Alumni Notes is Pratt alumni news highlights compiled from class notes submissions, newsletters, items shared by faculty and staff, and media mentions.
Submit your notes for Fall 2025 now—here are our submission guidelines:
Pratt alumni, we want to know what you’re up to, and so do your fellow graduates. Send your updates on work and life to classnotes@pratt.edu. Notes may be up to 75 words in length. Please include your full name, degree or program, and graduation year. Submissions will be edited for length, clarity, and style. Image submissions should be high resolution (300 dpi at 5 x 7 inches).
Group Highlights
Lisa Corinne Davis, BFA Fine Arts ’80; Alanna Fields, MFA Fine Arts ’20; Nancy Grossman, BFA Graphic Arts and Illustration ’62; Jamaal Peterman, MFA Fine Arts ’19; Hiba Schahbaz, MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’12; Monica Srivastava, MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’23; and Michelle Wen, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’18, were included in a major group show celebrating the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th anniversary, which was coorganized by Mickalene Thomas, BFA Fine Arts ’00. A press release for the exhibition—The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition—notes that all the work comes from “artists who have lived or maintained a studio in Brooklyn during the last five years.” Alumni showed their work alongside faculty members including Jazmine Catasús, Fay Ku, and Yaw Owusu, Chair of Fine Arts Jane South, and Professor Emerita Leslie Roberts. The show ran from October 4, 2024, to January 26, 2025. (Brooklyn Museum)
Henry Crawley, BFA Photography ’23; Brandon Foushée, BFA Photography ’21; alyssa kazew, BFA Communications Design (Illustration) ’12; Xi Li, BID ’17; Sadie Sanders, BFA Photography ’22; and Noor Shoresh, BFA Photography ’25 were featured in EXCITING PHOTOGRAPHY NOW!, a 480-page survey of current American photography, highlighting artists from MATTE Magazine’s first-ever open call in its decade-long history of supporting emerging artists. The magazine was coedited by MATTE Editions founder and Pratt faculty member Matthew Leifheit, adjunct associate professor of photography, to create what he defines as a magazine “about where American photography is today, and how these artists are building on the history of American photography.” (AnOther Magazine)
Rebecca Gillman Crimmins, MS City and Regional Planning ’15, and Elizabeth Crowley, MS City and Regional Planning ’08, were featured in City & State New York’s 2024 Trailblazers in Building and Real Estate. The media organization specializes in New York media coverage and writes that its annual list “features a range of stakeholders who are finding ways to create more space and make the city more affordable.” The honorees include faculty member Jerrod Delaine, visiting assistant professor of construction management, facilities management, and real estate. (City & State New York)
Highlight: George McNeil
George McNeil (1908–1995), fine arts alumnus and former faculty member, had his Disco Series paintings presented in a solo exhibition titled Discos and Dancers, which ran at the Chelsea, New York, gallery Picture Theory from March 15 to May 11, 2024. Early in his career, in 1936, McNeil became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group and was one of the few abstract artists whose work was selected for exhibition in the 1939 New York World’s Fair. He began painting his Disco Series in 1981 and continued the project up until his passing in 1995. The series, which took inspiration from the physical movements of Balanchine and Afro-Cuban dance and the sounds and sights of ’80s and ’90s pop culture, signaled a shift in McNeil’s practice with the introduction of what Picture Theory describes as “bold, colorful outlines to sharpen [figures’] distinction from their painterly surroundings.” (Picture Theory)
1940s
Barbara Golub, Certificate, Costume Design ’48, and Adele Yeiser, Certificate, Costume Design ’48, share that they are “still kicking” and have been friends since attending Pratt. Golub, who was a children’s dress designer, is currently working on her memoir.
1950s
John Morning, BFA Advertising Design ’55, Trustee Emeritus, shared two recent paintings, Toccata (2024) and Opus 1 (2024).
HIGHLIGHT: Donald Genaro and Arthur Shilstone
Donald Genaro, BID ’57, has his work highlighted in a new book, Bell Telephone System’s Preeminent Role in the Growth of Industrial Design, by Ralph O. Meyer and Russell A. Flinchum, published by Purdue University Press in May 2025. With trailblazing industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss’s firm, which designed Bell System’s phones, Genaro made numerous contributions detailed in the book—including the final design of the Trimline telephone, part of the Museum of Modern Art’s collection. Arthur Shilstone (1922–2020), Certificate, Illustration ’47, also had a connection with Bell System. In the 1960s, Shilstone designed a Christmas card for Western Electric Co., Bell Telephone System’s manufacturing arm. The illustration features a freight train bound for Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works, a telephone-manufacturing facility near Chicago that at the time was the largest in the world. (Read more.)
1960s
Cynthia Tilkin, BFA Fine Arts ’61, had an interior design and clothing business for nearly 40 years in Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington. Tilkin writes, “We loved our life of water, mountains, and memories of Pratt, Brooklyn, and New York! Pratt was why my career was so successful!”
Cynthia Mailman, BS Art Education ’64, had her solo exhibition of mixed media painting on paper, Origins of God, shown at Carter Burden Gallery in Manhattan from April 18 to May 15, 2024. The Rowan University Art Gallery and Museum in Glassboro, New Jersey, had previously shown the exhibition, from October 19 to December 20, 2023.
William T. Williams, BFA Fine Arts ’66, received the 2024 Murray Reich Distinguished Artist Award from The New York Foundation for the Arts, along with Shari Mendelson and Stephen Westfall. Williams’s gallery shared his remarks in a press release: “Receiving this prize is a generous acknowledgment of my lifelong commitment to being an artist; I wake every day with the desire to make art and it is my hope that my art speaks truths to others.” (Michael Rosenfeld Gallery)
Tom Leytham, BArch ’67, started a new career at age 72 as a watercolorist. His work has been shown at the Salmagundi Club, the Bennington Museum, and the Agora Gallery. Leytham has won prizes for his watercolors, which are in private collections. The Vermont Statehouse recently acquired his work for its permanent collection.
Marc Mannheimer, BID ’67, exhibited artwork at the EuropArtFair in Amsterdam, on view from September 6 to September 8, 2024. Mannheimer was also recently interviewed for Artistcloseup.
Fern Tiger, BFA Art Education ’67; MS Art Education ’68, had a new book, Creative Instigation: The Art & Strategy of Authentic Community Engagement, published in October 2024 by New Village Press. The book collects case stories of community engagement and policymaking in western US cities, highlighting “engagement that is authentic, outreach that is expansive, and research that uncovers the soul of a community.”
Tom Zetterstrom, a graduate fine arts alumnus who attended in the fall of 1967, received the Leslie J. Mehrhoff Award at the University of Connecticut last October. The award recognizes his efforts in advancing public awareness of trees through his photography series Portraits of Trees and his lectures and advocacy about invasive plants’ impact on forest sustainability. Additionally, the Farnsworth Museum acquired his photograph Maine Woods, and the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum recently showed his early street photography.
Joan Jacobus, BFA Graphic Arts ’68, received a master of arts in studio art from the Florence Academy of Art in 2023. Jacobus writes, “Having learned how to set type with a composing stick and California job case as well as making lithographs on stone at Pratt, I decided to learn a more practical skill: painting like a Renaissance artist in Florence. Michelangelo and da Vinci have nothing to fear.” She works as a book designer/director and an inner-city art teacher.
Everardo Jefferson, BID ’68, and his wife, Sara Caples—cofounders and principals of Caples Jefferson Architects—have been elected academicians by the National Academy of Design. Caples and Jefferson have joined 26 other electees recognized for their contributions to contemporary American art and architecture. They officially joined the Academy at an induction ceremony on October 22, 2024.
Harriet Millman Reed, BFA Graphic Arts ’68, is a volunteer educator at the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation in New York City. Chaim Gross was a modern American sculptor working in New York City from 1921 until his death in 1991. Reed writes that she hopes “all Pratt students, especially majors with an emphasis in sculpture, visit this hidden treasure.”
Catherine Murphy, BFA Art Education ’67, and Harry Roseman, BFA Graphic Arts ’68, are the subjects of a new film, Cathy & Harry. The film, directed by Marta Renzi and Daniel Wolff, was screened at The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York on November 2, 2024. A Q&A with the filmmakers and the subjects, moderated by poet and art critic John Yau, followed the screening. Additionally, Roseman’s film Grocery Shopping recently won Best Experimental Video at the online film festival WILDsound Festival TV.
Claire Jeanine Satin, MFA Fine Arts (Sculpture) ’68, held a solo exhibition, Art Typing: Typewriter Books by Claire Jeanine Satin, which ran from February 1 to April 17 at Main Library in Miami. Three of her books were acquired by a book collector and shown at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University: Alphabook: Cherokee, A Portfolio (1998/9), The Hebrew Alphabet Expressing the Celestial Constellations (2017), and Alphabet Cordenons paper book (2020). The library previously featured Satin’s books in the exhibition Alphabets Alive.
David Miles Ziskind, BArch ’68, was recognized with the 2024 Henry Hobson Richardson Award for his contributions to New York State public architecture. (AIA NYS)
Robert Stanley, BS Art Education ’69, writes of Prattfolio’s Looking at Us issue (Fall 2024): “[It] plunged me back in time. The faces and actions of the young artists were different from those of my day, but the same in spirit. Pratt was/is abuzz with the desire to make art and, yes, have it recognized. Now I’m in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and still making art.”
1970s
Lillian Benson, BFA Art Education ’70, received the 2025 Black Public Media Trailblazer Award at the PitchBLACK Awards on May 1, 2025. She writes that this award is given to African American filmmakers “in recognition of their remarkable, collaborative work on films that enlarge our understanding of race, class, and gender in America.” Benson is a film editor of documentaries and contemporary fiction.
Constance Smith, BFA Fine Arts ’71; MID ’73, writes, “GM is the only auto company with a female CEO.” In an effort to elevate the female forces driving the company, Smith interviewed senior executives of General Motors for Behind Every Great Woman, a video series on the company’s website. Created for Women’s History Month, the series is “a celebration of women at General Motors and their influence on the automotive industry.” The series is available to watch online at gm.com/stories.
George Ranalli, BArch ’72, was included in the Italian architectural and design journal The Plan, and published his firm’s Wellington Arts Complex Master Plan for a commission in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Howard Spielman, MFA Fine Arts ’74, has had varied careers over the last three decades. After serving for 28 years as an art educator, he began creating and producing award-winning TV shows, including the Showtime original series Dead Man’s Gun. At age 82, he works as a fine artist and is currently creating digital paintings. His art, as well as his memoir, A Good Day: Confessions of a Reformed Pessimist, can be found on his website, howardspielman.com.
Tucker Viemeister, BID ’74, has joined the digital design studio Multiplayer to develop its industrial design capabilities. The studio emphasizes collaboration and flexibility through both embedded and remote work approaches. It has worked in robotics and logistics, focusing on solutions that improve worker experiences while driving business results. Viemeister writes that Multiplayer’s work follows the principle that “form follows happiness” and that its motto, “Happiness is good business,” resonates with his design philosophy.
John A. Calabrese, MFA Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing) ’75, is a professor emeritus at Texas Woman’s University, where he taught art history, aesthetics, history of film noir, and the art of Alfred Hitchcock. He initiated the university’s study abroad program in art history in 1994. Calabrese continues to submit his drawings to national juried exhibits and galleries, and he has documented his drawings, exhibitions, and publications on his website, johncalabreseart.com.
Elaine Smollin, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’75; MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’81, exhibited six drawings in a group show, Variations in Monochrome. The show, which Patricia Everett curated at Available Potential Enterprises, Ltd. Gallery, in Northampton, Massachusetts, ran from November through December, 2024. In January 2025, Smollin held her annual show of life-size figure paintings, Dawn at Acheron, at her Rhode Island studio.
Stephen Fay, BFA Fine Arts ’76, was profiled for his toy-making practice and his bestselling model train designs available at the New York City Transit Museum. (Shelter Island Reporter)
Lynn Saville, MFA Photography ’76, held a solo exhibition of photography, Elevated, at Yancey Richardson from April 4 to May 18, 2024. In November, she won a Julia Margaret Cameron Award, for which she had her work featured in a show at Gallery Valid Foto in Barcelona. This year, she had an exhibition, Solitude in Cities, at the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Lafayette Gallery in Boston. The exhibition, with the photographer Jeff Larason, ran from December 30, 2024, to March 23, 2025.
Xenobia Bailey, BID ’77, had her first New York City solo show in more than two decades, Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk: The Second Coming, on view from May 15 to June 15, 2024, at Venus Over Manhattan. (Colossal)
Steven Bleicher, BFA Fine Arts ’77; MFA Fine Arts ’79, was hired as the color-expert witness by Lewis Roca and Womble Bond Dickinson in the case of CMT v. Apex regarding color and trademark infringement.
Phoebe Farris, PhD, MPS Art Therapy ’77, published a review in Cultural Survival Quarterly about painter and sculptor Jeffrey Gibson’s installation at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Gibson is the first Native American to represent the US at the Biennale. Farris also curated the exhibition Still Here: The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Powhatan-Renape Nations of Southern New Jersey at the Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University and exhibited four photographs as part of Indigenous Approaches, Sustainable Futures at the Stockton University Art Gallery.
Akel Ismail Kahera, BArch ’77, edited the book Strategic Rebuilding and Affordable Housing in the Muslim World, published by Rowman and Littlefield in February 2025.
Mariella Bisson, BFA Fine Arts (Drawing) ’78, will have a solo show at Momentum Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina, from July 2 to September 1, 2025. Bisson has won three years of support from the Pollock Krasner Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in painting. Bisson writes that she credits her strict training in drawing for her love for placing shapes into space.
Kathleen Edwards, BFA Communications Design ’78, published her second graphic novel, a memoir titled My Book of the Dead, which explores grief, spirituality, and the creative process.
Susan Wacker-Donle, BFA Communications Design ’78, was profiled on her perfume bottle designs in the new monograph American Legends: The Evolution of American Fragrances. The book covers her designs for Elizabeth Taylor Fragrances’ White Diamonds bottle in 1991 and Bond No. 9’s bottle in 2005.
Peggy Cyphers, MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’79, held a solo exhibition, Passages, at Front Room Gallery in Hudson, New York. Whitehot Magazine described Cypher’s work in the show as “vibrantly alive,” and Art Spiel described it as “a majestic and wondrous realm where weightlessness and kinetic energy co-inhabit the canvas.” Cyphers also received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Mary Rieser Heintjes, BFA Fine Arts ’79; MFA Fine Arts ’85, was invited to participate in an outdoor exhibition, Oh Sit, as a member of the arts group 14 Sculptors, Inc. The ongoing exhibition was organized by public art nonprofit Sculpture for Leonia in Leonia, New Jersey. Heintjes writes that her kinetic sculpture, Oh Sit, Still, was created in the metal shop at Pratt with the “invaluable guidance of Adam Apostolos,” sculpture technician, visiting instructor, and SCPS lecturer. A reception will be held in spring 2025.
1980s
Mary Christ, BCE ’80, was appointed secretary of the Musk Foundation, a nonprofit organization headed by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Her most recent endeavors with the company include helping the victims of Hurricane Helene.
Bernard Hallstein, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’80, is the design director of Carnegie Hall. He recently completed the building’s scrim installation as part of ongoing restoration efforts. Hallstein writes that this scrim, based on 19th-century architectural renderings, is the largest project he has worked on in his position. Carnegie Hall has used excess scrim material to create limited-edition tote bags for sale on their website.
Randi Shalit Wolf, MS Communications Design ’80, is a mosaic artist who created a custom mosaic kitchen backsplash with her family after moving to Fort Myers, Florida. Wolf writes that she “wanted it to reflect our new life here in paradise.” The artist has sold thousands of pieces, and 650 through her Etsy shop, Second Look Mosaics.
Frank Ippolito, BFA Communication Design ’81, showed a solo exhibition of mixed-media works, TransLucid, at Arthouse Productions Gallery in Jersey City from April 15 to April 30, 2023. Afterward, his illuminated photograph, Passage 739, was included in the 2024 NJ Arts Annual, Exploring our Connections, at the Montclair Art Museum. Ippolito’s multidisciplinary art practice began after retiring from his position as a senior artist at the American Museum of Natural History 10 years ago.
Barbara Wallace, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’81, held a solo exhibition of figurative sculptures of recycled materials, Barbara Wallace: Sculpture, at the Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, New Jersey. In January 2026, a solo exhibition of her work will open at the Alchemy of Art Gallery in Baltimore.
Robert Reynolds Condon, BArch ’82, self-published his book History of French Paneling in May 2024. The book is a chronological series of 42 interior design vignettes displaying the style changes of four centuries of French wood paneling from 1527 to 1889.
Peter Kuper, BFA Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing) ’82, won the 2024 Kennedy Award for editorial cartooning. His graphic novel, Insectopolis: A Natural History, explores insects and the people who have studied them. It was published by W. W. Norton in May 2025. A regular contributor to The Nation and The New Yorker, Kuper teaches cartooning at Harvard University.
Noel MacNeal, Theatre, class of 1983, debuted his cabaret show, Hey, This Was Really Fun, at 54 Below in Manhattan on March 24, 2025. MacNeal writes: “It’s based on my life and everything I’ve learned as a puppeteer, writer, director, producer, husband, father, son, and friend.”
Moses Ros-Suárez, BArch ’83, participated in the exhibition ¡Printing the Revolution!, on display at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s traveling exhibition.
Mark Lewis Wagner, BFA Communications Design ’83, released a graphic novel, Graffiti Wars: When Art Saved the World, in April 2023. He is the founder and creative director of the creative arts nonprofit Drawing on Earth.
Lynn D. Bobowick (1956–2020), MFA Fine Arts ’84, had her works acquired and catalogued as The Bobowick Collection.
Anthony Freda, BFA Communications Design ’84, has had his award-winning illustration work featured in Time, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Freda worked as a creative art director on national advertising campaigns for his company, Redline Inc., and has original work in the permanent collection of the National September 11th Museum and Memorial. He is a founding board member of the antiwar organization Occupy Peace and a permanent Fashion Institute of Technology faculty member.
Suzanne Revy, BFA Fine Arts (Photography) ’84, had a solo show at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts, on view from October 12, 2024, to January 26, 2025. Revy says the show, titled A Murmur in the Tree, was “a visual and spiritual contemplation on the landscapes in and around historic Concord, Massachusetts.” She published an accompanying monograph for the show featuring fragments of Henry David Thoreau’s writing and fold-out pages of her imagery.
Jay Sylvester, BFA Communication Design ’85, was featured in the November/December 2024 issue of New York Cottages & Gardens. The article covered the artist’s sculptural wall assemblages made from “foraged bittersweet, honeysuckle, and black elder vines.”
Deborah Lanino, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’86, had a solo show, Reimagining: Faith, Hope and Love, at Blackfriars Gallery, in Berkeley, California, on view from September 22 to December 12, 2024. Catholic Herald reviewed the show, writing that Lanino’s use of color adds “a different dimension of light reminiscent of Impressionist art to her canvases.” Lanino states that the show was partially inspired by her semester abroad in Florence as a junior at Pratt. Lanino’s art can be found online at deborahlanino.com.
Andrew Reach, BArch ’86, is included in an exhibition for the online platform The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna). The online exhibition, mowna x TS – Wild and Newfangled Techspressionism Exhibition, ran from October 3, 2024, to January 26, 2025. The artist describes his featured 3D animation, QUADRAMID, as uncovering “unexpected three-dimensional patterns, forms, and dynamics.”
Francis (Frank) Sheehan, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’86, was awarded his third fellowship at Jentel Artists’ Residency in Wyoming in fall 2024, parallel to a show featuring his abstracted sumi ink landscapes at SAGE Arts in Sheridan, Wyoming. The show, Conversations of the Thousand Acres, ran from October to November 2024. He will be teaching a master class in sumi ink painting at SAGE Arts in the summer.
Elaine Angelopoulos, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’87, culminated her extensive field study of urban renewal into a performance called Brooklyn Dreams, funded by Franklin Furnace in 2023. Select works were shown in an inaugural group exhibition, Home Is You, Right Now, curated by Hannah Studnick at the art gallery Ruby/Dakota in New York City in 2024. Angelopoulos’s work was included in Focus Group, a group exhibition that ran from September 2024 to January 2025 at Ronald Feldman Gallery.
Highlight: Johannes Knoops
Johannes Knoops, BArch ’87, culminated his research into the original location of the Aldine Press, a Renaissance-era print shop. The press—whose true first location has been in contention ever since a commemorative plaque was erroneously placed in Vienna in 1828—is credited with many foundational publishing achievements, including the invention of the Italic font, the creation of the first paperbacks, the codification of the semicolon, and the preservation of numerous Latin and Greek classics. Knoops, an architect and professor of interior design at Fashion Institute of Technology, began his research in 2016, writing that “[it] required skills beyond the humanities, such as mappings, architectural reconstructions, and digital walk-throughs.” His research culminated on June 5, 2024, when a new plaque and inscription were unveiled by Knoops, clarifying the shop’s authentic first location on the Calle del Pistor in Venice. This work has afforded him residencies at the Emily Harvey Foundation, the Cini Foundation, and the American Academy in Rome.
Randy Richards, BFA Communications Design ’87, is the leading creative force behind RRDG/Randy Richards Design Group. The company was featured in the 2024 Graphic Design USA Magazine 61st Annual “Who to Watch” issue. Previous iterations of the issue included designers such as Milton Glazer, Saul Bass, and Pratt alumnus George Lois. Marking the accomplishment, Richards writes, “My Pratt education has helped me succeed.”
Stefan Sagmeister, MS Communications Design ’88, was named a 2024 Society for Experiential Graphic Design Fellow. (Blooloop)
Peter Colquhoun, BFA Fine Arts ’89, showed his paintings at the Westbeth Gallery’s Visual Artists Winter Show 2024 from November 23 to December 28, 2024. He also exhibited work at a group exhibition, Unseen Vision, at Revolving Store, which opened on December 6, 2024. Tribeca Community on Display held a solo show of Colquhoun’s work in its window display on West Broadway.
1990s
Sook Jin Jo, MFA Fine Arts ’91, recently completed an outdoor installation, Color of Life – Full Bloom, in Gulupdo, an island off the coast of South Korea. While there, she also renovated the Catholic Secondary Station, the island’s only historical building.
Andrew E. Thompson, AIA, BArch ’91, was inaugurated as the 2025 President of the AIA New Jersey.
Andrew Davidson, BFA Film ’92, launched a casual fashion line featuring customizable shirts inspired by the iconic “I (Heart) NY” logo, where customers can instead select from over 676 letter combinations for the phrase’s final two initials. Davidson’s shirts are available online from a multilingual landing page, http://initials.love, in seven international markets, including Japan, the United Kingdom, the US, and most of Europe.
Peter Wachtel, MID ’92, received a Grow the Trades grant from the tool manufacturer DeWalt on September 20, 2024. Wachtel received the honor for his efforts to enhance Career Technical Education (CTE) in architecture, product innovation, and design.
Maya Kopytman, MFA Computer Graphics ’95, served as creative director and lead designer for the TRO Essex Music Group Anniversary Booklet, earning silver in the Graphis Design Awards 2025. Kopytman also led the design of the Robert Lehman Foundation’s new website and served as creative director and art director for Beautiful Biology, an immersive online resource with imagery sourced from bioscience research institutions. Kopytman writes that this online platform “aims to become a trusted resource for the scientific community and beyond.”
Jason Fulford, BFA Communications Design ’96, was included in a book and exhibition of photographs, 47 Fotos, by him and legendary Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari (1907–1988). The book, edited and designed by Fulford, was published by Corraini Edizioni. Fulford writes: “In Munari’s books, I found a kindred spirit who blurs the line between work and play. I wondered if it might be possible to talk with him now, in the medium where we met. [47 Fotos] is the result.”
Claire Lieberman, MFA Fine Arts (Sculpture and Printmaking) ’96, showed sculpture and cast paper pieces in a duo exhibition, Oleander, the sweetly scented killer, at Project: ARTspace from July to September 2024. In August, she debuted GUNPOPS, a popsicle-gun event on a sidewalk in New York City’s Lower East Side. Presented by 601Artspace, GUNPOPS also received support from the Puffin Foundation and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. Recently, Lieberman received a sculpture award from the Illinois Arts Council.
Jason Tranchida, BArch ’96; MFA Fine Arts ’97, and partner Matthew Lawrence premiered Scandalous Conduct: A Fairy Extravaganza in Newport, Rhode Island, this fall. The film is a three-channel musical documentary reconstructing the Newport Navy Sex Scandal of 1919. The Public’s Radio interviewed Tranchida about the film, and it was reviewed in Boston Art Review by Marcus Civin, assistant dean of the School of Art. Tranchida’s installation will be traveling throughout the US in 2025.
Colleen Ho, MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’97, showed her visual art at a solo exhibition, Interverse, at The Shirley Project Space—a Brooklyn-based gallery run by Sarah Shirley, MFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’01. Ho writes: “The show comprised two series of works on paper that featured a precise and immersive process of mark-making, tearing, scoring, and manipulating the paper surface with a thumbtack and razor. The subtle textural contrasts reveal wide-ranging abstract compositions alluding to patterns and forces in nature.”
Adele Rossetti Morosini, MFA Fine Arts (Painting); MS Theory, Criticism, and History of Art, Design, and Architecture ’97, documented the Brazilian Araucaria Forest as a Fulbright US Scholar. She documented the flora of the Araucaria Forest through photography, video, and botanical illustration. The first phase of her documentation was from October to November 2024, and the second was from April to May 2025. Morosini sent her information to the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, an agency of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment.
Sarah Vollmann, MPS Art Therapy ’97, coauthored the book Born Into Loss: Shadows of a Deceased Sibling and Family Journeys of Grief with Joann M. O’Leary. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers released the book in December 2024.
2000s
Jason Hoelscher, MFA (Painting) ’00, recently showed his paintings in two solo exhibitions: ArtCube at Lamasco Gallery and Surface Tension: Recent Picture Planes at Sleeth Gallery. His book, Art as Information Ecology: Artworks, Artworlds, and Complex Systems Aesthetics, was published as a hardcover, paperback, and ebook by Duke University Press in 2021 and as an audiobook by Redwood Studios/Audible in 2024. Georgia Southern University in Savannah has promoted Hoelscher to tenured full-time professor.
Shawn M. Capizzi, BFA Communications Design ’01, has crafted digital experiences in New York City for over a decade. As founder of UserOne.AI, Capizzi writes that he now provides flexible, on-demand UX, product design, and strategic marketing services. Capizzi also writes that his company “merges human-centered design expertise with AI innovation, delivering digital healthcare solutions and enterprise systems for CPG and FinTech clients.” His recent work includes developing AI-powered UX tools, voice-activated healthcare trackers, and platforms to empower diverse communities.
Kyle Browne, BFA Communications Design ’03, directed her first short film, Spirit Sensing: Anima of the Quarry. The film was based on an intuitive performance between Browne and musician Stan Strickland, filmed and performed when she was an artist-in-residence at the Manship Artists Residency in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Browne writes that her “belief in anima—that all nature has a spirit” influenced the film. It premiered at The Vienna Independent Film Festival in September 2024 and won nine national and international awards.
Gaby Heit, MS Communications Design ’03, opened Philadelphia’s Box Spring Gallery in June 2024. The gallery puts on curated exhibitions of contemporary art and design.
Laine Justice, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’03, recently exhibited her work in a group show at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Sonoma, California. The show, True North, is a biennial exhibition featuring North Bay artists.
HIGHLIGHT: Laura Kim
Laura Kim, BFA Fashion Design ’04, co-creative director of Oscar de la Renta and Monse, launched the home goods collection Laura Kim for Crate & Barrel in June 2024. The line features 100 pieces, including an oak dining table set, marble serving boards, earthenware ceramic planters, and fluted glasses. “Cooking is very similar to my job as a designer—I’m gathering raw materials that are right for the season. I’m writing and sketching what I’m going to create, and then I showcase,” Kim said in a Vogue story on the collection’s launch. (Vogue)
Bianca Alexis, BFA Photography ’05, was featured in the group exhibition Kinesics at 72 Warren Street in New York City. The show, which ran from December 10 to December 14, 2024, included work inspired by ideas on gestures and identity she first explored in her Pratt thesis. Alexis writes that her photography in the show celebrates “the power of hands . . . featuring intricate manicures in everyday yet symbolic moments.” The show can be viewed on Alexis’s website, biancaalexis.com.
Chrissy Angliker, BID ’06, had a solo show, Post Liminal, which ran from September 7 to October 19, 2024, at Massey Klein Gallery in New York City.
Jason Culler, BID ’06, a staff product designer for CNN mobile apps, helped develop a version of CNN’s “Magic Wall”—a large digital map of the US used on television to describe election results in real-time—for its mobile app. Culler writes that the app allows users to navigate the same real-time data they see on TV in an interactive, easy-to-use format.
Tracy Llewellyn, BID ’06, designed TikTok’s brand pop-up at the 2024 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France. The pop-up was inside The Carlton Hotel’s open-air central garden and welcomed guests and advertisers to learn about TikTok’s advertising platform while engaging interactive elements, meeting creators, and attending talks and live performances.
Matthew Ferraro, MArch ’07, was promoted to principal at Weiss/Manfredi.
Drew Seskunas, MArch ’08, completed a public sculpture, What Is the Opposite of a Black Hole?, with the NYC Parks Department. The sculpture, located adjacent to the New York Hall of Science in Corona, Queens, is a prismatic ring that features the names and stories of scientists from the borough. The artist says, “This sculpture celebrates the rich history of science in Queens by highlighting residents who worked to expand our understanding of the universe, casting light where before there was darkness.”
Alaina Claire Feldman, BA Critical and Visual Studies ’09, was appointed chief curator at the University of California, Irvine’s Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art.
David Nuñez, BFA Communication Design ’09, and Amelia Golini, BArch ’10, welcomed their son, Mateo Jorge, in October 2024.
2010s
Rodrigo Albir, MID ’10, was featured in Elle Decor’s November 2024 issue.
Cody Winchester, MArch ’10, gave a presentation titled Creating a Culture of Digital Literacy at Autodesk University in San Diego, California, on October 15, 2024.
Anthony Cudahy, BFA Communications Design ’11, had his first solo exhibition in the US, a museum survey at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. The show, Anthony Cudahy: Spinneret, ran from April 12 to July 21, 2024. (T Magazine)
Taezoo Park, MFA Digital Arts ’12, opened his exhibition Digital Being: Radio Row in Manhattan’s Financial District. (artist’s newsletter)
Maria de Los Angeles, BFA Fine Arts ’13, was appointed critic and interim director of graduate studies for the painting and printmaking program at Yale School of Art for the 2024–2025 academic year. She completed a mural at Harmon Guest House in Healdsburg, California, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art acquired the artist’s hand-stitched garment, Citizen Dress. Her work will be featured in a group exhibition at Sun Valley Museum of Art, opening late June 2025. Her Instagram handle is @delosangelesart.
Juan Sebastian Restrepo, BFA Fine Arts (Painting) ’13, had an exhibition of paintings and drawings at [NAME] Publications in Miami. The exhibition, which ran from October 12 to December 14, 2024, was made possible by the Teiger Foundation and The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation. Restrepo is an adjunct faculty member at Florida International University and Miami Dade College.
Rachel Jane Wittmann, MSLIS ’13, coauthored a new book The High-Impact Digital Library: Innovative Approaches for Outreach and Instruction, for ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library Association.
Bryan Yates, MS Interior Design ’13, launched a new studio for his firm, Yates Desygn, in Dallas’s Design District. (Paper City)
Karen Codd, MPS Art Therapy and Creative Development ’14, completed her doctorate of art therapy at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee in August 2024. Her research focused on using art therapy with resident physicians to prevent and mitigate burnout. She is also on the faculty of several medical residency programs and leads the employee and learner wellness program at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens.
Elena Conte, MS City and Regional Planning ’14, is the executive director of the environmental protection nonprofit Bronx River Alliance. Gothamist interviewed her about cleanup efforts following Con Edison’s oil spill in the Bronx River. (Gothamist)
Caroline Matthews, MS Communications Design ’14, is an assistant professor in Pratt’s Graduate Communications Design Department.
Kevin Kraft, MS City and Regional Planning ’14, was appointed director of urban planning and development for Portland, Maine. (Portland Press Herald)
Ana Karina Quiroz, MPS Arts and Cultural Management ’14, was recently named head of startup audience and content marketing at Amazon Web Services.
Photo by Ryan Jenq
Haley Kattner Allen, MFA Photography ’15, acted as producer for East Village Cookbook, designed by Champions Design. Compiled by chef and author Will Horowitz, the book includes over 200 recipes from chefs, artists, galleries, grandmas, and other friends of the East Village. The book was created to benefit Trinity’s Services and Food for the Homeless (SAFH, pronounced “safe”), on Ninth Street and Avenue B.
Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, MFA Communications Design ’15, unveiled two new installations last spring. Her work, Rest Is a Place for Wild Things, debuted at the South Street Seaport show The Golden Thread: A Fiber Art Exhibition in New York City, and the primitive sign of wanting was exhibited at New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 at the National Museum of Women Artists in Washington, DC. Phingbodhipakkiya is also a recipient of a 2024 New York City Artadia Award. (The New York Times)
Lea Patrice Fales, MFA Fine Arts ’16, published her debut as an author and illustrator of a children’s book, Oxette, with Pasture Pine Press.
Mallory Zondag, BFA Fashion Design ’16, was commissioned by the artist Amalia-Mesa Bains to create a moss rug for her installation Cihuateotl with Mirror in Private Landscapes and Public Territories. The Whitney Museum of American Art currently features Bains’s artwork in the group show Shifting Landscapes, which runs from November 2024 to January 2026. The museum also acquired the piece for its permanent collection.
Megan Basaldua, BFA Digital Arts (2D Animation) ’17, launched an after-school program with the education organization New York Edge, in her role as codirector of New York Edge Animation Studios, teaching stop-motion animation to New York City students between kindergarten and eighth grade. Basaldua writes: “As an animation major, I saw the essential skills of teamwork, and perseverance to be gained by kids as they try this medium!”
Xiaoyi Chen, MS Communications Design ’17, founded the light-art festival brand LuminoCity, which transforms urban spaces through large-scale light installations. Collaborating with parks, commercial properties, museums, and artists, the brand engages audiences with millions of LED lights. With annual events across the US, the brand “creates unique experiences that inspire wonder and foster community engagement,” Chen writes.
Shikha Subramaniam, MFA Communications Design ’17, writes that a Pratt professor inspired her to work as a UX designer. In 2020, she joined The Washington Post’s innovation lab, The Lede Lab, which eventually merged with the newsroom’s design and graphics team. With that team, Subramaniam worked on the story “Terror on Repeat,” part of a more extensive investigative series on AR-15 violence in America.” Last year, The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for the series and that story.
Jeremy Martin, MPS Art Therapy ’18, had three sculptures featured in The New York Times, in a story on the new hybrid gallery Studio S II (cofounded by Jeremy Silberberg, MFA Interior Design ’19). Martin exhibited sculptures at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center (The Center) in New York City in May 2024 in a multidisciplinary collaboration called Dancing to the Music of You as part of InfraSound’s 2023–2024 season.
Xuechen Chen, BArch ’19, recently received an Architizer A+Award for her conceptual architectural project, The Museum of Uncertainty. The project has also received prizes from the London Design Awards and the International Design Awards, among others. Additionally, Chen received a Silver A′ Idea Design Award for her design, The Folding Boat.
2020s
Safiye Senturk, MA Art History; MSLIS ’20, produced and acted as a production designer on her first feature film, Fantasy A Gets a Mattress. The dark comedy follows a rapper with autism, Fantasy A—playing himself—after his group home for disabled adults kicks him out. The film has won six awards along the festival circuit at the time of this writing, sold out indie cinemas in the UK and the USA, and Sir Mix-a-Lot has deemed it “Funny A.F.”
Nicole Marconi, MSLIS ’21, writes that she has “had many changes this past year!” In July 2023, she started a new position as the central collections project manager at the Brooklyn Public Library. Marconi is handling the Central Library’s adult collections. Marconi also got engaged on October 27, 2024, when her boyfriend of over two years proposed at The Strand bookstore. Marconi writes that it was “a dream literary proposal!”
Brandon Foushée, BFA Photography ’21, had a solo exhibition, Y’all don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance, at Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, on view from September 11 to October 30, 2024. (Photography Department newsletter)
Hoda Ramy, MFA Digital Arts ’21, was recently featured in Canvas Rebel Magazine, where she spoke about her journey as an artist, filmmaker, and educator. Ramy writes that she “wanted to share this milestone with the Pratt community, as it’s a testament to the incredible foundation the Institute provides its students.”
Olivia Gorman, MID ’22, currently works with the Harleysville, Pennsylvania-based design firm Olive and Melon Design. Gorman joined in 2022 and has applied her background in carpentry to resolve clients’ design challenges in-house. Olive and Melon Design’s founder, Mel McDaniel, writes that she is “so grateful Olivia came along to partner with me on this journey. My whole world has improved with the daily infusion of her creative spirit.”
Mariame Kaba, MSLIS ’22, has a new children’s book, Prisons Must Fall, from Haymarket Books. The book, coauthored with Jane Ball and illustrated by Olly Costello, was released in April 2025.
Rob Redding, MFA Fine Arts (Painting and Drawing) ’22, held a solo art exhibition, Black & White, at the Morningside Heights Library in New York City in September 2024. The artist presented Dirty Little Drawings, a collection of 10 images, at the Soho Project Space in New York in June 2024. He also published a book, Ritual, described as an “investigation into the complex relationship between organized religion and societal norms” in a profile of the artist in Consciousness Magazine.
Jae Young Kim, MFA Communications Design ’23, was awarded first place in the 2024 PRINT Awards Handlettering and Type Design category and Data Visualization and Information Design category for his thesis projects Street Gum Dots Marching Symphony and Up In The Air Gonggi Typography. (PRINT)
Isik Erturk, MS Information Experience Design ’23, is part of the design team at New Jersey-based snackfood company Cibo Vita. In her role as user experience designer, Erturk recently spearheaded a website initiative for the company’s flagship brand Nature’s Garden, inspired by the playful, colorful packaging design for its newly launched product, FruiChias. She reconceived the Cibo Vita visual identity and raised brand assets and awareness through the brand-consistent website redesign.
Yihang (Edward) Xu, BID ’25, received a Red Dot Award for his design concept AirFarm, a sustainable travel trailer. (RedDot)
Submission guidelines:
Pratt alumni, we want to know what you’re up to, and so do your fellow graduates. Send your updates on work and life to classnotes@pratt.edu. Notes may be up to 75 words in length. Please include your full name, degree or program, and graduation year. Submissions will be edited for length, clarity, and style. Image submissions should be high resolution (300 dpi at 5 x 7 inches).