Faculty and Staff

Biography

Dr. Norberto Gomez Jr.  is an artist, writer, publisher, curator, media archaeologist and educator based in Washington, D.C. Their work engages the interstices and chasms of death and technology, alongside aesthetics, horror, and media/popular culture.

Since 2015, they have taught within a variety of disciplines at Montgomery College (MC): global contemporary art history, media appreciation, film, graphic design, professional practice, and illustration. They have served as department chair since 2018. Previously, they taught part-time at MICA, Towson University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of Houston.

Their paintings have been featured in New American Paintings (#142), and recent solo exhibitions include CICA Museum (Korea), Rhizome DC, and Box 13 (Houston, TX). Recent curated exhibitions include King Street Gallery, Montgomery College (Silver Spring, MD) and Gallery 5 (Richmond, VA). They are also former artist and researcher-in-residence at Mildred’s Lane (Pennsylvania) and Signal Culture (Owego, NY).

They are co-founder and editor of Sybil Press (est. 2013), an independent publisher of art books and experimental print media. Sybil Press has participated in print, art book, and zine fairs across the U.S. and internationally, including Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair, Boston Art Book Fair, Tokyo Art Book Fair, and Vancouver Art Book Fair.

In 2025, their creative non-fiction piece “A Personal History of Evil – Haunted Houses” was published in a special issue of NO MAG—the first since 1985— the legendary LA punk/art maga(zine) founded in 1978. In 2025, they co-edited the special issue, “Critique as Care” for b2o: an online journal of literature and culture (Duke University) dedicated to the digital studies scholar, David Golumbia. Recent scholarly publications include:

• “Eva Rocha: Digital Desaparecido in the Postinternet,” in Digital Encounters: Envisioning Connectivity in Latin American Cultural Production(University of Toronto Press, 2023).
• “From Friends to Monsters: The Horrors of Technology, Friendship, and the Monsters Next Door in Wes Craven’s Deadly Friend,” in Refocus: The Films of Wes Craven(Edinburgh University Press, 2023).

Select conference presentations (as panelist and/or chair) include International Symposium for Visual Culture (Maryland), Digital Humanities (México City), Approaching Posthumanism and the Posthuman (Geneva, Switzerland), Northeast Modern Language Association Conference (Boston), and a whole host of Southeastern College Art Conference events since 2011. Gomez has written for Fangoria Magazine, Blumhouse.com, Digital America, and Cvlt Nation.

They earned a BFA from Texas A&M University – Kingsville, an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Houston, and a PhD in Media, Art, and Text from Virginia Commonwealth University, where they studied digital (sub/pop) culture broadly. They recently obtained a post-baccalaureate certificate in Professional Spanish from Towson University. They are currently studying Eastern Classics (MA) at St. John's College.

Bio photo: Shirley Washington, VPA student, 2025

Biography

Pablo Callejo serves as an Instructional Associate and Administrative Aide in the Visual & Performing Arts Department at Montgomery College’s Takoma Park / Silver Spring campus. In this hybrid role, he supports faculty, students, and departmental operations across multiple disciplines, working at the intersection of administration, facilities, technology, and academic support.

His responsibilities include coordinating equipment loans, supporting course logistics, assisting with faculty processes, managing student assistants, and liaising with IT, Facilities, HR, and Procurement to ensure smooth day-to-day operations. Pablo is known for his detail-oriented, collaborative approach and his ability to translate institutional processes into accessible workflows for faculty and students.

In parallel with his professional role, Pablo is currently enrolled in a Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in the Business of Art & Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). As both an Admin Aide and practicing artist, he brings a unique perspective to his work advocating for artist-centered systems, accessibility, and sustainable models within academic and creative environments.

Biography

Michael holds a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Ceramics & Sculpture.

As instructional Lab Coordinator he works in the Art Studios to provide Instructional Support, Student Support and assist with Art Exhibitions.

His specialized area is the Sculpture and Ceramics studios.

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Marjuan Canady is a Tony®-nominated Broadway producer and multi-hyphenated artist whose work amplifies Black Diaspora voices across theatre, film, and children's media. A proud DC native and Caribbean-American writer, director, and producer, she is the Founder of her production company, Sepia Works and her non-profit, the Canady Foundation for the Arts, both dedicated to advancing inclusive storytelling and arts education for youth of color. In 2026, Canady adapted and directed the World Premiere theatrical adaptation of the landmark project, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water. Her original work has been seen Off-Broadway, on Issa Rae's Hoorae Media, Sesame Street,The Lincoln Center and The Kennedy Center to name a few. Professor Canady is also the Author and CEO of the beloved children’s brand "Callaloo Kids", which promotes cultural literacy through books, animation, and live performance. Broadway Co-Producing credits: Purple Rain, Alicia Keys’ Hell’s Kitchen, The Wiz, and Death of a Salesman. UK Co-Producing credits: Barbie The Movie Immersive Experience. Professor Canady has held fellowships at The Schomburg Center for Black Research and Culture, Columbia University, Folger Shakespeare Library, Docs In Progress, The Black Genius Foundation, and Eaton DC. Canady is a graduate of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and holds her B.A. in Theatre Performance and African/African-American Studies from Fordham University and her M.A. in Arts Politics from New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Biography

Dr.Cash holds a BA from the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an MA and PhD in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin. Her professional work centers on the Art of the Americas, museum practice and open education. 

Professor Cash came to Montgomery College as a full-time faculty member after serving as part-time faculty teaching African art history. Prior to MC, she served an 11-year tenure at St. Mary's College of Maryland as Associate Professor of Art History. At SMCM, she also served 4 years as Director of Boyden Gallery and the Fine Art Collection. At MC, Professor Cash teaches Art History Survey I and II, Survey of African Art and Survey of Asian Art. She looks forward to expanding her course offerings in art history, global humanities, and museum practice.

Beyond the classroom, Professor Cash is committed to professional development, open education and pedagogy and the decolonization and applied practice of art history. Since her arrival at MC, Professor Cash has been awarded the MC UN SDG Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship (Summer 2020) and a Faculty Development Seminar in Pakistan from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (January 2021).

Biography

Miriam Ellen Ewers is a sculptor and educator whose work translates ways of knowing—drawn from nature, science, and mathematics—into physical, spatial form.

A sculptor of physical diagrams.

She is especially drawn to diagrammatic images, biomimetic structures, and models as thinking tools: visual languages that let us approach complex systems even when they feel unstable, incomplete, or too vast to hold all at once.

Her studio practice moves between natural history, topology, architectural models, and material reuse to build sculptures that behave like physical diagrams—objects and environments that ask the body to participate in understanding. Rather than illustrating scientific ideas, Ewers uses making as inquiry. Meaning is not delivered so much as negotiated: ideas meet the friction of material, labor, collaboration, and scale, and they change in the process. What persists is not a single message but a charged continuity—something that can mutate under pressure without fully breaking apart.

Alongside hands-on processes, Ewers has long integrated digital tools into both her studio work and her teaching, treating software and fabrication workflows as another material system—one with its own constraints, aesthetics, and pressures. She is increasingly focused on the expanding overlap between sculpture and new media, and is developing collaborations that bring lens-based and time-based approaches into conversation with object-making, installation, and material research.

Reuse is central to her work as a reparative strategy. Reclaimed and recontextualized materials are not neutral supports but carriers of memory, value, and ethical weight. Through them, Ewers explores how damaged or fragmented systems—ecological, social, or institutional—remain entangled, and what kinds of responsibility, care, and attention might be possible without easy redemption narratives.

Ewers is an Associate Professor of Sculpture and Three-Dimensional Design at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she also teaches Drawing, and Professional Practices in the Visual Arts and Design. Her teaching emphasizes material literacy, experimentation, and collaborative problem-solving. She designs studio environments where students with diverse backgrounds learn to think rigorously together—building fluency through critique, iteration, and hands-on work.

She earned her MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and her BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, where the Nature Lab played a formative role in shaping her interest in biomimicry, scientific visualization, and exploratory research. Prior to joining Montgomery College, she taught digital tools for nine years at Virginia Commonwealth University and for two years at the University of North Texas; served as Assistant Professor of Design Foundations at VCUarts Qatar; and was Director of the Post-Baccalaureate Program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Ewers’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Across both her teaching and creative practice, she is committed to art as a mode of translation—one that extends perception and makes room for complex systems to be felt, tested, and reimagined.

Biography

Assistant Professor of visual art Mieke Gentis teaches analog and digital photography at Montgomery College. Mieke Gentis is an artist operating in several modalities including photography, installation, and performance. She has served as the director of operations for BuoyRR- a residency retreat for those on the feminine spectrum. She invites you to collaborate, so please send an email f you have an idea. Professor Gentis holds a degree in Imaging and Digital Art from UMBC and a Degree in Sociology from Salisbury University. 

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Megan Van Wagoner grew up in a community filled with artists, musicians and lots of mid-west practicality in Cleveland, Ohio. She studied Ceramics at the Cleveland Institute of Art and completed an MFA in the Mount Royal School at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Following graduation Megan had an award-winning career as a graphic designer and art director before returning to academia to teach. Her focus on mixed media sculpture and installation, along with her background in ceramics, forms the foundation of her current studio practice.

Megan is the recipient of a Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Award. She lives and works in the Washington, DC metro-area where she maintains a group art studio and teaches art and design at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland.

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Casey Kaleba has worked in both the Film and Theatre programs at Montgomery College.  He has taught throughout the region on theatre and film theory, history, and practice, including Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, Catholic University, and Gallaudet University.

As a professional artist, Casey has worked in theatre as a director, fight director, and intimacy choreographer, and in film in art departments, stunts, and motion capture.  He has created movement for nearly six hundred theatrical, opera, and media productions including regionally for the Washington National Opera, Ford's Theatre, Round House Theatre, Folger Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Wolf Trap Opera, and nationally at the Guthrie Theatre, Spoleto Festival, Northern Stage, and Glimmerglass Festival.  He served four years as an audition choreographer for Marvel Universe Live and almost a decade smashing things on the YouTube channel Men at Arms: Reforged.

Biography

Nilou Kazemzadeh (b. 1993) is an Iranian-American artist based in Maryland. She holds a B.A. in Studio Art and Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland College Park and a Masters in Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art and Architecture. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries in the DMV and Philadelphia area including the Katzen Art Center, Maryland Art Place, Target Gallery, and IA&A Hillyer. She is currently an adjunct instructor at Montgomery College and Prince George's Community College where she teaches Ceramics and 2D Design. 

Biography

Dr. Leejin Kim is an art director, new media artist, and CEO of CICA Press. She holds a BFA in Sculpture from Seoul National University, an MFA in Sculpture and New Media from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Media, Art, and Text from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Since 2014, she has served as the art director of CICA Museum, leading numerous international exhibitions and experimental publications. She founded the CICA New Media Art Conference (CICA NMAC) in 2017 and has curated and moderated international symposia and collaborative projects with institutions such as Seoul National University, Gimpo City, and The Federation of Artistic & Cultural Organizations of Korea.

Her curatorial work includes Art Teleported in New York, CICA Kids Lab in Korea, and recent international exchanges such as Multiculturalism and Belonging with California State University San Bernardino and NEWBODIES/NOBODIES with Montgomery College, MD.

Leejin has received multiple honors, including the 2023 Korea Value Management Award, the Innovative Korean & Power Korea Award, and the 2024 Korea Global Power Brand Award. She has also taught at Sangmyung University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Yonsei University, and Montgomery College.

Biography

Kate Kretz earned a Cours De La Civilisation Francaise certificate at The Sorbonne, a BFA at SUNY Binghamton, garnering the SUNY Foundation Award for Excellence in Fine Arts, Harpur College Departmental Honors in Art, and Harpur College Academic Honors. She earned her MFA at the University of Georgia. Exhibitions include the Museum of Arts & Design in NYC, Van Gijn Museum, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Wignall Museum, Katonah Museum, Frost Museum, Racine Museum, Fort Collins MOCA, San Jose Museum of Textiles, Telfair Museum, Fort Lauderdale Museum, and Tsinghua University in Beijing.  

She’s received three MD Arts Council grants (in Crafts and in Painting), the NC Arts Council Grant, The South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship, Florida Visual Arts Fellowship, and a Millay Colony Residency. She received the SECAC award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, she’s a James Renwick Alliance’s 2020 Distinguished Artist and is on the Fulbright Specialist Roster until 2021. She was an Associate Professor/BFA Director at Florida International University for ten years before joining Montgomery College, where she was recently awarded the Shoenberg Fellowship to complete her first book on finding visual voice.  

Biography

Educational Background

• DMA - Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
• MM - Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

Biography

Alexander McSwain is an assistant professor at Howard University, Washington DC. He received his BFA in Communication Design as well as an MFA in Environmental Design from Howard University. During that time, he worked in the not-for-profit arena working with Shaw-Eco Village (tackling the issue of stormwater run-off in DC), DOEE formally the DDOE (educating youth about the importance of green collar work, environmental awareness, and education), and MCSR (Men Can Stop Rape Organization teaching young men how to be strong without being violent). He was asked to become an executive board member for MCSR in 2015 and continues to serve as an active member. 

For the past decade, Alex McSwain has worked as a freelance designer. He has had the opportunity to work with several companies and clients ranging from Cushman and Wakefield to start up magazine companies. His portfolio contains works from various design disciplines; UX design, web design, publication/marketing materials, brand development, packaging, 2D Animation, and apparel design. Currently, he is taking on volunteer design projects to help not for profit organizations nationally in hopes to reconnect with his, not for profit roots and allow his skills to improve the lives of others. His design aesthetic by default stems from his time as an architect apprentice with a clean line and geometric symmetry with a keen sense of synergy. 

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” 

Biography

Rissa Miller holds a BA in Socio-Anthropology, BFA in Painting, MA in Art History, and is a PhD candidate in Culture Studies and Aesthetics at the Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon. She places her trans-disciplinary work as an artist and academic at the intersection of art history, aesthetics, food culture, and memory and nostalgia. Her work in the culinary field includes a double culinary diploma in French cuisine and pastry from Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. Her research on the intersection of folk art and food culture in Sicily was published in the East-West Cultural Passage Journal (2022). Rissa also designs and teaches annual art and food appreciation workshop retreats in Italy and Greece (2018-present) and is the co-editor of the academic journal "Diffractions" in Culture Studies. In 2025 Rissa spear-headed an international conference at the intersection of Food, Art, and Science at the Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, in order to provoke cross-disciplinary exchange. As a visual artist, her drawings, paintings, and ceramic sculptures have been exhibited in multiple galleries in the U.S. and Italy and speak to the intuitive processes and peripatetic states innate to the culinary arts and ecology.

Biography

Dan Ortiz Leizman is an artist, writer, and educator based in the DMV. They utilize tactile sound, fluorescent plastics, and AI to create immersive installations that interrogate the intersections of American culture and queer life.

Dan lectures at the University of Maryland and Montgomery College, teaching courses in 2D design, drawing, and sculpture. Their pedagogy fosters experimentation and conceptual depth, encouraging students to think critically about mark-making, sensory exploration, and the cultural impact of their work.

Biography

Carrie Rennolds teaches illustration and graphic design, and is the creator of the Fake New Yorker; an unedifying parody publication which explores problems and failures in modern society. She has a degree from Lawrence University in Printmaking, and an M.F.A. from UMBC in Imaging and Digital Art, and loves bad ideas. 

Biography

Alzira Lena Ruano, a Washington, D.C. native raised in Montgomery County, is an accomplished interdisciplinary artist, scholar, and educator. She embarked on her creative journey at Montgomery College, mastering printmaking, before refining her skills at the Art Center College of Design, where she explored the moving image. With an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, her artistry evolved to incorporate captivating still photography and performative elements.

Ruano's work delves into the complex interplay of gender, body, heritage, relationships, memory, socio-economic structures, and domesticity. These themes reveal her profound insights into the human experience and societal narratives. Beyond her artistic accomplishments, Ruano's role as an educator and scholar empowers emerging artists, fostering meaningful dialogues that transcend traditional boundaries. Her diverse background and contributions make her a significant presence in both the artistic and academic realms.

Biography

Biography

Meryl has been teaching dance for the Performing Arts department here at MC TP/SS since 2006.  She has also taught ballet, modern, and jazz on the Rockville campus. She was awarded “Outstanding Part-time Faculty Award” in 2013. 

She owned her own dance studio and company, The Dance Addition of Takoma Park for 18 years, until 2010.  She taught ballet, modern, and jazz there, and directed and choreographed numerous performances. 

She danced with many DC local companies including Tony Powell Music and Movement, Pola Nirenska, Momentum Dance Theatre, and Maryland Dance Theatre, just to name a few. 

She also performed in NYC, Bates College in Maine, San Diego, Knoxville, White Mountains Dance Festival, and also abroad in Canada and in Israel. 

She has choreographed for many musical theatre productions including for Imagination Stage, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Catholic University, St. Mary’s Community College, and Fort Meade Theatre Productions. 

Her dance degrees were acquired from U of Md., and her graduate degree from the George Washington University. 

She is currently and passionately involved with communities of Latin dances and other social dances here in the DC, New York, and in the northern New Jersey areas. These include Tango, Salsa, Bachata, and West Coast Swing,  

Biography

Biography

MFA, Mount Royal School of Art -  Maryland Institute College of Art

BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art

Lucia Shuyu Li is a East Coast America based Visual and Sound Artist, and the founder of LESSNESS Art collective. She received her MFA in Multidisciplinary Arts From MICA Mount Royal School of Arts and BFA in General Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her multi-media work includes and is not limited to paintings, installations, performance art, and experimental music. Her academic research extends from institutional criticism to philosophical aesthetics, and she is committed to infusing her artistic creations with philosophical concepts and aesthetic ideas. Lucia has also been collaborating with artists in Japan, China, and the United States on various experimental exhibitions around whole states. 

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