AICAD Places 12 New and 5 Returning Post-Graduate Teaching Fellows For 2023/24
Em Yue, Mouse in House, 2023. Illustration.
The Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design (AICAD) is pleased to announce the twelve Fellows selected for the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship for the 2023/24 academic year. Additionally, five previous fellows will continue their positions for a second year.
The Fellowship provides professional opportunities to high-achieving alumni who have recently graduated from AICAD member schools, while also increasing the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty at these institutions. AICAD institutions recognize and value diversity as central to excellence in art and design education.
Fellowships include mentoring and professional development opportunities, teaching experience, health benefits, and other monetary support.
The 2023/24 AICAD Fellows are:
Kimberly Ayala Najera (M.Arch, 2023, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Najera incorporates materials created by those historically overlooked within the art/architectural industry, primarily BIPOC women.
Akea Brionne (MFA, Photography, 2023, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Kansas City Art Institute. Brionne is a Creole lens-based artist and researcher. Working within research, her work is at the intersection of photography, textiles, and the moving image.
Heehyun Choi (MFA, Film & Video, 2021, California Institute of the Arts) placed at Kansas City Art Institute. Choi is a moving image artist interested in physicality, virtuality, and subjectivity. Choi is the recipient of the Ann Arbor Film Festival’s Mariam Ghani Juror Award.
Ann Dinh (Master of Industrial Design, 2022, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at Pratt Institute. Dinh focuses on physical objects, digital landscapes, and space for multifaceted identities. She received the Industrial Design Society of America Graduate Student Merit Award.
Yara Elfouly (MFA, Experimental Animation, 2023, California Institute of the Arts) placed at Columbus College of Art & Design. Elfouly is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, alternate realities and post-colonialism through animation, comics and installation.
Bao Hu (MFA, Graphic Design, 2022, Maryland Institute College of Art) placed at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Hu is influenced by Eastern and Western cultures and design methodology. Her work was recognized by the Society of Typographic Arts, Communication Arts, and AIGA Blue Ridge.
Aaron Neal (MA, Adaptive Reuse, 2023, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Neal explores adaptive reuse within African American communities and its environmental impact. He received the RISD Presidential Fellow Award.
Uthman Olowa (M.Arch, 2023, Rhode Island School of Design) placed at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Olowa supports revitalizing Black and Brown communities through architecture. He received Gensler’s Rising Black Designer Scholarship award and founded the Urban Design League.
Seyhr Qayum (MFA, Painting, 2022, Pratt Institute) placed at Kansas City Art Institute. Qayum is a Pakistani-American interdisciplinary artist whose work explores adorning women’s bodies as a feminist act of resistance. Quayum received the 2022 Stutzman Foundation Award for Three-Dimensional Work.
Chris Salas (MFA, Ceramics, 2023, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Salas attended workshops at Penland, Arrowmont, and completed the Minnesota New Institute for Ceramics Education program at the Northern Clay Center.
Shuang Wu (MFA, Graphic Design, 2023, Maryland Institute College of Art) placed at Kansas City Art Institute. Wu is passionate about storytelling and multimedia experiments. Her work was recognized by the Society of Typographic Arts and the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
Em Yue (MFA, Experimental Animation, 2022, California Institute of the Arts) placed at Columbus College of Art & Design. Yue is an Asian American animator focused on human connection, queerness, and virtual geographies. Her collaborations include the Los Angeles Times and NPR.
Continuing Fellows:
Lipika Bhargava (MFA, Fine Arts, 2022, Parsons School of Design) placed at Pratt Institute.
Noelle Choy (MFA, Sculpture, 2022, Cranbrook Academy of Art) placed at Kansas City Art Institute.
Dairys Escoto De León (MFA, Experimental Animation, 2022, California Institute of the Arts) placed at University of the Arts.
Courtney Morgan (MA, Design Leadership, 2022, Maryland Institute College of Art) placed at Parsons School of Design.
Kyle Wilhite (MFA, Studio Arts, 2022, San Francisco Art Institute) placed at Parsons School of Design.