Program.
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Astrid
Astrid Riecken

Professional Lecturer, Photojournalism, Studio Arts Program

Astrid Riecken is an award-wining documentary and fine-art photographer, based in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Riecken started her photographic career in her native Hamburg, Germany.
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Siobhan Rigg
Siobhan Rigg

Associate Professor, New Media Studio Arts Program

Siobhan Rigg is Associate Professor of Studio Arts and currently also serves as Program Head of Design. Rigg is a multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and writer whose creative and research interests center on social and environmental micro-histories.

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James Sham

Associate Professor, Fine Arts

James Sham is an inter-disciplinary artist whose research includes themes of translation, performance, social practice and innovation. Sham’s work involves multiple areas of focus from goldfish pigment extraction, to Artificial Intelligence, and even using eye-tracking technology to study Interpretation in deaf culture.

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photo of Susan Sterner
Susan Sterner

Associate Professor, Art and Design Director of Graduate Studies, New Media Photojournalism

Susan Sterner started her career as a photojournalist freelancing with national and international publications while based in New Orleans, La. She worked for the Associated Press as a staff photographer, based in Mississippi and California. With the AP she covered domestic issues such as immigration, child labor and families in poverty as well as U.S. border issues and social change in Haiti.
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Benjamin Tankersley

Professorial Lecturer, Photography & Photojournalism, Studio Arts Program

Benjamin C Tankersley is a fine art and commercial/editorial photographer who is a regular contributor to The Washington Post as well as additional local and national publications.

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Paloma Vianey
Paloma Vianey

Professorial Lecturer, Studio Arts Program

Kara Braciale is an artist and educator based in northern Virginia. Her work takes a variety of forms including paintings, digital works and textile objects alongside more conversational and social works such as the collaboratively run Proof Gallery, a project space in South Boston active from 2007-2018.
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Allyson Vieira

Assistant Professor, Fine Arts; Coordinator, Foundations

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.
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Jamille Wallick

Professorial Lecturer, Sculpture, Fine Arts Studio Arts Program

Jamille Wallick is a mixed-media artist from North Carolina with a background in photography/videography, sculpture, and dance.

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William Wheeler

Professorial Lecturer, Fine Arts, Studio Arts Program

Professorial Lecturer, Fine Art, Studio Arts Program.
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