The College of the Arts at Georgia State University welcomes and congratulates our new cohort of outstanding faculty whose work identifies them as expert scholars and practitioners in their respective fields.
Ashley Burke – Assistant Professor, Graphic Design
Ashley Burke is an artist, motion designer, and educator whose passion lies in working with new technologies and techniques while combining both digital and analog mediums to create new ways of telling stories. Over the past 20 years, she has collaborated on projects for a large range of multidisciplinary forms including broadcast, film, print, interactive, and live performance. Her clients include Google Brand Studio (2017 Brazil Olympics Campaign), Wieden+Kennedy, Turner Studios, Cartoon Network, Laika, Nike, Nintendo, and Adult Swim. Highlights include working on animated stage graphics for musician, Deadmau5, developing opening titles for the Batman Series, Pennyworth, lacing together stereoscopic 3D frames for the film, Coraline, and designing for the Simpsons FXX Network Branding Campaign. She’s also created art for Disney Theme parks, production design for HBO (Pretty Little Liars) as well as been a graphic artist/animator for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. Read more here.
Elys John – Assistant Professor, Interior Design
Elys John is currently an associate lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture; previously he was the course leader and senior lecturer for BA [Hons] Interior Design courses at Bath Spa University and the University of South Wales. Prior to that, for over eight years he was a tutor on one of the first Interior Architecture programmes in the UK at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. In 2013 he published CAD Fundamentals for Architects; he has also had a number of papers published on architectural computer-aided design. In 2023 he published A Studio Guide to Interior Design with Routledge and is currently working with them on Understanding Interior Architecture due for publication in 2025. Read more here.
Dawn Haynie – Visiting Lecturer, Interior Design
Dr. Dawn Haynie offers a distinctive, interdisciplinary approach to design. She has extensive experience as a researcher, practitioner, and educator across the disciplines of urban design, architecture, interiors, and graphic design. Her work combines research-based strategies with the lessons learned through her years of professional practice to enhance the spatial experience.
As the Research Fellow for the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), she is managing the internal and external research on the interior design industry. Read more here.
Jordan Putt – Visiting Lecturer, Photography
Jordan Putt is a photographer based in Atlanta, Georgia, whose work responds to issues of place, identity, and community. He earned a BA in Psychology from Northern Arizona University in 2014, and an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2020. His work has been exhibited in the Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson; Filter Space, Chicago; House of Lucie, Los Angeles; and Hyde Park Arts Center, Chicago; among others. He was a 2022 recipient of the Research and Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and a 2020 finalist for Duke University’s Dorothea Lange - Paul Taylor Award. Read more here.
Amber Toplisek – Visiting Lecturer, 3D
Toplisek is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. In her work, she thinks about the network of images that exist within herself, acting as an imperceptible alchemy that bond and bend her towards its will. By embedding once-immaterial images within tangible structures, her intention is to amplify their potential to coalesce into the viewer’s physical body. This phenomenological experience is further explored by various tactics of obfuscation between the viewer and the image. Toplisek’s work plays with different transparencies and employs both kinetic and still interventions in order to prolong an encounter with the photographic image. Read more here.
Matthew Andrews – Visiting Lecturer, Art Eduction
Rita Bradley – Visiting Lecturer, Art Eduction
Jessica Cartwright – Visiting Lecturer, Ceramics and 3D
Navid Darvishzadehm – Lecturer
Navid Darvishzadeh is a lecturer at the School of Film, Media & Theatre at Georgia State University. His research and teaching interest include Film Theory, Deleuze and Cinema, World Cinema, and Feminism and Queer Theory. His publications have appeared in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, Film-Philosophy, Visual Anthropology, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television. He is the associate editor of Film International. In his role as the managing editor of In Media Res, he co-edited several special issues focused on “The State of Film Theory,” “The Contemporary Streaming Style,” “Critique and the Moving Image,” and “Labor and the Moving Image.”
Alper Gobel – Lecturer, Film & Media Studies
Alper Gobel is a lecturer in the School of Film, Media & Theatre. His research interests include film theory, experimental cinemas, and visual culture studies.
David "Dos Dias" Bishop – Professor of Practice, Music Production and Audio Recording
David "Dos Dias" Bishop is acclaimed for his prowess as a producer, Grammy Award-winner, and multi-platinum recording and mixing engineer in the music industry. Bishop's journey into the realm of audio is fueled by an unwavering passion for music, and an innate curiosity for its technical intricacies.
Bishop attended Morehouse College and during that time his musical talents led him down the path of DJing, a transformative experience that broadened his horizons, and opened doors to a multitude of opportunities within the vibrant Metro-Atlanta music scene. As he spun records in premier venues, Bishop's talent caught the attention of industry luminaries, propelling him into the realm of recording and mixing engineering. Read more here.
Dr. Kellen King - Limited Term Lecturer, Percussion
Dr. Kellen King is currently an Artist Affiliate at Georgia State University and Reinhardt University. Prior to his appointment at GSU and RU, he was Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at Western Oregon University. Kellen has been published in Percussive Notes and has presented at OMEA in 2021 and 2022 in addition to performing at PASIC, TMEA, and MMC. He is currently a member of the Percussive Arts Society Music Technology Committee and has previously served as the Oregon PAS Chapter Secretary, winning the PAS Outstanding Chapter Award during his service. Kellen is an avid educator, researcher, and well-versed performer in classical and contemporary percussion, having spent most of career focusing on solo, chamber, and electroacoustic music. As an educator, Kellen has previously instructed at Western Oregon University, Mercer University, The University of Texas at Austin, Ithaca College, and Cornell University. Read more here.
Aaron Kruziki – Instructor, Saxophone, Jazz
At home on saxophones, clarinets, flutes, double reeds, and ethnic winds, Aaron Kruziki dedicates his life to music and community. As a recording artist, composer, and arranger, Aaron’s work may be heard on sound recording labels including RCA, Vulf Records, Sunnyside, Whirlwind, Red Piano, WPR, Armored Records, and his own Kruzmusic. A 2019 Juno Award winner (Jazz Album of the Year: Group), Aaron has appeared at jazz festivals in New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Luxembourg, Norway, and Tunisia. A resident of the city of Atlanta since 2019, Aaron spent the past two decades in San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Michigan. Read more here.
Alexis Lee – Instructor, Cello
Dr. Alexis Lee, a native of South Korea, came to the United States at age 11 and started playing the cello. She made her first stage performance three years later, participating in The World Cello Congress III, performing as a member of the Towson University Cello Ensemble at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall and in the 200 Massed Cello Ensemble, which took its performance at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, Maryland. She was an active member of the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra and York Symphony Orchestra and later appeared as a soloist in 2009 and 2013. Read more here.
Andrew Ryker – Lecturer, Voice
American baritone Andrew Ryker is an award-winning voice teacher, musician, and nationally recognized stage director. Recent voice and opera students perform on stages all over the country, from the Met to San Francisco Opera. Ryker has had nine award winners in Metropolitan Opera competitions, over 50 winners at NATS, and young artist placements at Santa Fe Opera, Sarasota, Merola, Des Moines Metro, Minnesota, Utah Festival, St. Louis, the Spoleto Festival, and more. Recent Musical Theatre alumni are on Broadway national tours (Anastasia, Come from Away, Hairspray), in off-Broadway shows (The Office, Friends, Stranger Sings), on cruise ships (Beetlejuice, Cats, Jersey Boys, Kinky Boots), at Disney (Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast, Frozen), and featured on several original cast albums. Read more here.
Clinton Smith – Opera Music Director, Vocal Coach
This season, Clinton Smith returns to Arizona Opera to conduct the world premiere of Frankenstein with performances in Phoenix and Tuscon. He will make his Indianapolis Opera debut conducting Charlie Parker’s Yardbird and will serve on the Atlanta Opera’s coaching and conducting staff.
Clinton Smith’s 2021/2022 season included a return to Dayton Opera to conduct L’elisir d’amore and Opera Las Vegas to conduct Strawberry Fields/Trouble In Tahiti. He covered Tosca and Attila at Sarasota Opera, and made his Opera Company of Middlebury conducting debut with Orphée aux Enfers. When home in Atlanta, he regularly coached The Atlanta Opera’s young artists. He spent his ninth summer on the music staff at Santa Fe Opera covering the world premiere of Corgliano/Adamo’s Lord of Cries. Read more here.
Jessica Stinson – Visiting Lecturer, Violin
Violinist Jessica Stinson, hailed as a “thrilling and spectacular” performer with “remarkably mature musicianship,” joined the faculty of Georgia State University in 2022 and was appointed Visting Lecturer of Violin in 2024. Jessica serves as Acting Assistant Principal Second Violin in the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and regularly performs with the Atlanta Symphony and Ballet Orchestras. Jessica recently made her debut at the legendary Apollo Theater in New York City with jazz composer and trumpeter Russell Gunn and his orchestra.
A passionate and active chamber musician, Jessica is a founding member of Mosaic Quartet, recipient of a Music Performance Trust Fund Grant for “Source Code: A Celebration of Black History through Chamber Music”. This initiative underscores their commitment to diversity and inclusion in classical music. She is a member of Ensemble ATL and the Magnolia String Quartet, featured across Metro Atlanta in the Candlelight Concerts series. Read more here.
Meghan Stoll – Limited Term Lecturer, Associate Director of Choirs
Meghan Stoll is Visiting Lecturer and Associate Director of Choirs at Georgia State University School of Music where she conducts Treble Chorus, Choral Union, and teaches conducting and choral literature. She also serves as Associate Conductor with the GRAMMY® Award-winning National Children’s Chorus.
Prior to her appointment at Georgia State University, Ms. Stoll served as guest conductor with the Richmond Symphony Chorus, Director of Choral Activities at the National Cathedral School and St. Alban’s School, Director of Choral Activities at St. Catherine’s Episcopal School in Richmond, Virginia, Director of Music at the University Church at Yale, and Conductor of the Yale Chamber Orchestra. She has also held Assistant Conductor positions with the Yale Camerata and Georgia State University Singers, along with teaching appointments in Aural Skills at the collegiate level. Read more here.
Daniel Tancredi – Instructor, Double Bass
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Daniel Tancredi is a hardworking and intuitive 25 year old double bassist. He was granted a full ride scholarship for his bachelors degree at the Royal College of Music in London, UK and graduated in 2020. He has played with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the English National Opera and under the baton of conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Rafael Payare, and Antonio Pappano. His former teachers include Felix Petit, Douglas Sommer, and Enno Senft. Along with these achievements Daniel has also performed in venues such as the Atlanta Symphony Hall/Woodruff Arts Center, Royal Festival Hall, BBC Maida Vale Studios, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Abbey Road Studios, Wigmore Hall, and the London Coliseum. He is now the principal of The Atlanta Opera and will begin his first season in August 2023. Read more here.