At Edinboro University, small class sizes and an internationally recognized instructional faculty—90 percent of whom hold terminal degrees in their field of study—offer students the personalized, high-quality education they need to succeed.
NameDepartment / OfficeContact
Suzanne Proulx, MFA Chairperson and Associate Professor
Professor Sue Amendolara was born in Youngstown, Ohio. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Jewelry Design/Metalsmithing from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana in 1988 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio in 1985. She has been teaching Jewelry Design/Metalsmithing at Edinboro University since 1991 and served as president of the Society of North American Goldsmiths from 2011-2014.
Her metalwork has been exhibited regionally and nationally in galleries and museums including the American Craft Museum, New York, NY, The National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, TN and the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA. Her work has been included in international exhibitions in Germany, Switzerland and Japan. Publications of her work include American Craft, Metalsmith, Ornament and Lapidary Journal. She has been the recipient of three Individual Fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (1994, 1999, and 2003) and a Mid-Atlantic/NEA Regional Fellowship (1995). Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, the Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, Ohio, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. and the White House Collection of American Crafts, Washington D.C.
Professor Lisa Austin arrived at EU in 1996 and established a student-networking event (ALOHA) and a Visiting Artist Program. She has advised several organizations including Student Art League and Sculpture, Fiber and Extended Media. Professor Austin organized more than 100 EU events including visiting artists and critics, workshops, screenings and field trips. In 2010, she initiated SculptureX, a networking group and annual symposia with the Erie Art Museum, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and Cleveland’s The Sculpture Center. In response to announced demolition plans for the historic campus Boiler House, Professor Austin organized and funded an architectural reuse plan.
After exhibiting installations in NYC, Washington DC, Baltimore, Richmond and Pittsburgh, she began collaborating with architects on public art proposals in 2003. The following year, Austin co-founded the CIVITAS social-sculpture collaborative which has established community groups including Preservation Erie (2007), Innovation Erie (2008), and All Aboard Erie (2009). PE is a 501.c3 educating the public about the need for protective legislation for historic structures that encourages viable reuse options. IE is an economic development group that hosts an annual product design competition at the Erie Art Museum. AAE is a 501.c3 that works to improve bus and rail options in Erie County.
Due to her visibility as an advocate for urban design, Austin was appointed to Erie’s Zoning Hearing Board (2007-2014). Austin maintains a weekly office hour in Erie’s Masonic Temple Building where she meets with community leaders and drafts Considering the City, a monthly column for the Erie Reader.
Professor Shelle Barron brings an extensive professional background to her teaching practice of over 20 years. As the first art director of Public Broadcasting of Northwest Pennsylvania, she was involved in a number of national projects for PBS including “Free to Choose and Life on Earth.” Her editorial work won honors from the National Broadcast Designers Association and PBS.
Professor Barron completed advanced studies in typology through the Visual Studies Workshop (SUNY). She maintains a design practice specializing in books, monographs and catalogues for clients including the Chicago Historical Society, the University of Pittsburgh Press and the Erie Art Museum. Her recent work has appeared in journals including “Print and Designer,” and has won gold awards in competitions sponsored by the University and College Designers Association and the American Advertising Federation.
A self-defined hybrid, Professor Barron also creates large-scale mixed media digital collage. She has won more than 20 regional and national awards for this work as well as grants from the “National Endowment for the Arts” (Mid-Atlantic) and the “Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.” She has completed residencies at Brandywine Printmaking Workshop in Philadelphia and Artists Image Resource in Pittsburgh. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections. A member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, her work was selected for a juror’s cash award at the 100th annual exhibition at the Carnegie Museum.
John Bavaro, who teaches in the Drawing, Painting and Illustration areas, holds a degree in Painting from the University of Cincinnati and a BFA in English from Miami University. He designed a course in Digital Drawing and Painting while maintaining expertise in the field of digital art. Professor Bavaro has shown nationally and internationally and been published in a number of books and magazines, mostly focusing on art involving the iPad and the iPhone. An early adopter of the technology, he's also been featured in digital exhibitions in the American University of Dubai and Hamburg, Germany
Currently his work develops renditions of early humans using Zbrush and Photoshop. His illustrations have appeared in BBC news, The Guardian, Nautilus Magazine and other publications, including textbooks. He is represented by Science Sources and Science Photos Library.
Additionally, he created the University’s Graphic Novel Art and Design course as part of the Illustration curriculum, where he teaches both digital and traditional processes to develop the graphic novel. Bavaro believes strongly that students who are going into digital art and design first need a foundation in drawing and painting. “That is the power of our program,” he said.
Originally from Neenah, Wis., Cappy Counard earned her BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. After spending time living and traveling abroad, she went on to earn her MFA degree from the University of Illinois Carbondale in 1999. She currently resides in Edinboro, where she has been a professor of Jewelry and Metalsmithing at Edinboro University since 1999.
Cappy Counard creates jewelry and vessels that honor detail and interconnection. She has exhibited and lectured about her work and research throughout the United States. Her pieces have been featured in many books including, Narrative Jewelry: tales from the toolbox, Behind the Brooch, Art Jewelry Today 3, 21st Century Jewelry: The Best of the 500 Series and The Metalsmith Book of Boxes and Lockets.
Cappy Counard has welcomed the opportunity to demonstrate and teach workshops in universities across the country as well as at Penland School of Crafts, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Peter’s Valley School of Craft and Touchstone Center for Crafts. Teaching is as integral to her practice as making. The act of building community and sharing knowledge contributes greatly to the evolution of her work.
Professor Diane Crandall earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Graphics from Edinboro University in 1981 where she received the Communications Graphics outstanding student award. She also studied Graphic Design at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1985. She was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from Kent State University in 1993.
Her work is published in the book “A Century of Innovative Book Design: Influences of Art, Design, Theory and Technology on Book Design for Mass Market.” She has also had her works published in Print Magazine, Web Designer, and HOW Magazine. Her work has been exhibited at the headquarters of the American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA) in New York City and included in the Collection of Artists Books at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
During her career, Professor Crandall worked for a series of firms based in Erie beginning as a graphics designer for Silk Screen Unlimited, followed by assistant art director at Gwynn Advertising, graphic designer at GraphicWorks, and art director at Jack O’Brien Advertising. In 1986 she joined Edinboro University as a temporary instructor, and became a full-time member of the faculty in 1989 where she teaches today in the field of Graphic & Interactive Design at the rank of full professor.
Brigette Davitt is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Edinboro University. She has also taught the Graphic Design Summer Art Workshop at Temple University Japan (Tokyo) and as an Adjunct Professor at Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia) and Point Park University (Pittsburgh). She received her MFA in Graphic and Interactive Design from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and her BFA in Applied Media Arts from Edinboro University.
Brigette serves as the Education Director of AIGA Pittsburgh and is a member of the AFNWPA (Advertising Federation of Northwest Pennsylvania). Her professional practice includes research, contract design and consultations for various clients as well as service donations to numerous non profit organizations. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has been published in HOW, Creative Quarterly, and CMYK.
Professor Deka has been teaching in the Art History area since 1992. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Art History in 1979 from The Ohio State University. He completed his master’s and doctoral degrees in Art History and Museum Studies at Case Western Reserve University in 1983 and 1991 respectively, through a joint program with the Cleveland Museum of Art. Simultaneously, he worked as an instructor in the Education Department at the museum between 1981-1991. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he taught at Cleveland State University and John Carroll University before arriving at Edinboro.
During his doctoral studies, he specialized in Greek and Roman art and received secondary training in Medieval, Renaissance and Indian art. His tenure at the Cleveland Museum likewise influenced his research interests in examining the artistic syntheses produced by contacts between cultures. He currently teaches courses in ancient, early western and non- western art.
Francis Demaske is an associate professor of Art (Graphic Design + Illustration) who has been teaching at Edinboro University since 1991. He received his MFA in Graphic Design + Illustration from Kent State University in 1992, and his BFA in Graphic Design + Illustration from Kent State University in 1989. Prior to his appointment at Edinboro University, Professor Demaske taught at Kent State University as a Graduate Teaching Assistant from 1989 to 1991. In addition, Professor Demaske received AAA and AAB from Lakeland Community College in 1984 and 1985 respectively.
Professor Demaske has been involved in the visual communication field since 1983. He was employed by the City of Euclid from 1983 to 1986 as a Designer and Illustrator. From 1986 until 1996, he was a partner in Demaske & DeWine Design, Inc., a design firm that specialized in commercial redevelopment projects and environmental graphics. He continues to contract design and illustration projects. His client list includes: Cleveland State University, Levin College of Urban Affairs; MightyMusicLive.com, Inc.; CT Consultants, Inc.; S & S technologies, L.L.C.; MacArthur Investments, L.L.C.; Steidel and Sons, Inc.; Ursuline College/Wasmer Art Gallery; Drawbridge Restaurant; RollerDrome, Inc.; Geist Company, Inc.; Edinboro University Press; Ver Lit Press, Berlin; Edinboro Animation Department; Edinboro Art Department; Edinboro Bruce Gallery; Edinboro Alumni Office; Seme & Sons Automotive; Kampe & Smeltars, Architects; AccuPraise, Inc.; Briardale Golf Course; Richard Beck, Architects; Moriah Publishing; Amsdel Corporation; Ostendorf-Morris; Penton Publishing; Applebrook Design; City of Euclid; City of Willoughby Hills and many others.
Doug Eberhardt is a printmaker, illustrator and educator living with his partner Lauren Lowery in Aliquippa. Pa. He received his BFA from Edinboro University and his MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Since graduating, he has worked with New Academy Press, Sapling Press and The Wassaic Project to create a variety of prints and artist editions. He currently teaches Screen Printing at Edinboro University.
Originally from East Aurora, NY, Professor Karen Ernst is an associate professor in the Art Department, teaching Woodworking/Furniture Design. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from SUNY Geneseo and a Master of Fine Arts in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and has almost twenty years of woodworking and design experience. During and after her academic studies, she was employed by Spykman Design in Keene, NH, makers of custom cabinetry and fine furniture. In 2003-04 she was an artist-in-residence and summer workshop assistant at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO.
She joined the Edinboro faculty in 2004 and helped to found the Wood Furniture Club, to which she is the faculty advisor. In 2013, she received a grant from the Windgate Charitable Foundation to replace and upgrade much of the equipment in the wood studio, as well as provide scholarships to students in the Wood, Metals, and Ceramics Programs at Edinboro.
She is an active member of The Furniture Society and has served as a juror for the Innovation Erie product design competition for the last six years.
The furniture and sculptural objects she designs and builds have been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries across the US and are included in many private collections. Her work is featured in the Lark Books publications “500 Chairs”, “500 Tables,” and “500 Cabinets,” as well as Schiffer Publishing’s “The Maker’s Hand: Contemporary Studio Furniture.”
Jeremy Galante received his MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology in Animation and his BFA from Miami University of Ohio. Since 2004, he has directed and produced a variety of award-winning independent and for-hire short films. Clients have included They Might Be Giants, American Greetings, and Sesame Workshop, among others. He has contributed to over 30 Sesame Street projects since Season 43, including animated content and effects for 15 episodes. His work has appeared in over 100 film festivals worldwide, and has regularly been screened at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, the New York International Children's Film Festival, and the ASIFA-East Awards. Specialties include traditional and digital 2D character animation, motion graphics, and compositing.
Michael Genz, is a Latino professor teaching Animation at Edinboro University. He attended the California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts), where he was accepted in the School of Film and Video, majoring in Character Animation. He worked in the animation industry for 15 years, starting at Filmation Studios where he worked on HE-MAN and the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and Shera the Princess of Power.
In 1987, he went on to join the Walt Disney Feature Animation Company to work as an assistant animator and animator earning screen credits on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Oliver Company, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hercules, Mulan and Tarzan. Mike also worked for Kroyer Animation Studios, where he animated on Fern-Gully the Last Rain Forest, and Sullivan Bluth Studios, which created An American Tail. He also worked for Disney Television as a character layout artist and for Warner Brothers Classics, which created the Michael Jordan/ MCI TV commercials. In 2005, Mike earned an MFA in studio arts from the Maine College of Art, in Portland, Maine. His thesis installation included work from the Perseus House, a treatment facility for at risk youth located in Erie, Pa. In the spring of 2016, He took a sabbatical leave in Los Angeles., where he created Left Behind, a one-minute 3D animated short film using Maya and was a visiting scholar at Woodbury University in Burbank, Calif.
His recent film focuses on humanitarian issues and social awareness. Mni Wiconi: Water is Life, was nominated for “Best Animation” category at the American Indian Film Festival, in San Francisco. It’s a short film using symbolic metaphors to represent the oil and gas industry bullying through Standing Rock, N.D.
Jordan Held is an instructor of Computer Animation who has been teaching at Edinboro University since 2015. He received his BFA in Applied Media Arts from Edinboro University in 2008. Prior to his appointment at Edinboro, he taught Digital Media at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. Additionally, he has worked as co-owner and artist at MoreFrames Animation LLC., since 2010. Located in Erie, Pa., MoreFrames has worked with clients such as Microsoft, Disney, Vice, YouTube Red, National Geographic Channel, A24 and Sony Music.
Karabo Legwaila joined the Art Department in the fall of 2016 as a professor of Computer Animation. Prior to that, he spent 10 years as Lead Technical Animator/Dynamics Specialist at Four Directions Productions, a Native American owned video and animation studio in Vernon, N.Y.
During his time at the studio, he worked on various animation and video projects including award- wining, Native American themed animated short films. One of the short films he worked on, “The Raccoon and Crawfish” was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. He also worked on promotional video/animation projects for Syracuse University football and basketball teams. Karabo has also had some of his modeling tutorials published in 3D Total Magazine.
Originally from Botswana, Karabo received his Master of Fine Arts degree in Computer Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in Rochester, N.Y., in 2006. He received his bachelor’s in Computer Science – Management Information Systems and Business at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., in 2002.
William Mathie earned his BFA in Drawing from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and an MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. He is a professor of Printmaking at Edinboro University and has taught at the University since 1995. Along with teaching, he has served as the Bruce Gallery director and the chair of the Art Department at different times. His artwork has been exhibited and has won awards regionally and nationally. He studied Mokuhanga printmaking in Japan with Kenji Takenaka in 2007 and 2011. He is also the current director of Egress Press and Research, a fine art publishing component of the Printmaking program at Edinboro University, and he operates a private studio in Edinboro.
James Parlin is a professor of Sculpture and Three-Dimensional Design, and currently serves as Chairperson of the Art Department. His undergraduate degree is in religious thought from the University of Pennsylvania, and his graduate degree is in Sculpture, also from Penn. He is an active artist and shows his work regularly in a variety of national and regional venues. He is represented by the Schmidt Dean Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. Parlin has a long record of service with APSCUF, the professors’ union, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA.
Brad originally hails from Michigan. He was interested in art from a very early age and began doing freelance illustration as early as middle school. In 1995, Brad attained a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from the University of Michigan, where he continued his freelance artwork, including political cartooning for the student newspaper and writing and illustrating articles for the student humor magazine. While studying for his Master of Fine Arts degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design, Brad was hired by Will Vinton Studios to work on the critically acclaimed, but short-lived, animated television series “Gary and Mike.” Brad also had the opportunity to work on several other animated television programs, commercials and music videos, including MTV’s “Celebrity Deathmatch” and WB’s “Phantom Investigators.”
After completing his master’s degree in Savannah, Ga., Brad began his teaching career. He taught for two years in the Entertainment Arts Department at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, and he is currently an associate professor of Animation in the highly renowned cinema program at Edinboro University. Brad now produces independent animated films and commissioned work. He has directed two segments for Sesame Street and has worked on a number of other high-profile projects. His independent films, to date, have screened at over 80 festivals worldwide and earned 18 awards.
Cassandra Reese earned a BFA in Applied Media Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design in 2006 and an MA in Art Education in 2011 from Edinboro University. In 2017, she earned an MFA in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
Reese has taught at EU as an instructor of Graphic & Interactive Design since 2013. While pursuing her MFA, she also taught as an instructor of Graphic Design at Kent State University. She worked as a web designer for the Erie-based advertising agency, BENSUR Creative Marketing Group, from 2006–09. In this position, she designed, developed and maintained clients websites using knowledge of HTML and CSS. She interned at Fortune Small Business Magazine in New York in 2005.
From 2011–17, she was the art teacher for a summer program for ESL students in grade 1-8 culminating in collaborative mural projects. In 2015, she developed and taught a graphic design summer program at EU for students in grades 7–10.
Her research interests revolve around the connection between mindfulness and design and recently focused on the relationship between breathing and rhythmic visualizations. Recent projects include graduate design research with NASA, personal design research rooted in motion and mindful design and graphic and interactive projects including the opening and closing credits for the animated short film, Mni Wiconi, which was directed and animated by Professor Michael Genz of EU.
Professor Fred Scruton came to Edinboro in 2003 after working for 20 years in New York City as a professional freelance photographer of artwork and architecture. He earned his Master of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 1982, and his professional work has been reproduced on the cover of several art periodicals including Flash Art, and Art in America, as well as in numerous books, catalogues, magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times. Professor Scruton’s fine art photography has been exhibited widely throughout the country, and in four one-person exhibitions at OK Harris Gallery in New York City. He travels extensively to document ‘outsider’ artists and the art environments they create, and he has published two articles with photographs, including one cover, for Raw Visionmagazine, the primary international publication on non-mainstream artists. Several more articles for Raw Vision will be published in up-coming issues, and his website has been designated a research source by the American Library Association. He has lectured about this work at INTUIT (The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art) in Chicago, and has contributed substantially to the SPACES (Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments) archive in Aptos, Calif. Professor Scruton teaches in the art department’s photography program at EU specializing in art historical context, artificial lighting, digital, and documentary techniques.
Professor Michelle Vitali arrived at Edinboro University in 1999 after teaching at Pratt Institute, Parson's School of Design and the New York Academy of Art. She is originally from Philadelphia, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts before moving to New York for her Master of Fine Arts from the New York Academy's Graduate School of Figurative Art. She also studied abroad at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy.
While her degrees are in painting, Professor Vitali has done extensive work in drawing and sculpture. Her work also spans some of the sciences. She is a medical/scientific illustrator and a forensic artist. As a painter and illustrator, she has exhibited her work extensively, both nationally and internationally. Her illustrations have appeared in many publications and several books. As a forensic artist, Professor Vitali has worked on high-profile criminal cases in the United States, and performed facial reconstructions on historical cases in the U.S. and in Spain.
Professor Vitali's research areas include improving the efficacy of 2D and 3D reconstruction, researching best practices for all forensic arts, and experimenting in materials and processes in the arts. Her work has been recognized by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and numerous law enforcement agencies.
At Edinboro University, Professor Vitali has initiated several new courses and two programs: an illustration concentration within the art department, and the Institute of Forensic Sciences for which she currently serves as a Fellow.
Dr. Charlotte Wellman earned her Bachelor’s degree in Art History from Brown University and her Masters of Arts and Ph.D. in Art History from Stanford University. She has published several catalog essays on contemporary artists. Trained as an Americanist, Dr. Wellman teaches courses in nineteenth century, twentieth century and contemporary art, American art, gender, and theory. Her research focuses on gender, aging, and contemporary visual culture.
