Photography (Major)

Faculty + Staff

Our faculty are leading artists and mentors. Get to know us.

MICA photography faculty bring diverse interests and creative focus to the classroom through a range of methodologies and technical processes. Our faculty are working artists, exhibiting broadly and are the recipients of numerous prestigious grants and fellowships.  We value mentorship and build close relationships with our students. Please explore below to learn more. 

 

Photography Faculty

Full-time faculty with locus in the Photography Department.

Jay Gould

Jay Gould (he/him) is the chair of the Photography Department. His research conceptually integrates scientific topics into tactile photographic works that ponder provocative curiosities, paradoxes and the hidden world beyond our given senses. By combining modern and historic photographic processes with sculpture, his one-of-a-kind works invite his audience on a journey through space, time and a revisioning of what lies before our eyes. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including a recent solo exhibition at the Walters Museum of Art in Baltimore. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Gould received his B.F.A. in photography from the University of Wisconsin and his M.F.A. from the Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia. His work, which integrates scientific topics into photographic projects, has won numerous national awards, such as the Berenice Abbott Prize for an emerging photographer, the Jeannie Pierce Award, and First Place at the Newspace Center for Photography’s International Juried Exhibition.

jgould.net

Nate Larson

Nate Larson (he/him) is a contemporary artist and documentarian working with photographic media, artist books and time-based media. His projects have been widely exhibited across the US and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Halsey ICA (2021), Tephra ICA (2019), George Eastman Museum (2019), Filter Space Chicago (2016), Orlando Museum of Art (2013), Blue Sky Center for Photographic Arts (2012), and the Contemporary Arts Center Las Vegas (2011). His artwork is included in the collections of the High Museum Atlanta, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Portland Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago. His collaborative monograph "Geolocation" was published by Flash Powder Projects in 2016. He is a 2023-2024 Rubys Artist Fellow with the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation in Baltimore, and has served as the McCullough Research Fellow at Marietta College, the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visiting Artist Fellow at Duke University, and an artist-in-residence with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Florida, among other honors.

natelarson.com

 

Stuart B. Cooper Endowed Chair in Photography

The Stuart B. Cooper Endowed Chair in Photography is a rotating artist-in-residence, sharing their artistic practices and engaging with students in critical discussions about their emerging practices.

Sara Cwynar

Sara Cwynar (she/her) is interested in the way that images accumulate, endure, and change in value over time. Cwynar was one of the recipients of the 2020 Sobey Art Award, the 2020 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and the 2021 Shpilman Photography Prize. She earned her Bachelor of Design from York University in 2010 and her MFA from Yale University in 2016. In 2014, she was awarded the Printed Matter Emerging Artists Publication Series and published her first monograph, entitled Kitsch Encyclopedia, with Blonde Art Books. A monograph of Cwynar’s work, entitled Glass Life, was published in 2021 by Aperture with the Remai Modern. Cwynar has exhibited at international museums including the ICA Los Angeles, LACMA, Los Angeles; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; The Guggenheim Museum, MoMA PS1, Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; Oakville Galleries, Oakville; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; the Fondazione Prada, Milano; and among others, and international galleries including The Approach, London; Foxy Production, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Cooper Cole, Toronto; M+B Gallery, Los Angeles; and Fluxia Gallery, Milan. Her work is in the permanent collections museums including the Guggenheim Museum (New York), SFMoMA (San Francisco), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas), Minneapolis Insitute of Art (Minneapolis), Milwaukee Art Museum (Milwaukee), and the Museum of Modern Art (New York).

saracwynar.com

Affiliate Faculty

Affiliate Faculty are full-time faculty who teach courses in the Photography Department with locus in other departments at MICA.

Erin Johnson

Erin Johnson’s (she/her) short films and immersive installations interlace documentary, experimental, and narrative filmmaking devices to interrogate notions of collectivity, dissent, and queer identity. In her shape-shifting videos, site-specific performances by artists, biologists, and film extras address ongoing legacies of scientific research and nationalism.

Learn More About Erin Johnson

Kelli Williams

Kelli Williams (she/her) is a visual and community artist. In her personal work she uses experimental animation, photography, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology.

Learn More About Kelli Williams

Part-Time Faculty

Adriana Monsalve

Adriana Monsalve (she/they) is an artist, educator, cultural worker and collaborative publisher working (mostly) in the photobook medium. Along with Caterina Ragg, Monsalve is co-founder of Homie House Press, a radical cooperative platform that challenges the ever-changing forms of storytelling with image and text. Within her solo photographic practice, Monsalve is an archivist and visual communicator who produces in-depth stories on identity through the nuances in between race, gender, and immigrant adjacent experiences.

adrianastories.com

Micah E. Wood '13

Micah E. Wood (he/him) is a Photographer & Musician based out of Baltimore, MD. His portrait photography flows with the vibrancy of the Baltimore music scene. Exploding with color, the work builds a sense of belonging and intimacy to the subject that can only be achieved by a thorough understanding of the specialness and sense of place in Baltimore.

micahewood.com

Chan Chao

Chan Chao (he/him) was born in Kalemyo, Burma. He has published three photography books, “Burma: Something Went Wrong,” “Letter form PLF” and “Echo.” Chao’s Burma portraits were featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial (New York, New York). His photographs has been exhibited at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York, New York, G Fine Art in Washington, DC and Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Chao’s photographs are in the permanent collection of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The National Gallery of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Huston Museum of Fine Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Denver Art Museum, Museum of Photographic Art, Asian Society Museum and LaSalle Bank Photography Collection.

chantchao.com

Zak Arctander

Zak Arctander (he/him) is an American artist who makes pictures and films. His work has been exhibited at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco and Tower B in Downtown Brooklyn. Arctander worked as printer, retoucher, AC and digital tech for the artists Gregory Crewdson and An-My Lê. He has taught at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale School of Art and Williams College.

zakarctander.com

Shannon Perich

Shannon Thomas Perich (she/her) is an associate curator in the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. She is the author of Richard Avedon's The Kennedy's- Portrait of a Family. She teaches the History of Photography at MICA through the Department of History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture.

Smithsonian Profile

Kottie Gaydos '10

Kottie Gaydos (she/her) earned an MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2016 and a BFA with MICA in 2010. She is also the Director of Operations, Curator, and Editor-in-Chief of Special Publications at the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography.

kottiegaydos.org

 

Department Staff

Jefferson Jackson Steele '92

Jefferson Steele (he/him) is the Photography Department Manager, responsible for the department facilities and equipment. Before rejoining MICA, he worked as a freelance photographer in Baltimore for many years, with clients like City Paper, Baltimore Business Journal, Metro Times Detroit, Philadelphia Weekly, and many others.

Kris Lee

Kris Lee (she/her) is the Photography Department Assistant Manager, responsible for the department facilities and equipment. She attended the Community College of Baltimore County and completed her degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

kayellephotography.com

Logan Schoeberlein '18

Logan W.Schoeberlein (he/him) is a Photography Department Assistant, responsible for day to day operations of the facilities. He holds a BFA in Photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has worked as a commercial photographer’s assistant, a custom art framer, and a darkroom manager and instructor for UMBC College Park Art and Learning Resource Center.

cargocollective.com/LoganSchoeberlein

Ashley Reinhardt

Ashley Reinhardt (she/her) is a Photography Department Assistant, responsible for day to day operations of the facilities. She holds an AFA in Photography from the Community College of Baltimore County where she also worked as Assistant Curator. Ashley has also found success in commercial photography working as a second shooter for Mike Oswald.

ashley-paige.weebly.com

 

Emeritus Faculty

Emeritus Faculty are beloved colleagues no longer actively teaching who continue to be involved in and resources for our community.

Regina DeLuise

Regina DeLuise (she/her) is a Guggenheim Fellow and has spent the major part of her career represented by Bonni Benrubi Gallery in NYC. Regina has received Fellowships at the Bogliasco Foundation in Bogliasco, Italy, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, and is the recipient of the 2019 Meredith Moody Residency at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY. Regina retired in 2023.

reginadeluise.com

Alexander Heilner

Alexander Heilner (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist and photographer whose work inhabits both fine art and documentary initiatives as he investigates the relationship between artificial and natural elements within the environment, and within our culture. A winner of the prestigious Baker Artist Prize, Alex has exhibited, screened, and performed his work nationally and internationally, from the walls of MoMA to the catacombs of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. International photography festivals including Pingyao, Sienna, and Daegu have featured his aerial photography and he has been awarded numerous grants and commissions in support of his ongoing environmental projects.

heilner.net

Lynn Silverman

Lynn Silverman (she/her) started teaching at MICA in 1999 and retired in 2020. Having lived and taught photography in three different countries, in 2010, Lynn received a Fulbright Fellowship to the Czech Republic. She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland and serves on the board of Full Bleed, MICA's annual print and online journal.

lynnsilverman.com

Laurie S. Snyder

Laurie Snyder (she/her) started teaching at MICA in 1993 and served as Department Chairperson from 2008 until she retired in 2012. She currently lives in Ithaca, New York.

lauriessnyder.com

Jack Wilgus

Jack Wilgus (he/him) started teaching at MICA in 1968 and served as Department Chairperson for many years until he retired in 2008. He currently lives in Dallas, Texas.

brightbytes.com

In Memoriam

H. Thomas Baird

Tom Baird (he/him) started teaching at MICA in 1974 and served as faculty in the Photography Department until he retired in 2017. He earned a MICA Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Teaching. Tom passed away in 2021.