2022 Creative Arts Awards Program

Sarah Abbas

Sarah Abbas won The Studio’s Creative Art Award for best Service Project. They are majoring in English-Creative Writing and Psychology. Their project wants to increase the accessibility of art in the UW area by a series of displays and postings by printing and wheat-pasting poems around the city, from State Street to highway corners. Secondly, Sarah is interested in creating pop-ups around the city. They will be investing in small podiums that can hold a few encapsulated art pieces: photos, visual art, and QR codes for digital arts. They believe that increasing the awareness of the arts in this campus will promote up and coming artists and engage the community.

TATI

“That’s All There Is” (TATI) is an experimental theatre ensemble that writes and performs in the Neo-Futurist aesthetic. Our project is researching how Neo-futurist theatre can be used as a medium to transform our ideas, questions, and thoughts into palatable, meaningful, and entertaining performances. TATI members include Isaac Yang, majoring in Communications, Carly De La Masa, majoring in Graphic Design, Annika Hall, majoring in Environmental Studies and Legal Studies, and Jake Shipley, majoring in Theatre and Drama

Sophia Abrams

Sophia Abrams is a Powers-Knapp senior at the University of Wisconsin–Madison studying journalism, Afro-American Studies, and Art History. Since September 2020, she has worked for the UW Archives as a Student Historian, creating an oral history project and exhibition on Black artists who attended UW-Madison. She is also a Developmental Project Assistant at PBS Wisconsin. As a HEX-U Scholar, Abrams partnered with Little Picassos to develop children’s arts programming. She participated in the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Fall 2021 Museum Seminar. In August 2021, she co-curated In Transit, a student exhibition at Union South. During the 2021 summer, she interned at the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art and SooVAC Gallery. Previously on campus, she DJed atWSUM and was the Wisconsin Black Student Union’s outreach coordinator and graphic designer. She has written for Illumination Magazine, and her art was featured in the Star Tribune.

The award recognizes Abrams’ accomplishments in creating an exhibition that centers Black art in Madison.

Ana Tinder

Ana Tinder is an undergraduate studying music performance at Mead Witter School of Music of University of Wisconsin–Madison. She began her studies in Fall 2018 and is expected to graduate in Spring 2022. Ana founded Mead Witter School of Music’s music theory and musicology study program and organized “Mead Witter School of Music Virtual Benefit Concert,” which raised funds to donate over eight-thousand meals to Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin. Ana is Director of Grace Presents Concert Series, live stream coordinator for Mead Witter School of Music, Event Production Intern for LunART, and aDane Arts Grant Recipient for her spoken memoir on music-related injuries. Currently researching musician health initiatives, Anais hosting the Musician Health Symposium in November 2021 with Mead Witter School of Music and LunART. She will collaborate with esteemed presenters Dr. Linda DiRaimondo (MD), Professor Uri Vardi, Professor Jessica Johnson, Nicole Newman, and Natalie Weiss to raise awareness for injury prevention and musician health.

The award recognizes Tinder’s perseverance, work ethic, commitment to raising awareness about musicians’ mental health, and her ability to take action and make things happen.

Islamic Art Night | Sanaa Semia

The first Muslim-interest sorority on campus, Alpha Lambda Rho, held a presentation about the architecture, textiles and design of mosques. Participants represented their backgrounds, or any design of their choosing, by painting their own mosques. One of the first few ASAP recipients, ALR leader Sanaa Semia considers the Islamic Art Night a resounding success, stating that “this event would not have been possible without the support of the ASAP grant,” and that “continuing [ASAP] is helpful for UW–Madison students.”

DREAMers Fall Kickoff Meeting | Jazmine Zuniga-Paiz

During the fall kickoff for DREAMers, a student organization which advocates for undocumented and DACA-recipient students, ASAP funds were used to integrate artmaking into the meeting.

Networking Through the Arts | Elias Sobah and Augusta Ike 

The Wisconsin Black Student Union (WBSU) and Gamma Epsilon (GE) Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. collaborated to host an alumni and current student Networking through the Arts event at the Fluno Center, which centered around community-building, professional networking and student artists articulating their identities.

Queer X Asian Open Mic | Sophia Boté and Ciboney Reglos

An audience of more than seventy enjoyed a variety of student performances during the Queer x Asian Open Mic Night in the Memorial Union’s Der Rathskeller. Billed as a celebration of intersecting queer and Asian identities through spoken word, music and more, the open mic featured a special performance from Filipina poet and UW–Madison alumna, Gretchen Carvajal.

South Philly Legends | Jason Hill, Azeem Williams and Jaylin Reid 

ASAP will support the production of an album featuring a wide range of producers, rappers, singers and poets from across the country, with the intent to “help voice objections to the on-going violence, racial discrimination and issues of poverty within our communities,” says OMAI-First Wave scholar, rapper and project lead Jason Hill.

Chai Stories | Praveen Maripelly

Performed by Praveen Maripelly, an MFA candidate in 4D, Chai Stories is a series of community-building conversations with homemade, vegan chai, occurring in the atrium of the Art Lofts. Maripelly aims to build community and investigate the meaning of social engagement, community and outside life in the context of other cultures through these performances.

Don Giovanni | Lindsey Meekhof and Aubrie Jacobson

Doctor of Musical Arts candidate Lindsey Meekhof, in collaboration with pianist Aubrie Jacobson, will produce and record a staging of Don Giovanni in acknowledgement of the #MeToo Movement. Illuminating the problematic ways in which the opera perpetuates misogyny, this rendition will offer a thematic alternative for future productions. Filming and production will take place in January 2022, with plans for an April 2022 video premiere.

The Gusset: A Midwestern BIPOC Poetry Anthology | Zack Lesmeister, Azura Tyabji, and Sarah Abbas

This poetry anthology aims to celebrate the diversity of writing offered by midwestern, BIPOC poets. Up to seventy-five writers will receive an honorarium for their work to be published in print and online formats.

Endurance Queen | Dan Van Note

Dan Van Note, a Master of Arts candidate in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, reproduced Endurance Queen, an annual piece performed on Indigenous Peoples’ Day consisting of an independent marathon run in sneakers followed by a runway walk in heels. This was the fourth year Van Note performed Endurance Queen to celebrate queer identity through durational performance art.

Your-African-Quest | Joel Baraka and Anson Liow

An educational card game will take K-12 students in Madison-area schools on a journey to explore the African continent and its diverse cultures, which are often overlooked, misunderstood and misrepresented in current school curricula.

1^st Prize – Mocha Books | Kyla Pollard, BA, Radio, Television and Film

Mocha Books is a project dedicated to bringing visibility to the lives and stories of Black youth by partnering with schools and organizations to distribute blank books to students to write and publish their autobiographies.

2^nd Prize – The Mycological Menagerie | Savannah Gentry, Ph.D. candidate, Botany Nora Dunkirk, Ph.D. candidate, Botany, Naamon Peyton, BS, Microbiology

The Mycological Menagerie is a multi-media art exhibition aimed to support the understanding of fungi in the eyes of the public by demonstrating how fungi unites us all.

3^rd Prize – Unframed | Logan Butson, MBA candidate, Marketing Analytics and Insights

Unframed aims to tell the stories and cultural awareness of the underrepresented in the world through their artwork.

Emerging Artist Award – Flow Project Gallery | Julia Buskirk, BA, Journalism | Conservation Biology, Alexandra Lakind, Ph.D. candidate – Environment and Resources | Curriculum and Instruction, Anna Heinen, BFA, Art | Environmental Studies

The Flow Project Gallery brings Wisconsin’s water issues to the forefront through art by connecting UW student artists with water professionals across the state.

Emerging Artist Award – Your African Quest | Joel Baraka, BS, Civil Engineering, Anson Liow, MS, Civil Engineering

Your African Quest is a board game (8 years-old and above) aiming to satisfy the curiosity and knowledge about the diversity in Africa through different categories including countries and cities, food, nature, people and cultures.

Cole Bartels

Cole Bartels is a trombonist currently based in Madison, WI. He is the Instructor of Low Brass at Concordia University Wisconsin, maintains a studio of private low brass students from around southern Wisconsin, and is completing a DMA in trombone performance at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In addition to his studies and teaching duties, Bartels is an in-demand freelancer of all musical styles in the region. Bartels has committed himself to the performance of contemporary music, especially focusing on works by American composers and historically under-represented composers. His extensive solo and chamber commissioning projects have helped to expand the repertoire for trombone, and to showcase the amazing capabilities of the instrument in contemporary contexts. His debut album, On the Brink, is due for release in 2022, featuring nine previously unrecorded works for trombone. Bartels holds degrees from the University of Tennessee–Knoxville (MM, 19’) and Concordia College (BM, 17’).

Bartels was nominated for the Judson Award by professor of trombone Mark Hetzler for being “…a true leader in our School of Music. His calm presence projects the confidence and deliberation of a person who is focused on specific professional goals, as seen in his efforts as an educator, professional player, researcher and entrepreneur.”

Carlos Ortiz

Carlos Ortiz is a PhD. candidate of Spanish in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He joined the PhD. program in 2016 after completing a B.A in Hispanic Literatures from CUNY–Hunter College and a M.A in Spanish at UW–Madison. His main area of study is Contemporary Latin/x American Theater and Performance and is currently researching artistic performances of the region that challenge the Western and anthropocentric idea of the human. Since 2014, he has been an active member of the UW–Madison interdepartmental theater group, Teatro Décimo Piso, where he has performed and directed. He was the co-chair of the 2018 Kaleidoscope Graduate Student Conference. His academic research has been awarded the 2020 Tinker-Nave Field Research Grant from the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program, and the Graduate School Dissertator Fellowship from the Office of Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education during Fall 2021.

Ortiz was nominated for the Judson award by professor of Spanish and Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies Paola Hernández, who wrote, “As a Latinx student, Carlos has made sure to bring Latinx issues to the stage, making the work of Teatro Décimo Piso under his guidance an important and crucial work for underrepresented students on campus.”

Mengmeng Wang

Mengmeng Wang is a DMA composition dissertator at University of Wisconsin–Madison and studies composition with Professor Laura Schwendinger. She also studies electro-acoustic music with Professor Joseph Koykkar and Daniel Grabois. She received her Master of Music in Composition from Shanghai Conservatory of music where studied composition with Guang Zhao. She is the winner of Mullen Sacred Music Prize and Mead Witter School of Music Concerto Competition. She has won awards at 1st eARTS Digital Audio China Competition and the 4th Chinese National Music Exhibition and Performance. She was a residency composer of Atlantic Center of the Arts in 2018. Her music was performed in SEAMUS 2021 digital conference, Chicago Composers Consortium Electro-Acoustic Concert, Atlantic Center of the Arts, Glasow UK, Ithaca (NY), June in Buffalo (NY), CCE concert at UW–Madison, and Beijing Modern Music Festival.

The award recognizes Wang’s writing of advanced and visionary works that employ concepts of color, architecture, and timbre in a way that is fresh and exciting.

Magdalena Sas

Recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and Paul Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Fellowship, Magdalena is a graduate of music conservatories in Poland, Belgium, and Austria. Since 2018 she is a doctoral student in Cello Performance at UW–Madison. Magdalena performs across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and appeared in renowned concert halls such as Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, BOZAR in Brussels, Witold Lutoslawski Studio Warsaw, NCPA in Mumbai. In 2020-21, she was the Director of Program Development and Global Outreach at the International Cello Institute (ICI) in Northfield, MN, and a member of the C’ELLE team, a new initiative focused on supporting and promoting women cellists. Magdalena is also a founder of the Third Coast Chamber Collective, a group focused on promoting the transformative power of chamber music through educational, collaborative and commissioning outreach projects. Currently, Magdalena serves as an Adjunct Professor of Music at the Bemidji State University in MN.

Sas will use the award to present chamber music works written by three American female composers, Reena Esmail, Akshaya Avril Tucker and Asha Srinivasan in Madison in spring 2022.

Praveen Maripelly

Praveen Maripelly, born in 1986 in Vellulla, India, is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in 4D at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Praveen earned his Master’s degree in Visual Arts (Printmaking) from the Faculty of Fine Arts of M.S University of Baroda, India in 2009. Praveen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (Painting) obtained from P. S. Telugu University in Hyderabad, India in 2007. He also received aYoga Teacher training Certificate by Yoganiketan, Vadodara, India (2010-11). Praveen’s artworks have been widely exhibited in lndia and internationally, particularly in Kunst Nacht-2019 (Kempten, Germany), Städtische Kunstsammlung Zwickau Max-Pechstein-Museum-2015(Zwickau, Germany); IPCNY-2011 (New York, USA). Praveen is the recipient of numerous grants, scholarships and awards including Inlaks Fine Art Award (2012), National Academy Award (2009), H. K. Kejriwal Young Artist Award (2010), 8th Bharat Bhavan Biennale Award (2008), Lalit Kala Akademy Grant for his solo exhibition, HRD Scholarship by Ministry of Culture (2009-2011), and KrishnaKriti Foundation Scholarship (2006-2009). Praveen’s works are held in prominent public collections such as G3 Collections (USA)and Waswo X Waswo print collection (India).

Maripelly will use the award to build a movable representational space of Prayog, an experiment in rural-global connection, at Art Lofts. Prayog is a Hindi word that means “experiment.” His abandoned ancestral home has been reconceptualized as a prayog and an interdisciplinary place for community that aims to blur and reconfigure both social engagement in the rural world, and rural and global cultures.

Molly Mattaini

Molly Mattaini (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies with a Specialization in Theatre for Youth and a doctoral minor in Special Education. She began her program of study at UW as a master’s student in the fall of 2016. She received her undergraduate degree in Theatre from Loyola University-Chicago. She studies Ability-Inclusive Sensory Theatre, a genre within Theatre for Young Audiences which creates theatrical experiences for neurodiverse young people, particularly young people on the autism spectrum. She works with Prairie Music and Arts, Pink Umbrella Theatre, and Children’s Theatre of Madison as a Teaching Artist. She was named the 2019 Winifred Ward Scholar by the American Alliance forTheatre and Education, and has been published in Youth Theatre Journal and has upcoming publications in The Routledge Companion to Drama in Education and The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Young People.

Mattaini received the award as part of a group including Katherine E. Norman and Kailea Saplan. It will be used to develop evidence-based recommendations that support Teaching Artists’ ongoing development of anti-racist theatre education which uplifts diverse young artists and strengthens arts programming.

Lindsey Meekhof

Lindsey Meekhof began studying for her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Wisconsin in vocal performance in 2019. She earned a B.M. from the University of Michigan and an M.M. from Texas Tech. Recent performances in the 2020-2021 season include, I Wish It So: Marc Blitzstein – The Man and His Music and What’s Past is Prologue: The Unfinished American Conversation with UW Opera. In the 2019 season, Lindsey performed Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with UW Opera and Maddalena in Rigoletto with the South Bend Lyric Opera. In the upcoming season, Lindsey will perform the role of Edka in Two Remain (Out of Darkness), and Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with UW Opera. In addition to performing, Lindsey has taught as an adjunct professor of voice at Saint Mary’s College and Indiana University South Bend. In 2021, Lindsey was awarded the Campus-Wide Teaching Assistant Award for Continuity of Instruction.

Meekhof will use the award to address the problematic ways in which the operatic character Don Giovanni is often portrayed and offer a staging to acknowledge the “Me Too” movement and its potential impact on future productions.

Lianne Milton

Lianne Milton is a MFA Candidate in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She began her program of study in Fall 2019. Her practice-led research explores the complexities of the human condition, in particular, the maternal. It is concerned with interconnecting themes of history, identity, and transgenerational memory at the intersection of feminism, public health, and social justice. Her approach is informed by her experience as a journalist, social documentary photographer, and mother. Prior to grad school, Lianne lived and worked in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where her photographic coverage for The Washington Post brought international attention to the Zika crisis. Her awards include the International Women’s Media Foundation fellowship, Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting grant, Sony Global Imaging Ambassador program, and Yves Rocher Foundation Environmental Photography Award. Lianne organized and taught free documentary photography workshops in Rio de Janeiro for women photographers for two years as well as workshops for women photographers to provide support with resources and community in San Francisco.

Milton will use the award for an exhibition which explores reconstructed autobiographical narratives about her family history, transgenerational memory, and the Chinese diaspora.

Katherine E. Norman

Katherine (she/her) is a white American Midwesterner, and is currently a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At the UW, her research is distributed across the Educational Neuroscience Lab and the Community Arts Collaboratory, where she focuses on what and how people learn through pretend play and arts practices. She holds an MS in Educational Psychology and an MA in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies with a focus in Theatre for Youth from the UW–Madison, and a BFA in Acting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Katherine also maintains professional practices as an actor (EMC) and teaching artist. Favorite credits include work with Montana Shakespeare in the Schools, Interlochen Arts Camp, Whoopensocker, Children’s Theatre of Madison, the Oakhill Prison Humanities Project, Maher Ashram, the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam, Door Shakespeare, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Double Edge Theatre, Adishakti Theatre/Dash Arts, Missoula Children’s Theatre, and more.

Norman received the award as part of a group including Molly Mattaini and Kailea Saplan. It will be used to develop evidence-based recommendations that support Teaching Artists’ ongoing development of anti-racist theatre education which uplifts diverse young artists and strengthens arts programming.

Henry Obeng

Henry Obeng is a Ghanaian born artist who received a BA in Fine Art from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Henry’s passion for Hand Papermaking led him to do his graduate work in Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Making use of hand papermaking and photographic processes, his graduate work has explored ideas informed by the natural world and his observations and experiences as an international person moving between cultures. The first iteration of Henry Obeng’s thesis, titled The Trail, exhibited in the SoHE Design Gallery in March 2020, explored his experience of being an international student during the covid lockdown. Henry was invited to join the diversity committee for the North American Hand Papermaking Association. He is currently a research assistant to Professor Mary Hark in Design Studies. Also, Henry was invited to apply for inclusion in the Hand Papermaking Magazine’s 14th portfolio of handmade paper, a highly regarded, international, bi-annual portfolio showcasing some of the best work in hand papermaking by artists.

Obeng will use the award to support The Trail. In this project, recycled Wisconsin Badger t-shirts are used as paper substrates, which are accompanied by photographic images of foreign botanical specimens.

Kailea Saplan

Kailea Saplan (she/they) is a third generation Filipina-American from the island of Hawai’i. They are a Ph.D. student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a research assistant in the UW Community Arts Collaboratory. Their research sits at the intersection of arts learning, educational justice, and assessment. Kailea began her Ph.D. program in the fall of 2019; she holds an M.S. in Education from UW–Madison (completed Spring 2018), and B.A. degrees in Theatre and Philosophy (completed Spring 2016) from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. Outside of research, Kailea has worked as a teaching artist for Whoopensocker, Madison Public Library, and Children’s Theatre of Madison, and was recently hired to revamp study guides for Theatre Espresso in Boston, MA, after presenting work at the American Alliance for Theatre Education annual meeting this summer. Additionally, she volunteers on the boards of Wingra School, Children’s Theatre of Madison, and Music Theatre of Madison.

Saplan received the award as part of a group including Molly Mattaini and Katherine E. Norman. It will be used to develop evidence-based recommendations that support Teaching Artists’ ongoing development of anti-racist theatre education which uplifts diverse young artists and strengthens arts programming.

Derick Wycherly

Derick Wycherly is a Master of Fine Arts candidate in the Printmaking area of the Art Department at UW–Madison. Derick began the MFA program in the Fall of 2019 after relocating from New York City. Derick received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in Film/Animation/Video in 2011. Derick’s Art and research use drawing through pattern design to make multiples and performances that bring people together in consideration of how gift-giving can be the connective tissue between one another and the land base they occupy. Derick received a fellowship to support his studies at UW–Madison as an Education Graduate Research Scholar in 2019 and 2021. Derick’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in Canada, France, and Japan. Derick’s fine art prints can be found in the collections of Kent State University and the University of Indiana–Bloomington Print Archives.

The award will support Wycherly’s M.F.A. thesis exhibition in spring 2022, which centers the Indigenous methodology of gift-giving.

The Kiekhofer Award, which honors an assistant or associate professor in the College of Letters & Science, was established as the UW’s first teaching award shortly after legendary economics professor William “Wild Bill” Kiekhofer’s death in 1951.

Joshua Calhoun

Joshua Calhoun is an Associate Professor of English at UW–Madison who specializes in Shakespeare, 16th- and 17th-century poetry, and the history of media. As a Faculty Affiliate at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, he also teaches courses in the environmental humanities. In his teaching and research, he gets to explore three things he loves (and thinks everyone else should love, too): Shakespeare, old books, and nature. His work has appeared in Adirondack Life, Environmental Philosophy, Outside Magazine, PMLA, and Shakespeare Studies, and he recently published The Nature of the Page: Poetry, Papermaking, and Ecology in Renaissance England (UPenn Press, 2020).

Established by former UW–Madison chancellor Edwin Young in 1973, the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award honors six faculty members for their excellence in teaching.

Martha Fischer

Martha Fischer is Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has recorded extensively as a collaborative pianist on the Naxos and Summit labels to critical acclaim. A singer as well as pianist, Fischer has performed unique recitals of art song in which she accompanies herself. With her husband, Bill Lutes, she founded Schubert ensembles in Boston and Washington, D.C. Their interpretation of Schubert’s “Fantasie in F minor” was described by the Washington Post as “an energetic performance bursting with heartfelt intensity.” A dedicated teacher, Ms. Fischer has presented papers and served on national panels devoted to the pedagogy of collaborative piano. She also served as Artistic and Music Director of Opera for the Young and on the faculty of the Interlochen Arts Camp. A native of Plymouth, Michigan, Fischer holds degrees in piano from Oberlin College and the New England Conservatory of Music.

The Vilas Associates Competition recognizes new and on-going research of the highest quality and significance. Recipients are chosen competitively by the divisional Research Committees on the basis of a detailed proposal. Winners receive up to two-ninths of research salary support (including the associated fringe costs) for both summers 2022 and 2023, as well as a $12,500 flexible research fund in each of the two fiscal years.

Mark Hetzler

Born in Sarasota, Florida in 1968, Mark Hetzler began playing his father’s trombone at the age of twelve. He went on to receive a B.M. from Boston University and an M.M. from the New England Conservatory of Music. Mark was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and completed a three-year fellowship with the New World Symphony, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.

As a member of the Empire Brass Quintet from 1996-2012, Mark performed in recital and as a soloist with symphony orchestras in Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Venezuela, Brazil, Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Austria, Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, Bermuda, St. Bartholomew and across the United States. He appeared with the group on live television and radio broadcasts in Asia and the United States, as well as Empire Brass recordings on the Telarc label.

Mark has released twelve solo recordings on the Summit Records label with programming that features music in a wide variety of genres. In addition to recording and performing, Mark is active as a composer, orchestrator and arranger, fusing classical styles with many non-classical influences. He has composed a trombone concerto (Three Views of Infinity) and numerous works in solo, chamber and large ensemble settings, including wind ensemble, orchestra, big band, brass quintet and jazz/rock combos. He has also worked with composers in some of the top new music research studios around the world, leading to featured performances at the New York ElectroAcoustic Music Festival, the Florida ElectroAcoustic Music Festival and the Society for ElectroAcoustic Music Conference (SEAMUS).

His most recent recording Don’t Look Down (2020), which he co-produced with UW-Madison colleagues Tom Curry and Anthony Di Sanza, features a concert-length original composition that explores the impact of social media and technology on society. Mark can also be heard performing his own music on an electric trombone in the adventurous new music group Mr. Chair. This versatile quartet released their debut recording Nebulebula (2019) as a digital download, a double CD and a triple vinyl.

Former Principal Trombone of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Mark has performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops and the Florida Orchestra. He is the Professor of Trombone at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a member of the Wisconsin Brass Quintet. Mark is a Getzen Performing Artist who plays the 4147-IB Custom Reserve tenor trombone.

This award is comparable in competitiveness to the Romnes Faculty Fellowships and the WARF Professorships but is intended to recognize and support mid-career faculty, seven to twenty years past their first promotion to a tenured position. The Mid-Career award was created to provide needed support and encouragement to faculty at a critical stage of their careers. The Kellett Mid-Career awards are made possible by the impressive research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff.

Aparna Dharwadker

Aparna Dharwadker is Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research interests include colonial and postcolonial studies, comparative modern drama, modern Indian theatre, contemporary world theatre, postcolonial modernisms, and the global South Asian diaspora. She is the author of A Poetics of Modernity: Indian Theatre Theory, 1850 to the Present (2019) and Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India Since 1947 (2005), both winners of the prestigious Joe A. Calloway Prize for Best Book in Drama and Theatre.

Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray is the Hamel Family Distinguished Chair in Communication Arts, and Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, at University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He was born in Toronto, Canada then grew up there; Surrey, England; Perth, Australia; Singapore; Hong Kong; and Vancouver, Canada. He did his BA in English at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he fell in love with studying texts and textuality. But he was more interested in the socio-cultural roles of texts, and with their political edge, which resulted in him specializing in postcolonial and Commonwealth literatures for his first MA at University of Leeds, UK. There, his appetite for studying texts in their cultural, political contexts was whet, but a yearning to examine texts with larger audiences and cultural footprints led to a second MA at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. I stayed at Goldsmiths for my Ph.D., writing about parody and satire on television.

Since then, he worked at University of California, Berkeley (2003-2005), Fordham University in New York City (2005-2009), and he’s been at University of Wisconsin–Madison since 2009. He’s still interested in textuality, but in a “lived” textuality, in how texts interact with audiences. He has written on intertextuality and paratextuality, parody and satire, television’s place in culture and society, authorship, global media reception and distribution (via piracy especially), and all sorts of audiences, whether fans or haters and dislikers. That said, his intellectual curiosity ranges far and wide, and he’s enjoyed editing and other academic service roles when they readily construct excuses to read more broadly.

The H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, funded by WARF in recognition of the leadership of the late WARF Trustee President H. I. Romnes, is designed to bridge the gap between the Research Committee’s initial research support for new faculty and the Mid-Career Award for Faculty Research. This award is intended to recognize and support faculty up to SIX years past their first promotion to a tenured position. The H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship awards are made possible by the impressive research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff.

Ramzi Fawaz

Ramzi Fawaz is associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he teaches in the fields of queer and feminist theory, American cultural studies, and contemporary literature. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies at George Washington University. His first book The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics (NYU Press, 2016) was awarded the ASAP Book Prize of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present. His writing has been published in numerous academic journals including American Literature, Callaloo, GLQ, Feminist Studies and ASAP/Journal. He recently co-edited a special issue of American Literature with Darieck Scott titled “Queer About Comics,” (June 2018), and is currently co-editing Keywords for Comics Studies with Deborah Whaley and Shelley Streeby, which if forthcoming from NYU Press.

Darcy Padilla

Darcy Padilla is a documentary photographer and photojournlaist focusing on long-term projects about struggle and the trans-generational effects. Padilla’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Open Society Institute Individual Fellowship, Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, Alexia Foundation Grant, Getty Images Grant, International Photo-reporter Grant, Canon Female Photojournalist Award, three World Press Photo Awards (first recipient for Long-term Projects, and a W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography.

Published and exhibited internationally, Padilla was commissioned for a year to photograph the 2016 election for Le Monde and had a solo exhibition of her ongoing project on the Pine Ridge Reservation at the 2017 Visa pour l’image, International Festival of Photojournalism in France. She was a judge on the second season of Sky Arts’ Master of Photography, a television program simulcast to Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

She has given artist talks at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica in Barcelona, DOK-Festival (Norway), and Lumix Festival (Germany). Participating in panels at London Photo (United Kingdom) and Milano Photo Week (Italy). Lecturing at Stanford University, Syracuse’s Newhouse School, UC Berkeley, and leading workshops at Rencontres d’Arles (France).

Padilla’s recent book Family Love published in France by Editions de La Martinière, follows a family for 21-years—an intimate story of poverty, AIDS, and social issues. She holds a BA in Journalism from San Francisco State University and a MFA in Art Studio from the University of California, Davis. Padilla is a member photographer of Agence VU’ in Paris.

Catalina Toma

Professor of Communication Science Catalina Toma’s research examines the effect of communication technologies on relational communication, focusing on areas like impression management, impression formation, and deception and trust. Her recent projects include deception in online dating profiles, assessing the trustworthiness of online self-presenters, and the psychological benefits of social networking websites.

Originally from Romania, Catalina Toma came to the United States after receiving a fellowship to attend the University of Bridgeport, a liberal arts college in Connecticut. There she studied mass communication, psychology, and literature & civilization before attending Cornell University for her graduate work, where she completed her M.S. in 2006 and her PhD in 2010.

Lori Lopez

Dr. Lori Lopez’s research examines the way that minority groups such as women, people of color, and queer communities use media in the fight for social justice. She is interested in struggles to improve the representation of disenfranchised groups within mainstream media, as well as the different ways that grassroots/activist media, digital media, and consumer culture all can play a role in transforming identities and communities. Her first book Asian American Media Activism: Fighting for Cultural Citizenship (2016, NYU Press) examines the efforts of Asian Americans to impact the way that their community has been represented in mainstream media. Using ethnography, interviews, and archival research, it examines the work of traditional activists who have worked since the 1960s to protest and reform imagery, but also contextualizes the kinds of contemporary media activism undertaken by advertising agencies, fans, YouTube artists, and bloggers. Her newest book Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora examines Hmong Americans and the culturally specific ways that they have created a media ecology rooted in micro media outlets that are owned and operated by only one or two individuals.

Outside of the Communication Arts department, Dr. Lopez is the Director of the Asian American Studies Program, where she is affiliate faculty. She is also affiliate faculty in the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies Program and the Gender and Women’s Studies department.  Since 2015, she has organized a local Asian American film festival called Madison’s Asian American Media Spotlight. She is the founder of the national Race and Media Conference, which was first held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014. She is also on the advisory board of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies, a national collective of scholars of color supporting cutting edge research that investigates how race and inequality structurally organize digital architectures, identities, communities, cultural practices, and power relations.

As a dedicated scholar-activist, Dr. Lopez has long been focused on centering the voices of disenfranchised communities, as well as fostering collaborations between community organizations and academics. She is a board member at Freedom, Inc. in Madison, WI and supports their movement for Black and Southeast Asian liberation.

The WARF Named Professorship provides recognition for distinguished research contributions of the UW–Madison faculty. The awards are intended to honor those faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also as a result of their teaching and service activities. The WARF Named Professorship awards are made possible by the impressive research efforts of UW–Madison faculty and staff.

Lisa Gralnick

Lisa Gralnick was born in New York in 1956, and received an MFA degree in Metalsmithing from SUNY at New Paltz in 1980 under Professors Kurt Matzdorf and Robert Ebendorf. Her father was a dentist and her mother was a nurse, and, although there were no artists in the family, she was exposed to art at a very young age and attributes her analytical mind and precise mechanical skills to her father. As a young girl, she played the violin, and thought perhaps that she would pursue a career in music but unexpectedly decided to major in art in college after taking a metals class at a local art center while still in high school. After completing her graduate degree, she taught at Kent State University and then Nova Scotia College of Art and Design before settling in New York City in 1982 to pursue her career as an artist full-time. In 1991, she accepted a position as Head of the Jewelry and Metals program at Parsons School of Design, a position she held until 2001 when she moved to Madison, Wisconsin to begin a position at the university. She is currently Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Gralnick has had a career as an artist that has spanned more than three decades, and she has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships for her work. These include four fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, a Wisconsin Arts Board Grant, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has also  been awarded prestigious research grants from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including the Vilas Associates Award and the Kellett Mid-Career Award. Additionally, she recently completed an oral history for the Archives of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution.

Gralnick’s  works have been exhibited both nationally and internationally in such places as New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Munich, Amsterdam, Oslo,  Australia,  Spain,  Korea, and the Czech Republic. Her artworks have been acquired by distinguished museums throughout the United States and abroad. These include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian , and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Her works are also included in the collections of the Chazen Museum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Mint Museum, the Racine Art Museum and the Arkansas Art Center.

Gralnick recently completed a seven year project in three parts, titled The Gold Standard, which was exhibited as a solo exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum and was accompanied by an 82 page catalog. Other recent exhibitions include the Tool at Hand at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Schmuck 2012 at the Handwerkmesse in Munich and Ashbutan as part of the World Craft Conference in New Delhi, India.

Jennifer Angus

Jennifer Angus is a professor in Design Studies. Creating some of the most provocative work in an art museum setting, Angus’ medium is insects. Jennifer has exhibited her work internationally including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Spain. She has received awards from theCanada Council, Ontario Arts Council and the University of Wisconsin. In 2019she received the inaugural Forward Art Prize for outstanding women artists of Wisconsin. Angus’ exhibition In the Midnight Garden, was part of Wonder, the inaugural exhibition that reopened the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. She was one of nine artists selected by curator Nicholas Bell for this landmark exhibition. Reviews of Angus’ work have appeared in Art Daily, the New York Times, Art Papers, NY Arts Magazine, Architectural Digest, ArtNews and many others. In 2013, Albert Whitman and Company, Chicago, published her first novel, In Search of Goliathus Hercules to positive reviews. Publisher’s Weekly described it as “Roald Dahl meets Franz Kafka in this charming and unpredictable debut novel.”

Angus will use the award to mount a site specific installation from March 26 – June 19, 2022 at the Wyoming Valley School Cultural Arts Center, located south of the town of Spring Green. The project will be the first site specific installation the center has hosted.

Adriana Barrios

Adriana Barrios is a queer, biracial, Latina artist who grew up on the coastal borderlands of Southern California. Barrios received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio and is a Master of Fine Arts Graduate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Barrios currently holds the position of Engagement Manager for Exhibitions and Programs at the Center for Design and Material Culture in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Barrios has exhibited her artwork internationally in Italy and Mexico and nationally in New York, New Mexico, and Texas. Barrios has received awards for her artwork including the 2020 Women Artist Forward Fund and the Nō Studios Artist Grant. Barrios uses printmaking, paper making, video, and installation as a way to record and respond to the environmental changes happening along the California Coastline due to human activity and climate change.

Barrios will use the award to to support the making of new artworks for a solo exhibition at Gallery Truax located at Madison Area Technical College from March 7 – April 7, 2022. The exhibition is an immersive installation comprised of prints, 150 cast paper cinder blocks, live feed video projections, and glass enamel prints.

Emily Kammerud

Emily Kammerud enjoys exploring various media to create figure studies and still lifes. You won’t find her drawing inspiration from bowls of fruit or live models, however—her muses reside in the morgue where she works for the Department of Pathology at the UW’s School of Medicine and Public Health. Originally pursuing the sciences, Emily obtained her Bachelor of Science in Commercial Art with an emphasis in Fine Art. She’s returned to the science scene while continuing to foster her creative roots as a part-time freelance artist and former gallery assistant at Ephraim Pottery. Working as a Medical Program Assistant, Emily enjoys the rare opportunity to weigh the creative with the morose, a subject often met with intense aversion.

Kammerud will use the award to support It’s Okay to Look. The project explores death through both an artistic and educational means, offering the viewer an aesthetic response to the macabre showcased through an online platform, making the subject of death more palatable and encouraging of curiosity, thus letting viewers know, it is indeed, okay to look.

Baron Kelly

See biography in “Joyce J. and Gerald A. Bartell Award in the Arts” panel.

Baron Kelly

Dr. Kelly is a four-time Fulbright Scholar and Professor of Theatre in the Theatre and Drama Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has a joint appointment with the Odyssey Project in the Department of Continuing Studies. His teaching of acting has led him to teaching and lecturing residencies in more than a dozen countries on five continents and in twenty American states. Baron has performed internationally for the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain; Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canada; National Theatre of Norway; Yermelova Theatre, Moscow, Russia; Constans Theatre, Athens, Greece, Academy Theatre Dublin; Edinburgh Theatre Festival; Bargello, Florence, Italy; among others. Broadway credits include Salome and Electra. Numerous classical and contemporary roles for over 30 of America’s leading regional theatres, including the Oregon, Utah, Dallas Fort Worth, and California Shakespeare Festivals; Yale Repertory; The Guthrie; Old Globe San Diego; Mark Taper Forum, and South Coast Rep. He is the author of the book An Actor’s Task: Engaging the Senses (Hackett Publishing).

Dr. Kelly will use the award to direct a production of August Wilson’s Fences as part of the Department of Theatre and Drama’s 2022-23 season, and for symposia highlighting the historical achievements and contemporary relevance of Black Theatre artists and Black Theatre institutions.

Emily Arthur

Emily Arthur (Cherokee and European descent) is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and serves as area chair of printmaking within the Art Department. Arthur received an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and has served as a Fellow at the Barnes Foundation for Advanced Theoretical and Critical Research, Pennsylvania. Additional education includes the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Georgia. Arthur is awarded to the Notable Women in the Arts, National Museum of Women in the Arts and has been nominated for a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Saint Louis Art Museum, MO; Tweed Art Museum, Duluth, MN; Denver Art Museum, Denver CO; Autry National Center of the American West, Los Angeles, CA; and the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM.

Arthur will use the award to support travel, research, and the creation of original, contemporary prints to translate scientific findings in collaboration with the Moore Zoology Lab, which has monitored bird species of Mexico for 100 years.

Marianne Fairbanks

Marianne Fairbanks is a visual artist, designer, and associate Professor of Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her work spans the fields of art, design, and social practice, seeking to chart new material and conceptual territories, to innovate solution-based design, and to foster fresh modes of cultural production. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BFA from the University of Michigan. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in venues including The Museum of Art and Design, NY, USA, Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen Denmark, RAM Gallery, Oslo, Norway and The Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Fairbanks will use the award to expand her research to create textiles that can be decorative and sculptural, works that define spaces and stand on their own. This research will focus on learning methods of basketry, structural systems employed in nomadic portable architectures, and contemporary membrane architecture.

Beth Nguyen

Beth (Bich Minh) Nguyen is the author of the memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, the novel Short Girls, the novel Pioneer Girl, and the forthcoming essay collection, Owner of a Lonely Heart. She has received an American Book Award and a PEN/Jerard Award and her work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Time Magazine, The New York Times, and Best American Essays. Her work has also been featured in numerous university and community reads programs, and is taught in high school and college classes around the country. Nguyen is a professor in the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The award supports Nguyen’s next novel, Layaway. It depicts refugee and Southeast Asian American experiences through often-hidden financial interactions, and explores the intersections of race, class, and ideas about credit, debt, and capitalist models of work and earning.