Mehrdad Sedaghat is an Iranian artist, designer, and educator, his research and projects focus on hybrid visual culture and its relationship to global politics in the Middle East and the United States. Born out of his life experience spanning two cultures, Mehrdad’s work critically and creatively focuses on human interactions. In doing so he hopes to enlighten individuals beyond what is commonly available in mainstream media, create opportunities for discourse and ultimately bring people together where politics has failed. Mehrdad’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions, internationally and nationally at numerous venues including the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; MI, Schmidt Gallery, Boca Raton, FL; Radin Art Gallery, Mashhad, Iran; and Iranian Artists Forum, Tehran, Iran. He is also the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including the Summer College Research Abroad Monies Award and the Selma & Stanley Hollander Fellowship while at MSU. Mehrdad is an Assistant Professor in Graphic Design in the Department of Visual Arts and Art History at Florida Atlantic University, where he hopes to prepare students not only for careers as professional practitioners but also with a heightened understanding of design as a social practice.

Camila Afanador earned her M.F.A in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2012. She was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia and holds a degree in Industrial Design from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Through her work she investigates the broadening role of graphic design in documenting, collecting, telling stories, and enabling placemaking and participation. Working in different formats—books, print, websites, public art, video—she visualizes ideas and creates relationships between local and global realities. In addition to her personal body of work Camila has been a practicing designer since 2004 working on print and web projects for multiple clients. She worked as a web and editorial designer for the School of Architecture and Design in the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and more recently for a branding and design firm in Boston, MA.

Stephanie Cunningham, Professor of Art in Graphic Design, B.F.A. Kansas City Art Institute, M.F.A. University of Notre Dame, has contributed to diverse design projects including Sharing Dreams in Cuba, the Urban Forest Project in Times Square and The Means by Which We Find Our Way in New Zealand. She is a past-president of AIGA Miami. She has been selected to present papers at design conferences including Future History, Schools of Thought, and Intent Content. Stephanie's work has been exhibited widely and recognized by a number of awards and acquisitions. Her work has appeared in publications including Prix Ars Electronica, The Computer in the Visual Arts, and Eye. Her design interests transcend formalism to explore issues of authorship and design as a cultural force.

Linda K. Johnson, Professor of Art in Graphic Design, focuses her creative research in the design of artist books. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Houston and M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University. An interest in handmade papers, unique book structures, letterpress printing, and story-telling has fueled her imagination and provided content for bookworks for over a decade. She has received several awards including the National Museum for Women in the Arts: Book Artist Fellowship and the Florida Artists’ Book Prize. Her work is widely exhibited and resides in public and private collections including Tate Britain, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Sackner Archives of Concrete and Visual Poetry and many others.

Eric Landes, Assistant Professor of Art in Graphic Design, was born in the midwestern portion of the country. His B.F.A. is from the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design and his M.F.A. is from Indiana University. He has taught a variety of courses from three-dimensional design to interactive media at a variety of colleges and universities. His own work is wide ranging in form and subject, but tends to seek to elucidate conditions and issues related to American culture—specifically those related to power and its expression in contemporary visual cultural.

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