The College of the Arts at Georgia State has begun a new semester of classes and is excited to welcome new more than twenty faculty members into the fold. Building a world-class team of practicing professionals who regularly perform, exhibit and present their research at home and abroad helps our students develop their own craft and provides them with an understanding of the competitive and contemporary realities of the arts professions.

Rachel Ballard – Limited-Term Lecturer

Rachel Ballard, a new sculpture limited-term lecturer, is an Atlanta-based artist, who works predominately in clay. She earned an M.F.A. from Georgia State University in 2017 and recently served as the project coordinator of the Chastain Arts Center. She has recently been accepted into BURNAWAY’s Art Writers Mentorship Program, where she will refine her writing on contemporary craft, theory and criticism.

Paul Boshears – Limited-Term Lecturer

Dr. Paul Boshears is a new limited-term lecturer of art history. He is co-editor of the media-agnostic journal, continent. and serves on several journals including Deleuze Studies (Edinburgh University Press), Itineration (Clemson University, punctum books) and Evental Aesthetics (independent). Dr. Boshears earned his Ph.D. from the Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought division of the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Dr. Boshears specializes in East-West comparative philosophy with an emphasis on ancient China, Aesthetics, and the art historical development of philosophies of technology.

Matthew Culler – Limited-Term Lecturer

Matthew Culler is a new limited-term lecturer in art history teaching Early Modern/Renaissance European art. His research focuses on early Modern art literature and critical language with other interests in cartography and the intersections between art and science.

Larkin Ford – Limited-Term Lecturer

Larkin Ford is a limited-term lecturer of drawing and painting. He earned his B.F.A. from UNC Asheville and M.F.A from Georgia State in 2017. His thesis exhibition, Discount Meat, at Atlanta’s Gallery 72, was followed by a two-person show at Kibbee Gallery. Ford’s work has been included in The Oxford American magazine’s New Superstars of Southern Art and awarded “Best in Show” by juror Radcliffe Bailey in a 2016 Georgia State exhibition.

Joshua Greer – Limited-Term Lecturer

Joshua Dudley Greer, a new lecturer of photography, received a B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an M.F.A. from the University of Georgia. His photographs have appeared in publications such as The California Sunday Magazine, The Georgia Review, Oxford American, The Photo Review, Smithsonian Magazine and Le Monde.

Jennifer Hamrock – Lecturer

Dr. Jennifer Hamrock is as an art education lecturer with a B.A. in art and art education from James Madison University, an M.A. in education with a concentration in art education from East Carolina University and a Ph.D. in art education from Florida State University. Before pursuing her doctorate, Jennifer taught high school art and regular elementary education on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and earned her National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification. 

Ben Lee – Limited-Term Lecturer

Ben Bowden Lee is an Atlanta-based artist working primarily with photography whose work explores a wide range of media including text, installation, found imagery and found objects. Ben earned his B.F.A. in studio art from Columbus State University in 2013 and his M.F.A. in photography from Georgia State University in 2017. He served as the artist-in-residence at the Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC and joins the faculty as a limited-term lecturer in photography. 

Ryan Rasmussen – Assistant Professor

Ryan Rasmussen, a new assistant professor of sculpture, is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work spans practices in sculpture, installation, interactive objects, video, digital fabrication, teaching, and things that have mass or do not. From the University of Iowa, Ryan received his M.F.A. in dimensional practice as well as an M.A. in sculpture with a minor in printmaking. He received his B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He has previously taught at Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar and Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. 

Catherine Trugman – Lecturer

Catherine Trugman joins the faculty as a new lecturer of interior design. A licensed interior designer focused on sustainability, Catherine received her M.F.A. in interior design from Georgia State University and a B.F.A. in art/interior design from the University of Georgia. Her current project focuses on Fourth Place (human interaction in a non-tangible community) and how our built environment promotes, controls or inhibits access to this space. 

Diana Anselmo – Assistant Professor

Dr. Diana Anselmo received her Ph.D. from the University of California-Irvine in 2014, and she has done postdocs at the University of Pittsburgh and the Centre for History and Philosophy of Science in Portugal. Her work has appeared in Cinema Journal, Screen, and Camera Obscura, as well as in a range of other prominent anthologies. She is well connected in the world of historical media archival research, and she will teach a media historiography seminar in the fall. 

Susan-Sojourna Collier –  Lecturer

Susan-Sojourna Collier, a former Georgia State student, received her M.F.A. in screenwriting from Spalding University and returns to Georgia State as a lecturer in screenwriting. She had a distinguished career as a writer for daytime serial drama (All My Children, One Life To Live, and Port Charles), and she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series Writing for her work on All My Children. She has written fictional telefilms and done documentary screenwriting, and those projects have received festival screenings. 

Angelica Lawrence – Limited-Term Faculty

Angelica Lawrence is a skilled actress, professional dancer, choreographer, print model, writer and entrepreneur and a new member of the theatre faculty. Lawrence graduated from Western Michigan University with her bachelor’s degree and completed her M.F.A. at East 15 Acting School in London, United Kingdom. She currently teaches many styles of theatre in the U.S. and travels through her artist development company F.A.T.E. 

Mary Emily O’Bradovich – Academic Professional

Mary Emily O’Bradovich is an actor with People Store in Atlanta and a new academic professional teaching acting and movement. O’Bradovich is trained in the movement techniques of Jerzy Grotowski, Alexander Technique and Laban/Bartenieff, as well as Motion Capture Performance including animal transformation work. She is a member of the National Association of Movement Educators and is the former associate professor and chair of the theatre department at Piedmont College. 

Susan Reid – Professor of Practice

Susan Reid received her M.F.A. in directing from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and she joins the faculty as a professor of practice in theatre. Ms. Reid was the artistic and education director at Atlanta’s Aurora Theatre and Marietta’s Theatre in the Square. Subsequently, she was vice president of the TV/Film division of Atlanta Models and Talent, a leading source of actors for Georgia’s burgeoning film and television industry. 

Sherry Shephard-Massat – Limited-Term Lecturer

Sherry Shephard-Massat attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts as a dramatic writing major (1983) and interned at London’s Royal Court Theatre (1991). Shephard-Massat is a prolific playwright, and her plays have been produced in theatres across the United States including The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She teaches theatre as a new faculty member this fall.

Alexander Freund – Assistant Professor

Alexander Freund joins the faculty as an assistant professor of trumpet. Born in Germany, Freund studied at the University of Arts in Berlin and at the University Saar in Saarbrücken. In 2016, Freund began his doctorate at the Schulich School of Music at the McGill University in Montreal and was previously a professor at the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia from 2005 to 2016. 

Anita Kumar – Lecturer

Anita Kumar, a new lecturer in music education, comes from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she is a candidate for the Ph.D. in music education and a senior member of the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Culture and Learning. Kumar also served as editorial assistant to the Journal of Research in Music Education from 2015-2017.  Kumar earned her master of music education degree from Arizona State University and bachelor of music in music education from Miami University (Ohio.) 

Marc LeMay – Lecturer

Dr. Marc LeMay is an incoming lecturer of music theory and composition. Dr. LeMay holds a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in composition from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in music from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with concentrations in guitar performance and music technology. LeMay recently wrote for the CHAI Collaborative Ensemble (What I Did For Love), Variant Six (INNERVISIONS of a Trebled Soul in a Troubled America), The Colonials (Quintet), as well as the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and American Opera Projects Composers & the Voice program. 

Devin Reid – Assistant Director of Bands

Devin Reid was named assistant director of bands after serving as the interim assistant director of bands for two years. In this capacity, Reid will continue to co-teach the Panther Marching Band, conduct the Basketball Band, conduct the University Concert Band, teach undergraduate- and graduate-level conducting courses and supervise student teachers in the field. He holds a master of music in wind band conducting from Georgia State University and a bachelor of music in music education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 

David Sanchez – Artist in Residence

GRAMMY® award-winner David Sánchez joins the faculty as the newest artist-in-residence for the jazz studies program and is recognized around the world as one of the finest saxophonists of his generation. Sánchez possesses deep-seated knowledge of both Jazz and Latin music and the traditions that mold them. Most recently, he finalized his upcoming and much-anticipated recording, “Carib” (2018) featuring original compositions inspired by melodies and rhythms coming from the Afro-Puerto Rican and Haitian tradition. In 2017, Sánchez helped form a new program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the RJAM (Roots, Jazz, and American Music). 

Jennifer Sengin – Associate Director of Choirs

Dr. Jennifer Sengin joins as the associate director of choirs where she conducts the Choral Union and teaches conducting, choral literature and choral methods. Dr. Sengin recently completed her D.M.A. in choral conducting at Michigan State University where she also directed the Women’s Glee Club. Dr. Sengin holds degrees from the College of New Jersey (B.M.), Ithaca College (M.M.) and Michigan State University (D.M.A.). 

Alhadji Thrash – Professor of Practice

A native of Atlanta, Alhadji Thrash is a professor of practice with over 20 years of experience working in the music and entertainment business. Thrash started his career as a college marketing representative with BMG Distribution, and later landed a full-time position handling sales and marketing for some of BMG’s biggest artists including Outkast, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Dave Matthews Band and Usher. In 2008, Mr. Thrash joined Thirty Tigers, one of the premiere music distribution companies in the industry. Mr. Thrash holds an M.B.A. from Clark Atlanta University and a B.A. in business administration from Morehouse College.