Five academics and artists join the Stamps faculty

Rebecca Strzelec joins the Stamps faculty as the Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Professor. Previously, Strzelec served on the faculty at Penn State Altoona for 21 years with the title of Distinguished Professor of Visual Arts. She earned her BFA and MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Metals/Jewelry/CAD-CAM. Her often narrative work consists of wearable objects that are created via 3D modeling, 3D printing, LASER cutting, sewing, and other methods. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, Fuller Craft Museum, Racine Art Museum, and the private collection of Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Strzelec’s work has been featured in exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. Strzelec is a Penn State Alumni Teaching Fellow and the 2016 – 2017 Penn State Laureate. Strzelec served as Chair of the SIGGRAPH 2012 conference, an annual event that brought over 21,000 people connected to computer graphics and interactive techniques to Los Angeles.

Dylan AT Miner joins the Stamps faculty as a Senior Associate Dean for Research and Creative Practice and Professor after spending much of his professional career at Michigan State University in various roles. Dylan recently served on the faculty at MSU’s Residential College for 16 years. In addition, Dylan was Dean of MSU’s Residential College in the Arts & Humanities. From 2015 – 2022 he served as Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at MSU. Dylan is a founding member of the socially engaged artist collective Justseeds. As an artist, he has hung more than two dozen solo art exhibitions and participated in more than 115 group exhibitions. His writing has also been published and distributed by Duke University Press, Yale University Press, Oxford University Press, University of Arizona Press, University of Toronto Press, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Blackwell, among many others. His most recent article is ​“Rivers of Resistance,” published in Canadian Geographic (September/​October 2022).” Dylan has a BA in Studio Art and Spanish from Western Michigan University, an MA in Latin American Studies, and a PhD in Art History from the University of New Mexico.

Nicole Marroquin is both an alum and now a Professor at the Stamps School. Nicole comes to Stamps after serving on the faculty of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for 15 years, most recently as Professor and Chair of SAIC’s Department of Art Education. Nicole states, ​“My creative practice is research-based, decolonial, and social, and has led me to explore belonging and spatial justice through pedagogic projects with youth and to work in collaboration with communities. Through public presentations, studio art, creative research, oral histories and teaching, I seek to lift up micro-historical narratives of youth, women, and queer folks, with the mighty goal of shifting our collective public memory.” In 2022, Nicole co-curated an exhibition of Chicana/​Mexicana feminist photographer Diana Solis at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. Likewise, in 2022, Nicole received a United States Artist Fellowship Award. Nicole has a BFA in Art Education from Eastern Michigan University and an MFA in Art from the University of Michigan. 

Quinn Alexandria Hunter is a new Assistant Professor at Stamps. Quinn recently served as an instructor at Wayne State University and at the College of Creative Studies. Quinn states, ​“I am an interdisciplinary artist who examines the way erased or forgotten histories and cultural memory impact the way the world sees, digests, and ultimately, consumes Black female bodies and the spaces around them, through object making and performance.” Quinn is a 2023 awardee of the Gilda Award in Visual Arts from the Kresge Foundation. Quinn has a BFA in New Media and Design from the University of North Carolina, a Post Baccalaureate certificate in Ceramics from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an MFA in Sculpture and Expanded Practice from Ohio University.

Pedram Baldari joins the faculty as an Assistant Professor. Pedram comes to Stamps after serving as an Assistant Professor of Studio Art in the College of Visual Art and Design at the University of North Texas. Pedram states, ​“My research is focused on how to implement modes of art practice by weaving a net of solidarity, intersectionality, and interdisciplinary perspective to think about something local through a global lens. I believe the students can benefit from these highly community-engaged practices by involving them in the development of my projects. As an artist and scholar who also worked for years as an architect and designer, I am very familiar with digital modes of art production: CNC, Laser Cutter, and 3D printers, their supporting software, and their importance in the current curricula in Art and Design.” Pedram has a BA in Architecture from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran and an MFA in Studio Art from Texas Tech University.