College of the Arts 2026 Faculty

Cross‑pollinating drawing and painting with new media, Ivan David Ng’s practice unfolds through abstract paintings, experimental animation and technology‑assisted performance.

Engaging the contested origin stories of the Hakka “Guest People,” he remixes source material gathered from sky and body as a means of speculation, interference and recovery.

Ivan David Ng Assistant Professor Drawing and Painting with New Media

He received his MFA in Drawing and Painting from The Ohio State University with research at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts & Design and his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was awarded the Gold Award in the UOB Painting of the Year in 2020, one of the most recognized art accolades in Southeast Asia.

His recent exhibition history include Chilli Art Projects in London (2024), Long Story Short in New York City (2024), Oolong Gallery in San Diego (2025), Appetite in Singapore (2025), Roots and Culture Contemporary Art Center in Chicago (2026) and the New Media Caucus National Symposium in Mesa (2026). His work has been published in New American Paintings, the Kenyon Review and Art & Market and has also worked on projects with Louis Vuitton, Uber Technologies Inc and Singapore Land Group.

Jan Rattia is a Caracas-born artist and educator whose work examines belonging, representation, and otherness through photography and installation. Prior to joining GSU, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute, where he taught undergraduate and graduate students, and as Director of Education at Houston Center for Photography, where he led educational programming, community partnerships, and public initiatives. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, with solo exhibitions in New York, Houston, and Philadelphia. It is held in public and private collections, including the Bunnen Photography Collection at the High Museum of Art. Rattia earned an MFA in Photography from Pratt Institute after graduate study at Bard College/International Center of Photography.

Jan Rattia Lecturer Photograpohy

Dawn M Trimble (or Phillips) is a designer, artist and educator living in South Georgia. As a licensed Interior Designer with over 15 years of professional experience, she has been a team member on large and small design teams and served as lead designer on award winning projects in the south Georgia area.

Dawn M Trimble Professor of Practice Interior Design

As an artist, she communicates with gestural movements in non-figurative compositions. Working primarily with water-based media, Dawn allows herself to get lost in the meditative process that exists between water and color with the goal of conveying the nuance of our human experinece. She has completed residental and corporate commissions throughout the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Academically, Dawn's is passionate about ideas concerning human scale and intimacy - for it is where at which we (as designers) establish and construct physical boundaries.

Grace Sachi Troxell is an artist based in Gainesville, FL. Troxell comes from a lineage of Japanese and Pennsylvania Dutch ceramicists. She uses clay, steel, and found objects to explore entanglements between organic and inorganic materials, form and deformity, ritual and grief. By combining hand building and casts of her family and vegetables, she is constructing a speculative archaeology.

Troxell received a BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College, a post-graduate certificate in painting from the Glasgow School of Art, and an MFA from Cornell University.

Troxell has been an artist-in-residence at Skowhegan, Sharpe-Walentas, MacDowell, Yaddo, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Sculpture Space, the Studios at MASS MoCa, Woodstock Byrdcliffe, Willapa Bay AiR, The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, Dumfries House, Scotland, and Daugavpils Rothko Center, Latvia. Troxell’s work has been included in exhibitions in New York City at Swivel Gallery, Hesse Flatow, Wave Hill, Bridget Donahue, Jack Hanley, Open Source,125 Maiden Lane, and Alison Bradley Projects. She has also been included in exhibitions at The Johnson Museum of Art, Neighbors, String Gallery, Cohen Gallery, Blunk Space, Haw Contemporary, shedshows, and the Hartnett Gallery, among others.

Grace Sachi Troxell Assistant Professor Ceramics

Haylee Anne Limited Term Lecturer Photographry

Haylee Anne is a disability-centered artist and creative practitioner. She holds a BFA from Montclair State University (Dec. 2012), an MFA from Georgia State University (May 2026), and is a former studio artist at Guardian Studios within Echo Contemporary Art in Atlanta, GA. Her work investigates fatigue and endurance through nontraditional photographic processes and performance-based methods. Through this practice, she reframes fatigue as a lived condition that resists visibility and calls for new modes of representation.

Haylee has shown at venues including the Atlanta Center for Photography, Center for Civil and Human Rights, Torpedo Arts Center, Soho20 Gallery, the CICA Museum, the Kyoto Shibori Museum, and the upcoming Wiregrass Biennial. Her honors include the VSA Excellence in Artistry Award from the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center (2013), a distinguished fellowship at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences (2020), the Winne Chandler Art & Design Scholarship from Georgia State University (2023), the Anderson Ranch Workshop Scholarship (2025), the El Columpio residency with The Creatives Project (2025), the Corinne Adams Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Atlanta Center for Photography (2026), and is an Uncool Artist International Resident (2026). An enthusiastic collaborator, Haylee’s practice emphasizes expansive, empathetic impact.

Lauren Lesley is an Atlanta-based fine artist from Easley, South Carolina, working primarily in representational graphite drawing. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and her Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Selected solo exhibitions include DRAWN TO DUSK at Good Art Co. and UNCERTAINTY at Whitespec Gallery. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in the 31st Annual OCD Conference Art Exhibition presented by the International OCD Foundation in Seattle, Washington, and the 2026 Small-Scale Art Award Finalist Exhibition at Lethbridge Gallery in Brisbane, Australia. She has received the Curator's Choice Award at Synaptic at Good Art Co. and Best of Show at The New South Vat Kai Lin Gallery. Her work has been featured in Oxford American magazine and Strokes of Genius 9: Creative Discoveries/The Best of Drawing, published by North Light Books.

Lauren Lesley Limited Term Lecturer Drawing & Painting and Foundations

James Pellerito Assistant Professor Serial Media and Digital Content

Born and raised in Italy, James Pellerito is an awardwinning fiction and documentary filmmaker. Pellerito’s work has screened at over 200 festivals worldwide (including AFI Docs, Berlinale, Dance on Camera, Frameline, Full Frame, NewFest and Outfest), won over thirty awards, aired on HBO Latino, Sundance TV, Logo TV, PBS America, Biography Australia, NTV Japan, QTV Korea, and been reviewed in Variety, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times and The Hollywood Reporter. His feature documentaries include Pop Star On Ice (2009, IFC Center), American Cheerleader (2014, Fathom Events), and Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer (2018, Film Forum), all produced with David Barba.

Pellerito served as Co-Creator, Director and Executive Producer on two seasons of his series Be Good Johnny Weir (2010, 2012).

His narrative short Maree [Tides] (2003) qualified for the 2005 Academy Awards.

Pellerito is the Co-Founder and Director of the New York City Short Film Festival (NYC Shorts), currently in its twentieth year, and he is a graduate of the 2-year Meisner acting program at The Neighborhood Playhouse. He has taught at Emory since 2020.

Mark Lubas, D.A., a stage director, voice teacher, and tenor originally from Wethersfield, CT. He made his professional debut in 1996 as tenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Nashville Symphony, and has since directed and performed with Aspen Opera Theatre Company, Boston Lyric Opera, Boulder Opera, Mobile Opera, Opéra Bastide, Opera Carolina, and Opera Tampa.

Mark Lubas, D.A., Valerie Adams Endowed Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera and Director of GSU Opera Theatre

Known for creating immersive audience experiences, Lubas most recently served as Stage Director and sang the Italian Singer in Boulder Opera’s Der Rosenkavalier, setting the production in 1950s Denver. Previous recent directorial highlights include a Susanna’s Secret staged in a winery; a NYE Carmen in which the audience was seated onstage in Bar Lillas Pastia and encouraged to join in the “Torreador” Song; an Art Deco Don Pasquale set in a 1930’s Fort Collins Hotel at Fort Collins’ Lincoln Center; and a reimagined The Impresario reconceived as a contemporary audition for Vives’ Bohemios.

Lubas made his international debut assistant directing La Flûte Enchantée in a multilingual production in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, France with Opéra Bastide.

These and additional credits, including Urinetown in the thrust for the UNC School of Theatre Arts and Dance, as well as Bizet’s Le Docteur Miracle and Caleb Blake’s When the Birds Sing for UNC Opera Theatre, were created during his tenures as Executive Director and Director in Residence of Opera Fort Collins and Instructor of Record in the School of Music at the University of Northern Colorado.

Hailed by WQXR for a voice of “steel wrapped in velvet,” Lubas is equally distinguished as a performer. He returns to Boulder Opera in November 2026 as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata. Recent highlights include tenor soloist in A Night at the Opera with the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore with UNC Opera Theatre, Chip in Bernstein’s On the Town with the Artist Series of Sarasota, and Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus with Opera Tampa. World premiere credits include the Juror in Machover’s Resurrection (Boston Lyric Opera) and Johnnie in Hulse’s The Game (Kennedy Center). In December 2025, he shared the stage with his six-year-old son, Noah — Lubas as Scrooge and Noah as Tiny Tim — with the Sarasota Pops in A Christmas Carol: The Concert!

Daniela Rivera is an acclaimed audio engineer with over 15 years of professional experience, whose work has helped shape the sound of modern music. Her leadership in the entertainment industry was formally recognized as part of the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2023 “40 Under 40” class. With an impressive discography boasting over 40 billion streams and multiple Platinum and Diamond certifications, her contributions span works for iconic artists including Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Coldplay and Wiz Khalifa. Her technical excellence is further recognized by an EMMY nomination and her 2025 Avidity Award win for Best Mixing Engineer for her role as the Dolby Atmos engineer on Rudy Currence’s Billboard #1 single.

Daniela Rivera Music Industry Professor of Practice

Rivera’s foundational expertise was built through an Associate degree in Audio .

Technology from SAE Institute (Atlanta) and a Bachelor’s in Entertainment Business from Full Sail University. Her professional trajectory was solidified in Atlanta’s premier studio environments, where she trained under legendary engineers, including Thom “TK” Kidd at the famed Silent Sound Studios and Grammy-winning mixer Phil Tan. Beyond the studio, Rivera is a committed leader within the music community. She currently serves as an elected officer for The Recording Academy’s Atlanta Chapter, holding the positions of Chapter Secretary and Chair of the Producers & Engineers Wing, with a term extending through 2027. A passionate advocate for the next generation of audio professionals, she has been involved in multiple industry mentorship programs and is a frequent panelist at industry events, consistently developing music education initiatives for both non-profit and commercial organizations.

As a Professor of Practice at Georgia State University, Rivera bridges the gap between high-level industry application and academic rigor, dedicated to fostering the next wave of excellence in audio engineering and music production.

Dr. Isiah Maxey, a Lecturer and Associate Director of Choirs at the Georgia State University School of Music, conducts Treble Chorus and Choral Union and teaches conducting and choral literature. He is a conductor and educator who views rehearsal and performance spaces as communities of collective learning, rooted in reflection, open dialogue, and shared meaning.

From 2015 to 2021, Maxey served in Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, Florida, including as Director of Choirs at Dr. Phillips High School, the district’s magnet performing arts school. Since that time, he has remained active as a clinician and adjudicator throughout Florida. He was selected as a conducting finalist for the Florida American Choral Directors Association (FLACDA) State Conference and as a conducting apprentice with the Berkshire International Choral Festival in Barcelona (2022). He has also

Dr. Isiah Maxey Lecturer and Associate Director of Choirs

collaborated on projects supporting new works by composers of color, including conducting a reading session at the 2025 FLACDA Conference titled R&R: Repertoire as Resistance.

Maxey’s conducting artistry spans a wide variety of ensembles and collaborative settings. Recent projects include partnering with a campus ministry to produce a concert centered on the concept of the “captive maternal,” a term rooted in feminist and abolitionist scholarship that examines relationships between care and state violence. Additional projects include leading the premiere of DaSean Stokes’s opera The Saturday Sorrowand co-leading a therapy choir in collaboration with clinical music therapists to support patient-centered musical experiences.

Maxey’s research interests include choral pedagogy. His dissertation examines the pedagogy and professional contributions of Judy Bowers, Ph.D., with particular attention to practical strategies for developing singers and choral ensembles. His work seeks to expand access to choral music by equipping teachers with research-informed approaches to assessment, repertoire selection, and instruction. He has presented his research at the 2025 American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Conference and the 2024 National Association for Music Education (NAfME) National Conference.

Maxey holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Florida State University, a Master of Music (M.M.) from the University of Cincinnati College‑Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor of Music Education (B.M.E.) from Florida State University. His principal conducting mentors include Joe Miller, Kevin Fenton, McKenna Stenson, and André Thomas. His professional affiliations include the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), and Pi Kappa Lambda Music Honor Society.

Dr. Gabriel Prynn serves as Lecturer of Music (Cello), teaching cello, chamber music, and related courses.

Born and raised in the United Kingdom, he maintains an active international career as a performer and educator. His teaching focuses on helping students build healthy and sustainable practice habits, develop technical and musical confidence, and find their own artistic voice. He aims to create a studio environment that is supportive, collaborative, and welcoming to students with a wide range of experience and aspirations.

Dr. Gabriel Prynn Lecturer of Music (Cello)

Prior to joining Georgia State, Dr. Prynn served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Cello at Ohio University. He has presented masterclasses and chamber music coaching at institutions including Indiana University, the Colburn School Academy, the Royal Academy of Music (London), the École Normale de Musique (Paris), the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler (Berlin), and the University of Oxford.

As a performer, he appears internationally in solo, chamber, and orchestral contexts, with performance highlights including Merkin Hall (New York), the Musée d’Orsay (Paris) in association with IRCAM and Radio France, the Aldeburgh Festival (UK), and the Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing). He has served as Acting Principal Cello of the Quebec Philharmonic Orchestra and Principal Cello of the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra (Maine, USA).

A dedicated chamber musician, he is a founding member of Montreal-based Trio Fibonacci, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2024. With Trio Fibonacci, Ensemble Alternance (Paris), musikFabrik (Berlin), and as Resident Artist at the Atlantic Music Festival, he has premiered over eighty works and maintains a strong commitment to performing both underrepresented and rediscovered repertoire.

In addition to his university work, he looks forward to engaging with the broader Atlanta musical community through performance, coaching, and educational outreach.

Dr. Prynn earned his doctorate from the Université de Montréal, where his research— awarded the Luc Vinet Prize for Excellence—led to the publication Taming the Cello, excerpts of which appeared in The Stradmagazine.

His principal teachers were Clive Greensmith and David Finckel, with additional chamber music mentorship from Menahem Pressler, Valentin Erben, Arnold Steinhardt, and Eberhard Feltz.

Taylor Flowers Lecturer, Collaborative Piano

Taylor Flowers is a collaborative pianist, vocal coach, and researcher whose career is marked by an international performance profile across Europe and South America. Specializing in 20thcentury vocal literature and contemporary operatic repertoire, he joins the Georgia State University faculty following a four-year tenure at Hillsdale College, where he taught applied piano and chamber music, and a concurrent appointment as a vocal coach at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Flowers maintains a significant specialization in the repertoire of the African diaspora, underscored by a six-year tenure as a collaborator for the George Shirley Vocal Competition in Ann Arbor. His work in this field culminated in his selection as the recipient of the 2026 George Shirley Collaborative Pianist Award. His broader research interests include the theological and coloristic structures of Olivier Messiaen, a subject he has presented at the Western University Graduate Symposium, as well as the vocal music of Czech and eastern European composers.

Additionally, he has cultivated a deep interest in and passion for Jewish liturgical music through a long-term tenure at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor.

His professional coaching appointments include a second-year residency at the Taos Opera Institute and serving as an Opera Coaching Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2023. He is an alumnus of both SongFest and the Cleveland Art Song Festival, and his further credits include the Austrian American Vocal Academy in Salzburg and global tours with the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club. He has also previously collaborated with Detroit Opera, coaching and performing for their professional outreach initiatives.

A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Dr. Flowers has significant experience in the premieres of new works and has performed extensively with the Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble. He is also the recipient of the Mu Phi Epsilon Rosa Lobe Collaborative Piano Award.

Dr. Flowers earned the Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano from the University of Michigan under the mentorship of Martin Katz.

Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Nicholas Han is a conductor and violinist who has developed a diverse musical career through performances, competitions, and orchestral leadership across the United States and internationally. He made his conducting debut with The Music & More SummerFest Music Festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance from Central Washington University in 2020, his Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from Oklahoma State University in 2023, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Georgia in 2026.

Nicholas Han Interim Director of Orchestra

Nicholas began his professional conducting career as Assistant Conductor of the Oklahoma Chamber Symphony in 2022 and served as Apprentice Conductor of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic in May 2023. He later served as Cover Conductor for the Gwinnett Symphony Orchestra from Fall 2023 through Spring 2025. His recent conducting engagements include guest appearances with the LA Conducting Workshop and Competition Orchestra, the Gwinnett Symphony Orchestra, and the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra.

Nicholas has received recognition through several international conducting competitions. In the summer of 2022, he was selected as one of three winners of the International Conducting Workshop and Competition (ICWC) in Atlanta, Georgia. He was also awarded First Place and the Audience Prize at the LA Conducting Workshop and Competition in Garden Grove, California. In the summer of 2026, Nicholas participated as a Conducting Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival, where he will study with renowned conductors including Robert Spano, Jane Glover, Leonard Slatkin, and Mark Stringer.

His principal conducting mentors include Nikolas Caoile, Alexander Mickelthwate, and Mark Cedel.

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