Sam Van Aken, School of Art
Sam Van Aken, associate professor of studio arts in the School of Art, is the Jack Wolgin Annual Visiting Artist and Lecturer at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 academic years. This endowed visiting artist program brings one of the nation's most influential artists and thinkers to campus to work with Tyler students and present a free public lecture each year.
Boryana Rossa, Department of Film and Media Arts
Boryana Rossa, professor of art video, was selected for the Fall 2024 TTTfellows: Art and Science Residency, receiving $5,000 in support of her work. Rossa worked with Heidi Hehnly-Chang, associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, on the project “Conception, Pregnancy and Care in Biotechnology and Mythology.” TTTfellows is organized by the Department of Audio and Visual Arts of the Ionian University, within the framework of Rewilding Cultures, a project co-financed by the European Union, and hosted in collaboration with the Corfu Central Public Historical Library – Corfu Tech Lab, the Corfu Aquarium and BiHELab.
Lyndsay Michalik Gratch, Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies
Lyndsay Michalik Gratch, associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies and a 2024-25 Syracuse University Art Museum Faculty Fellow, curated the exhibition “Performance, Gesture and Reflection” as part of “Faculty Fellows Curate” at the museum. The exhibition mirrored her course CRS 314, which explores the social, cultural and political dimensions of performance in various forms, including theater, dance, rituals, everyday life and media.
Zeke Leonard, School of Design
Zeke Leonard, associate professor of environmental and interior design, was awarded a 2025-26 Faculty Fellows grant from Syracuse University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC). He has committed to a four-week summer residency in 2025 at SCRC that includes workshops and training sessions on handling special collections materials, teaching students how to research within and across collections, and designing hands-on, individualized, creative and critically-minded assignments with rare materials. He is his long-standing course Sustainable Furniture and Lighting (DES 561), a design and build studio in which students create both a lighting and seating object.
NYSCA Grant Winners
New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) grants have been awarded to two faculty members in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and three arts organizations at Syracuse University. Kathleen Wrinn, assistant professor of musical theater in the Department of Drama, and Soudabeh Moradian, assistant professor of film in the Department of Film and Media Arts, each won $10,000 NYSCA grants for their work. Learn more about their projects and the other winners.
Rochele Royster, Department of Creative Arts Therapy
Rochele Royster, assistant professor of art therapy, initiated “This Woman’s Work,” a groundbreaking group exhibition and workshop series at Syracuse University’s Community Folk Art Center funded by the New York State Council on the Arts. The project celebrates the profound impact of Black women’s community care in Syracuse and Central New York.
Susannah Sayler, Department of Film and Media Arts
Susannah Sayler, assistant professor of art photography, is one of five artists to be recognized with a 2024 JGS Fellowship for Photography. The $8,000 unrestricted cash grant, administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts, is open to New York State photography artists living and working anywhere in the following regions of New York State: Western New York, Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, Central New York, North Country, Mohawk Valley, Capital District, Hudson Valley and Long Island. The support for this funding is provided by Joy of Giving Something (JGS), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the photographic arts.
Mišo Suchý, Department of Film and Media Arts
Mišo Suchý, associate professor of film, along with Guggenheim Fellow, artist and community college art media instructor Lida Suchý, and award-winning filmmaker, animator, editor and sound composer Evan Bode G’23, were selected as one of the seven 2024-25 Engaged Humanities Networks (EHN) Cohorts. Their collaborative project, “Teens with a Movie Camera,” is a filmmaking initiative between City of Syracuse teens and local media artists. Supported by a $5,000 grant from the EHN and the Academic Affairs Office of Strategic Initiatives, the collaboration will focus on personal visual storytelling, culminating in the creation of original short films and their public presentation in the communities where they were made.
