Faculty & Staff

MFA, Radford University
BFA, Maryland Institute, College of Art
B.A., Loyola University Maryland

Professor Mary Beth Akre is an artist whose work ranges from plein air landscapes to portraits in social justice. Recent work was selected into national and regional exhibitions and can be found in numerous public and private collections.

Ph.D., Old Dominion Univeristy
M.E., University of South Carolina
MME, University of South Carolina

M.A., The University of Chicago
B.A., Loyola University Maryland

Ph.D., Tufts University
M.A., Tufts University
B.A., Wellesley College

Dr. Natka Bianchini is a professional director and theatre historian. She has published several books and articles on 20th century American theatre and has directed more than 40 productions on the university, local, and regional level. An expert in queer theatre and film, Dr. Bianchini currently serves as Managing Director of Iron Crow Theatre, Baltimore's only award-winning and professional queer theatre.

Ph.D., The University of Chicago

Dr. Kerry Boeye researches primarily artworks from France and England from the 11th through 13th centuries. He also publishes on pedagogy, and teaches a wide range of courses.

Teaching Areas: Medieval art, Islamic art, African-American art, museum studies, art and science

Research Interests: English and French manuscripts from circa 1100-1300, early medieval seal matrices, aesthetics, semiotics

M.A., University of Kansas

Professor Julia Brandeberry has worked in the area as an actor, teacher, and director for the last 15 years. Her work as an actor includes: Center Stage: As You Like It (Le Beau/Audrey), Pride and Prejudice (Mrs. Gardiner); Everyman Theatre: Blithe Spirit (Edith), The Beaux Stratagem (The Country Girl/The Fat Lady), Our Town (Mrs. Soames); Shakespeare Theatre Company: Henry IV Part I and II (Lady Northumberland/Ensemble); Taffety Punk: Phaeton (Clymene), Pericles (Dionyza), Romeo and Juliet (Paris); Profile Theatre: A Lesson From Aloes (Gladys); International Theatre/Vienna: Children of Lesser God (Sarah). Film/TV: Leverage (TNT); Unsolved Mysteries (Fox TV); Anoosh of the Airways (Front Pocket Films). Her work as a fight choreographer includes: Single Carrot: Peter Pan, Year of the Rooster, and A Beginner's Guide to Deicide; Loyola University Maryland: Macbeth, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Baal, The Odyssey, Oedipus, and Peter Pan; assistant fight choreographer at Everyman Theatre: The Beaux Stratagem. Some of her directing credits include Loyola University Maryland: The Heidi Chronicles, and Carver Center for Arts and Technology: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Line, and Romeo and Juliet. Professor Brandeberry has worked as a theatre instructor at Loyola University Maryland, University of Baltimore, and Carver Center for Arts and Technology.

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
B.A., Western Connecticut State University

Professor Heather Braxton is a Baltimore-based artist, teacher, and activist. She is a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor of Photography at Loyola University Maryland. She earned her Bachelor of Art in Photography, Graphic Design, and Fine Arts from Western Connecticut State University. In 2016, she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Photographic and Electronic Media from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work largely focuses on social, political, and/or personal boundaries, and takes form in photography, video, text, printmaking, book, and installation. Professor Braxton has worked with groups advocating equity, visibility, and equality in the arts over the past 8 years.

Ph.D., Bowling Green State University
MFA, University of Texas, Austin

Teaching Areas: Acting, directing, new works creation
Research Interests: Solo performance, dramatic adaptation

B.S., University of Phoenix

Professor Barry Caudill is a 23-year veteran of the computer and video gaming industry, starting as a tester at the original Microprose studio in Hunt Valley, MD and culminating as Director of Gameplay Development at Firaxis Games. Throughout that time, he managed numerous departments including audio, testing, writing, game design, and production. He is also a lifetime recording and performing musician in jazz, pop, rock and funk. He is currently working with Crack the Sky, Technicolor Motor Home, The Speakers Of the House, Honest Lee Soul, and two big bands - The Melting Pot and The Don Arnold Big Band.

MFA, American University

Professor Mandy Cooper is a Baltimore-based interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator. Through varied media from documented performance, ready-mades, drawing, and painting, her work explores how we cope and adapt to the people, ideologies, and cultures from which we emerge, and how we find meaning and healing as we evolve past them. Her projects focus on reframing and reimagining personal history by shifting perspective or transplanting new meaning within existing storylines, or personal artifacts. Professor Cooper's social practice involves projects with individuals or groups with an intimate exchange of stories through word and the study of objects and their meaning.

M.M.,The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University
B.M., The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University

Professor Tsevtanka Dabova is a Russian-born American teacher and pianist. She is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy in MI, USA, and she holds bachelors and masters degrees in Piano Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Professor Dabova is a classically trained pianist with a vision for the "modern"; she seeks ways to incorporate her musical skills and knowledge to relate and explain the world around her.

M.A., University of Baltimore

After earning an undergraduate degree in studio arts and photography, Professor Noelle Dichiera pursued her passion for art, technology, and science through the Master of Arts in Integrated Design program at the University of Baltimore. She has been teaching graphic design, graphic design history, web design, and digital media classes at Loyola University Maryland for over 20 years.

Lic. Phil., Fordham University
M.Ed., Fordham University
M.A., Woodstock College
STM, Woodstock College

M.M., The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
B.A., St. Mary's College of Maryland

A current Environmental Justice Artivist Fellow with Social Art and Culture and the Aspen Institute, Professor Billy Friebele was also a Hamiltonian Artist fellow and one of the first makers-in-residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Professor Friebele has exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Art Museum of the Americas, the Katzen Center for the Arts, and the Kreeger Museum, among other venues nationally and internationally. He earned a B.A. in philosophy from St. Mary's College of Maryland, and an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
B.S., Skidmore College

Professor Isa Gold is a painter and writer currently living and working between Baltimore, MD, and Philadelphia, PA. Professor Gold received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in May 2023. Her work has been exhibited in various national institutions and exhibitions, including the Pew Charitable Trusts lobby (Washington, DC), Hamiltonian Artists gallery (Washington, DC), Julio Fine Arts Gallery (Baltimore, MD), Bry Hall Gallery (Monroe, LA), and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs, NY). Professor Gold is a contributing writer for BmoreArt Magazine, and currently teaches in the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Loyola University Maryland.

M.A., Temple University

M.M., University of Georgia
B.M., University of Georgia

Mr. Ian Hrdlicka is a guitarist who has performed at concerts, festivals and competitions in the U.S and abroad and is noted for his expressivity and ability to connect with an audience. Mr. Hrdlicka makes a point to perform recitals that feature an inclusive range of repertoire from across the globe, featuring genres that extend beyond the typical classical music canon. As an instructor he seeks to develop students as both guitarists and scholars of the guitar, exploring the history and development of the instrument's repertoire in a variety of styles. Mr. Hrdlicka's research interests include guitar pedagogy, guitar history/literature, the works of Toru Takemitsu, folk music, and producing arrangements for the guitar.

Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin

M.M., The San Francisco Conservatory of Music
B.M., The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University

Mr. David LaVorgna has taught at the university level for over 35 years and is an active performer in the Baltimore/D.C. metro area.

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

M.M., The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University
BME, The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

Teaching Areas: Music fundamentals, piano

Ph.D., The Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts
MFA, Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art
BFA, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and University of the Arts

Dr. Christopher Lonegan studied painting, philosophy and art history at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of the Arts, earning a multidisciplinary BFA. He received an MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Critical Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts. His studio work involves narrative images, and he has written and presented papers on the philosophy of art, interdisciplinary curriculum design, and the philosophical history of anatomical Illustration. Dr. Lonegan teaches intertextual studio classes at Loyola University Maryland.

MFA, University of New Mexico

Professor Janet Maher has been a prolific exhibiting artist for more than four decades. Her prints, drawings, artist books, collages, assemblages, digital images and works in clay are in many public and private collections. She is a member of the Artists' Cooperative Gallery of Westerly in Rhode Island, a Signature Member of the National Collage Society, and a member of the South County Art Association, Jamestown Arts Center, Warwick Center for the Arts and College Book Art Association.

MFA, American University
B.A., The George Washington University

Professor Jon Malis is a visual artist and academic with experience in photography, film, and digital media. He currently serves as the Chair of Visual and Performing Arts and is a tenured Professor of Visual Arts at Loyola University Maryland. Professor Malis holds an MFA in Film and Electronic Media from American University and a B.A. in Fine Art from The George Washington University.

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
MAT, Maryland Institute College of Art

Professor Caryn Martin, a Baltimore-based artist and educator, was a 2022 Finalist for the Trawick Contemporary Art Awards. She received MAT and MFA degrees from Maryland Institute College of Art, and has taught color theory, two-dimensional design, and introductory time-based media classes at various institutions. Professor Martin has shown her work at Art on Paper (New York City, NY), the Baltimore Fine Art Print Fair (Baltimore, MD), Catalyst Contemporary, Creative Alliance, Maryland Art Place, St. John's College, Anne Arundel Community College, School 33, Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore, and Gallery B (Bethesda, MD). She has also exhibited work at Sulphur Studios in Georgia, Broward College in Florida, and Marshall University in West Virginia. In recent years, she has participated in residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, VCCA France in Auvillar, and ACI Residency in Italy.

MFA, St. Mary’s College of California

Mr. John McAfee is a dance lighting designer and production manager based in Baltimore. Mr. McAfee received his MFA in Dance Design and Production from St. Mary's College of California in 2019. In addition to teaching at Loyola University Maryland, Mr. McAfee has recently lit Jayne Bernasconi's Air Lines, GRIDLOCK Dance's Veritas, and BlueShift Dance's The Male Gaze and Foodless Food.

B.A., Bard College

Teaching Areas: Video, animation and motion graphics, multimedia storytelling, graphics

Ph.D., Harvard University
M.A., Courtauld Institute
B.A., Harvard University

Dr. Barnaby Nygren teaches a range of courses on the Renaissance, the history of prints, and colonial Latin America. His publications address a similarly wide range of concerns including: scientific perspective, humor, the work of Michelangelo, domestic and monastic decoration in New Spain, and the representation of corn in early sixteenth-century Italian art. He has been published in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, Studies in Iconography, Oxford Art Journal, Artibus et historiae, Word and Image, and other journals and edited volumes.

MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
PBC, Brandeis University
BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art

Originally from Boston, MA, Professor Janet Olney is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, and installation. She explores the contemporary human condition and the impact of technology on our perceptions of reality and physical presence through abstraction and world building.

Professor Olney is the recipient of an Independent Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship, and a Marcella Brenner Grant for Faculty Research. She was a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and the Facebook AIR program. Her recent projects include Night and Day, an installation at VisArts' 355 Pod Space in Rockville, MD, and Rupture, a two-person show at Montgomery College in Silver Spring, MD. Her work was included in Abstraction, a four-person exhibition at C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore. She lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

M.M., The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

Teaching Areas: Guitar studies, music history, music theory

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

MFA, University of Maryland
B.A., Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Teaching Areas: Scenic design, theatre design, computer rendering for theatre design, costume design

DMA, University of South Carolina
M.M., The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
B.M., Belmont University

Teaching Areas: Choral music, conducting methods, orchestration and arranging
Research Interests: Anglican revival period, Baroque oratorio

DMA, The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University
M.M., The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University
B.M., Lipscomb University

Dr. Michael Rickelton is a composer of “extremely attractive and thoughtfully shaped” (Music Web International) music that “seizes the ear” (Gramophone). The inspiration for his work encompasses poetry, prose, visual arts, and diverse musical influences from Hässler to Nine Inch Nails. Recordings of Dr. Rickelton’s music have been released by Albany, Delos, and Petrichor Records. He performs regularly as a classical vocalist with organizations in Baltimore and the Washington, D.C., metro area, and has recorded as an ensemble singer and soloist with Naxos, Decca, and Gothic Records. As a dedicated educator, Dr. Rickelton has taught preK-8th grade music, maintains a large private studio, and has served on the music faculties of The Peabody Conservatory, The Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University, Towson University, and Loyola University Maryland. Dr. Rickelton also co-runs Go Compose North America, an organization offering workshops and opportunities for young and beginning composers. He also holds the position of Assistant Conductor for the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. Dr. Rickelton makes his home in Baltimore with his wife and two sons, where he can also be found coaching youth baseball.

M.A., University of Maryland, College Park
B.A., Brandeis University

Megan Rook-Koepsel joined the Julio Fine Arts Gallery in August 2018 as Gallery Director. She has curated and organized numerous exhibitions throughout the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore region. Mrs. Rook-Koepsel formerly served as graduate coordinator for the Stamp Gallery and Contemporary Art Purchasing Program at the University of Maryland College Park, and more recently as exhibitions manager at Arlington Arts Center. Mrs. Rook-Koepsel holds a B.A. in art history from Brandeis University and an M.A. in art history with a focus on contemporary art and theory from the University of Maryland, College Park.

M.A., University of Maryland, College Park
Megan Rook-Koepsel joined the Julio Fine Arts Gallery in August 2018 as Gallery Director. She has curated and organized numerous exhibitions throughout the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore region. Rook-Koepsel formerly served as graduate coordinator for the Stamp Gallery and Contemporary Art Purchasing Program at the University of Maryland College Park, and more recently as exhibitions manager at Arlington Arts Center. Rook-Koepsel holds a B.A. in art history from Brandeis University and an M.A. in art history with a focus on Contemporary Art and Theory from the University of Maryland, College Park.

MFA, Indiana University
B.S., Washington University in St. Louis

Professor Dan Schlapbach received his MFA from Indiana University. He is a Professor of Visual Arts at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches in the Photography Program. Professor Schlapbach's research interests include the history of photography, alternative photographic processes such as stereo photography and wet-plate collodion, and digital imaging. His work has been exhibited locally, regionally, and nationally. He received an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2008 and 2011.

M.S., Towson University
B.S., Towson University

Mr. Mark St. Pierre has been a music educator for the past 34 years and a freelance percussionist for 39 years. He is an accomplished musician having played in many local groups covering many styles including symphonic, pop, rock, funk, jazz, and Latin. Mr. St. Pierre has shared the stage with many notable musicians, including Dennis Chambers, Gary Granger, and Scott Ambush, and is a drum set/hand drums clinician. Mr. St. Pierre is currently the director of music ensembles at Loch Raven Technical Academy and Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Combo at Loyola University Maryland.

Ph.D., Stanford University

Teaching Areas: Greek and Roman art and architecture
Research Interests: Athenian history, Thucydides

DMA, University of Maryland

Dr. Anthony D. Villa is an active jazz musician performing regularly with his trio, the Anthony Villa Trio, and as the pianist with the Melting Pot Big Band, the Blue Big Band, and the Cold Spring Jazz Quartet. The Washington Post has praised his work as "the rare piece that sounds fresh while hinting at the near past" and as "deserv[ing] a lasting place in the musical firmament".

Website: www.arditomusic.com

DMA, University of Maryland
M.M., Cleveland Institute of Music
B.M., Colburn Conservatory of Music

Teaching Areas: Piano, music fundamentals