Noriko Yuasa
Chair, Professor, Director of Graphic Design
Karo Ahmadi
Assistant Professor, Graphic Design
Email: karo@webster.edu
Karo Ahmadi, born In Kurdistan, Iran, studied cinema in high school and moved on to
graphic design at the Technical College of Tehran, completing his BFA in Graphic Design
at the University of Applied Science and Technology in Sanandaj, Iran. After moving
to the United States, he earned an MFA in Graphic Design at Iowa State University,
and is currently a PhD student in Human-Computer Interaction, focusing on UI, Motion
and User Cognitive.
From graphic design to user experience design, his background reflects a unique combination
of expertise and creativity, with skills in UX, UI, Motion Graphics, Typography and
interactive design. He focuses on a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and research
on interaction design that utilizes motion graphics, UI/UX and interactive design.
He loves teaching students to understand design principles, the important roles that
user experience and technology play in shaping interactive designs, and how these
innovative designs can facilitate societies and communities.
Ahmadi’s research and academic creative work involved visual motion design at the
intersections of human-computer interaction. Creatively, he is interested in integrating
technological innovations and visual communication methods to create work artworks
in new, meaningful and emotionally impactful forms. The objective of his research
is to eventually demonstrate practices, approaches and tools for developing and modeling
the process of creative design, and curricula for teaching and investigating the integration
of technological innovations and design methods and their impact on the viewer and
audience perception and awareness. His practice-based research concentrates on creativity
as the basis of creation and tangible interaction design as the process of learning
and developing creative perspicuity into shared human experience. He utilizes an exploratory
process of investigation that integrates advanced technologies in graphic design with
haptic experience as media for communication and expression. His research has applied
quantitative and qualitative methods, including heuristics, usability studies, prototypes
and generative tools. It also touches human cognitive psychology, user experience,
narrative theory, social awareness and semiotics, and originated from professional
practices, including motion graphics, visual narrative, information design, poster
design and a lifetime spent observing outside the field of education. He believes
acceptance of major conference presentations to be one quality indicator of his research.
Robin Assner-Alvey
Professor, Photography and Time-Based Art
Robin Assner-Alvey is a professor of art in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Art at Webster University. She has been at Webster since 2003 and she teaches all levels of photography and video. Assner-Alvey loves experimenting with photography and pushing her students to investigate the limitless photographic possibilities. In 2017, she received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award and the William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Assner-Alvey is also a practicing artist working with photography, video and installation. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Connecticut (2000) and her Master of Fine Arts from the Ohio State University (2002). Her work examines corporality and asks viewers to consider the experience of living in their own skin. Assner-Alvey’s most recent solo exhibition was Embodied at the Bruce Gallery at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2019. Her art has been exhibited in various solo and group shows throughout the United States. You can see her work on Assner-Alvey's website.
Racheal Bruce
Visiting Assistant Professor in Illustration
HH/2nd floor
Email: rachealbruce61@webster.edu
Racheal Bruce is a St. Louis-born illustrator and educator. She earned her BFA in Illustration from Webster University and graduated in the first class of the MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture program at Washington University. Prior to her visiting assistant professor in Illustration position at Webster, she taught at Artscope and MADE Makerspace.
Her work has been featured in magazines internationally, with clients such as The Centre for International Governance Innovation, The Baffler, VinePair, Brasserie Dunham, Strange Horizons, The Polyester Dollhouse, Aislin Magazine, and Anthology Puzzles.
Bruce specializes in illustrating books, posters and optical animation toys, and researching and writing about the visual culture of 20th century films. Her project EXCORIO won a Cube Award from the 101st Annual Art Directors Club Awards and the Walt Reed Award for Excellence in Illustration and Writing. Her illustrations were included in the 65th Society of Illustrators Annual in New York and have featured in many galleries in St. Louis, receiving multiple Best in Show awards.
Her personal work explores illustration as an interactive performance art and she's curious how an audience grapples with their own feelings of superstition. Her illustrations imbue the sense that a fantastical unreality could exist in our physical world, with all of the whimsy and eeriness that comes with it.
Tate Foley
Associate Professor, Printmaking
Tate Foley is an associate professor of art in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. He teaches in the Printmaking and Foundations areas. He received his BA in Studio Art in 2007 from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and his MFA in Printmaking in 2010 from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
Possessing a broad and deep knowledge of disciplines coupled with a printmaking core, Professor Foley creates works using non-traditional materials that explore the space between the physical and spiritual self. His work has been recently exhibited in New York City, Washington D.C., Portland, St. Louis, Cleveland, and purchased by both Yale University and Reed College libraries, and the Toledo Museum of Art. You can see his work at his personal website.
Ryan E. Gregg, PhD
Associate Professor, Art History
Ryan Gregg received his PhD in Art History from Johns Hopkins University with a focus in early modern Italian art and has taught at Webster University since 2008. He teaches courses on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, as well as the Introduction to the History of Western Art. He regularly takes students to Florence for a short-term study abroad course on Florence in the Renaissance. Other courses he has taught at Webster include the History of Museums, History of Prints, and Symbols and Their Theory.
Professor Gregg's research interests include depictions of cities and fortifications from the 15th to the 17th centuries, the relationship between cartography and historiography in the Renaissance, and in general, discussions between art and science, style and meaning, and architecture and experience, in the early modern period. Other interests include historic American architecture and its preservation, and early modern prints.
His dissertation, which he is currently working on developing into a manuscript for publication, examines the city views within the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, painted by the workshop of Giorgio Vasari. The project has evolved into a study of Habsburg and Medici use of city views in the mid-16th century. Gregg is also currently working on an examination of the St. Louis Art Museum's Reclining Pan, including its attribution to Francesco da Sangallo, its interpretations, and its reception in the 17th century. Recent scholarship includes "Further Insights into Anton van den Wyngaerde's Working Method," published in Master Drawings in 2013, and "Vasari and German City Views," published in Prints Quarterly in 2010. In addition, Gregg regularly presents at national conferences, and in St. Louis has spoken at the St. Louis Art Museum, the Kemper Art Museum, and other various local organizations.
Carol Hodson
Professor/Therapist, Director of Expressive Arts Therapy Certificate
Carol Hodson is professor of Art in the Department of Art, Design and Art History at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. Additionally, she is the faculty advocate for mental health within the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Art. Hodson directs the Expressive Arts Therapy certificate, teaching key courses within the certificate as well as drawing and performance art. As a licensed mental health counselor (LMHC) with a specialization in expressive arts therapy and trauma training, Hodson also works confidentially with student clients within the Counseling and Life Development Office on the St. Louis Campus. Hodson holds a BFA in Painting and Education from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and MFA in Sculpture and Performance Art from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received her MA in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hodson’s most recent artwork is a series of drawings/prints entitled Neurobotanicals, created over during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. You can follow this series as it evolves on Instagram or Facebook. Hodson’s performance art work can be also be viewed on her WordPress site.
Jeffrey Hughes, PhD
Professor, Art History and Criticism; Director, Graduate Program; Gallery Director, Hunt Gallery
Jeffrey Hughes is professor of art history and criticism, as well as the director of the Cecille R. Hunt Gallery at Webster University in St. Louis where he teaches courses on modern art, contemporary art and art theory and criticism. He attended DePauw University and received the BA in Art History from Indiana State University and both the MA and PhD degrees in Art History from the University of Iowa.
Hughes is a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including Kress Foundation Fellowships for field research in India and to the Aga Khan program at Harvard, the Asian Cultural Council Grant, Webster University faculty research grants, and an N.E.H. grant for research on the American avant-garde during World War II. He has curated over 40 exhibitions at Hunt Gallery and at Wittgensteinhaus, Vienna, Austria and has been a quest lecturer at numerous galleries and institutions, including University of North Texas, Indiana University, University of Chicago and the Saint Louis Art Museum. Hughes’s articles and reviews have appeared in Flash Art, Contemporary, Sculpture, Artpapers, Art on Paper, New Art Examiner, Um:Druck Zeitschift für Durckgraphik und visuelle Kultur, etc. His recent research interests have been focused on the history of modern design.
Noah Kirby
Visiting Assistant Professor, Sculpture
Noah Kirby, originally from East Tennessee, received his BFA in Painting and Sculpture from the University of Tennessee and MFA in Sculpture from Washington University. Kirby's work ranges across a spectrum from public commissions in large scale outdoor sculpture to installation and performance. He often explores concerns about boundaries autonomy, individual freedom and social responsibility.
Kirby is an active sculptor who shows throughout North America at sculpture parks, university campuses and museums such as Jeske Sculpture Park, Fort Hays State University and the National Ornamental Metal Museum. He has been internationally featured at The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw Poland as a visiting artist and lecturer, at Alte Rathaus Rudolstadt, Germany and has been an artist in residence at the Finder Art Center in Nanjing China. He is an active member of several organizations, foundations and steering committees that host conferences and symposia on sculpture, public art and education. He is a board member of Alfresco productions, Western Cast Iron Art Alliance and has served on the steering committees for Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark Metal Arts Program as well as the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art.
Throughout his experience he has cultivated expertise, and perspective as a "maker and doer" (in his words) who believes "actions speak louder than words" (to quote Otis Redding). He has proven to be a dedicated artist, educator, producer of public sculpture and advocate for community arts initiatives. Kirby is excited about being at Webster University to work together with students and colleagues in the pursuit of excellence as global citizens.
Lindsay Pichaske
Visiting Assistant Professor in Ceramics
VAS/Room 6
Email: lindsaypichaske@webster.edu
Lindsay Pichaske is a visiting assistant professor of Ceramics in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts. She received a BFA from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and an MFA from the University of Colorado-Boulder. She previously taught ceramics at St. Louis Community College, Maryland Institute College of Art, and the College of Southern Maryland, and is excited to join the Department of Art, Design and Art History at Webster University.
Pichaske creates figurative ceramic sculptures that explore ideas of empathy, sentiency and materiality. She is represented by Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis and exhibits her work broadly; recent shows were held at Jane Hartsook Gallery in New York City, the Fuller Craft Museum, and the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. She was an artist in residence at the Craft Alliance and a long-term resident and Taunt Fellow at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts. In 2013, she received an Emerging Artist Award from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. To learn more about her work, visit Pichaske's website.
Jeri Au
Professor Emerita, Ceramics
Jeri Au was an associate professor of art in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts at Webster University, where she was head of ceramics, teaching all levels of the media.
Professor Au's mixed media installations combine clay with unexpected (and often organic) materials. For 15 years, Au ran a successful studio pottery in the St. Louis region. Originally from Hawaii, she has exhibited her work across the U.S., the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong. She received her BA in English from St. Louis University in 1969. She also studied at St. Louis Community College, University of Hawaii, and Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville.
Tom Lang
Professor Emeritus, Printmaking
Gary Passanise
Professor Emeritus, Painting
Gary Passanise was professor of art in the Leigh Gerdine College of Fine Arts at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he directed the painting program and taught all levels of painting and hybrid-media courses. He received his Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from Southern Illinois University.
His work explores the inherent qualities and the symbolic nature of surface and texture in painting and sculpture, using a rich variety of materials, including wax, charred lumber, limestone, steel and found objects. Passanise has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pollak Krasner Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. He has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad, and his recent solo shows include Constructions at Space B in New York City and Stacks at the Isolation Room/Gallery Kit in St. Louis.