Study with Professional, Award-Winning Artists
At George Mason University, you'll learn from dedicated artist-teachers who practice what they teach–performing, exhibiting, and working at renowned venues and companies across the region, the nation, and the world.
Our proximity to the nation's capital means we are able to attract the best artist-teachers who often work and perform in the D.C. Metro area and understand the field. These experts will mentor you and guide you on your artistic journey. Your creative path is yours, but you won't walk it alone. Through individualized instruction, career mentoring, and collaborative work, our George Mason professors will help you hone your craft and prepare for a successful life in the arts.
Header photo: Professor Nikyatu Jusu speaks onstage during Sundance Institute's 'Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance Presented by IMDbPro' at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. In 2022, Jusu won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - U.S. Dramatic, for Nanny.
Professor Kardambikis is teaching his students how art can be held traded, collected, and cared about without needing a trust fund. Students team up with working artists, presses, and organizations across the region through the School of Art's Dynamic Publishing minor. They produce real books, collaborate with local creatives, and watch their work move from concept to finished product. For many of his students, learning how ink interacts with paper changes how they think about design altogether.
Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies, John Kocur, (pictured holding saxophone), served as guest clinician and soloist at the annual Virginia Military Institute (VMI) Jazz Farm, in April 2025. Organized by VMI's music director and George Mason alum, Lt. Col. Matt Halligan (DMA, '16), participants included the VMI Commanders Jazz Ensemble, as well as local school jazz bands. John Kocur led master classes for each band, and the groups ended the day with a combined concert in Memorial Hall in Lexington, VA.
New sculpture Professor John Von Bergen tests equipment in the VR Lab in preparation for his AVT 307 aesthetics class where he is introducing VR as a tool for the interdisciplinary curriculum as “students engage with historical and contemporary aesthetic theories, build heightened aesthetic sensibility, and explore their personal aesthetic."
Professor Sue Wrbican's 50-ft steel sculpture, Buoyant Force is on display at Reston Town Square Park through November 1, 2024. She is a full professor at the School of Art as well as director of the Photography program.
Film - Nikyatu Jusu
Award-winning Film at Mason Professor Nikyatu Jusu, was invited to judge the New Narrative Director category at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. The Festival, presented by OKX, brings artists and diverse audiences together to celebrate storytelling in all its forms, including film, TV, music, audio storytelling, games, and immersive. With strong roots in independent film, Tribeca is synonymous with creative expression and entertainment.
Chawky Frenn, a painter and an associate professor in the School of Art, has received a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award for research and teaching for the 2024-25 academic year. As a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, he will conduct international research while teaching at Banaras Hindu Universityin Varanasi, India, in the fall.
Professor of Cinematography (Film and Video Studies) Hans Charles was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for the 2017 movie 13th, directed by Ava Duvernay. The movie was also Academy Award Nominated and won Best Documentary BAFTA / Independent Spirit Awards. More recently, Hans Charles has worked on CW series All American Homecoming.
Hans Charles with Ava Duvernay at the Film Independent Spirit Awards for the Netflix documentary 13th.
Dr. Linda Apple Monson, international Steinway Artist and director of the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music at George Mason University, was inducted into the prestigious 2023 Steinway Teacher Hall of Fame. This distinguished honor celebrates the dedication and passion of the outstanding piano educators of North America. During her more than 20 years at George Mason, which is an All-Steinway School, Monson has shared her profound musical insights with gifted students from across the globe. Her influence extends far beyond the classroom, as she has graced stages across the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia with her performances and lecture-recitals.
Computer Game Design - Dr. Scott M. Martin
Dr. Scott M. Martin, inventor, mentor, educator, entrepreneur, and author has published several books, one of which is Artificial Intelligence, Mixed Reality, and the Redefinition of the Classroom, (2019). He is a Professor of Game Design & Technology, and was the founding Director of the Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI), and founding Director of the Computer Game Design Program at George Mason University.
Professor Nikyatu Jusu, from the Film and Video Studies program, is seen above on set of her film Nanny. The film screened at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and won the US Grand Jury prize. Prof. Jusu's film was further honored by being called one of the 75 greatest movies by Black directors, in a February 2023 Slate magazine story called The New Black Canon.
Music and Dance: A Winning Collaboration
Dr. William L. Lake, Jr., conductor of George Mason's University Wind Symphony and Professor Lawrence Jackson, choreographer at George Mason's School of Dance were selected as National Finalists for the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music for their performance of Come Sunday by Omar Thomas.
Among the many contests of The American Prize, the Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music is unique. It recognizes and rewards the best performances of American music by ensembles and individual artists worldwide, based on submitted recordings.
Professor Boris Willis is helping students rethink what a career in game design and creativity can look like. Long before the rise of virtual production and interactive storytelling, Willis was blending technology, dance, and design into new forms of creative expression. Willis believe that it's not enough to learn how to program a character. Students need to understand how players feel moving through a space and how story and tension build through choice and motion.
CVPA Dean - Rick Davis
In Fall 2024, CVPA Dean Rick Davis taught a class to Honors College students called Opera as Social Change: Loving v. Virginia, as a complement to the world premiere of Virginia Opera's production of Loving v. Virginia, based on the story of a young couple’s interracial marriage in 1958, which sparked a case that lead to the Supreme Court and a victory for civil rights in the United States. This operatic retelling is based on the true story of Mildred and Richard Loving. One of the class assignments tasked students with developing a project in any format (e.g. posters, websites, short videos, essays, compilations, podcasts, etc.) that would represent the story.
Learn more and see the student work.
Professors Sang Nam and Seth Hudson were quoted extensively in the recent U.S. News and World Report article, How to Get a Degree in Game Design.
School of Dance professor Lawrence Jackson was a guest choreographer in March 2025, at De Sales University's Dance Ensemble Concert, presenting his piece titled I remember when….
Art, Zoë Charlton
The new Inviting Light public art project in Baltimore is designed to illuminate both the physical space and the potential of the community. Local artists are leading the charge including artist and Director of the School of Art, Zoë Charlton whose brainchild installation Third Watch features striking figures perched high above street level. "I've been working with this figure for about eight years," said Charlton, reflecting on the deep personal connection she has with her work.
Art - Chawky Frenn
In February 2025, Professor Chawky Frenn participated as a panelist in the Humanities Workshop panel conversation on Democracy in Boston, MA. The public event is co-sponsored by Revolutionary Spaces and live-streamed by WGBH. Its focus is on the audience of the consortium’s students and educators, specifically addressing why and how youth engagement in our democracy matters.
Watch A Recording of the Event
In early 2024, renowned actor and long-time School of Theater professor, Edward Gero, was one of three men cast in The Lehman Trilogy at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C., where he has been a company member since 1983. A veteran of the Washington theatre community, Ed is a four-time recipient of the Helen Hayes Award, with his latest award in 2024 for outstanding lead performer in a play (The Lehman Trilogy).
Professor Edward Gero’s journey exemplifies the exceptional blend of academic excellence and active industry involvement that is the hallmark of teaching in George Mason’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Dance, Shaun Boyle D'Arcy
While studying and performing in the UK, School of Dance professor Shaun Boyle D’Arcy noted similarities and contrasts between contemporary dance practices in the United Kingdom and United States. A promising pilot program at the University of Utah where she was teaching gave D’Arcy the chance to test the idea of a dance exchange with Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD). Now, she has brought this exceptional opportunity to dance students and faculty here in Virginia.
Prof. John Kocur and Dr. Charles Ciorba, faculty members from the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, have released a new book that delves into the art of jazz improvisation called Straight from the Source: A Tune-Based Approach to Learning Jazz Improvisation. This new publication is unique in that most improvisation methods on the market lack the cultural context of the eras, artists, and communities from which this music comes. It offers an authentic example of how to learn music theory, jazz history, and culture while digging into the music one tune at a time. The book is available on Amazon.com.
We applaud George Mason University School of Theater Director Djola Branner's work with and involvement in the Theatrical Jazz Conference hosted by the Pillsbury House Theatre. The conference celebrated and extended the legacy of groundbreaking artists Laurie Carlos, Sekou Sundiata, Ntozake Shange, and numerous others who revolutionized the American Theater by invoking elements of classic jazz—such as call-and-response, polyphony, syncopation, and improvisation—as theatrical language. Not only was Djola a presenter, he was also involved in the coordination and execution of the conference which featured workshops, roundtable discussions, staged readings, performances, and more.
In 2019, Dance Heritage professor Christopher d’Amboise saw a need for video conferencing that allowed for life-sized, full body interaction. From this was created the flagship initiative of the LIVE Center: the LIVE Center Window Wall™. A teacher in a remote location could be projected live and life-sized onto the wall of a studio, while a live feed of the students are projected for the teacher. As the School of Dance and the College of Visual and Performing Arts learned to adapt to physical distancing requirements during COVID, the work of the LIVE Center was vital to ensuring high-quality education. Today, it continues to connect teachers from all over the world to Mason students.
James Casey, associate professor in the Computer Game Design program, and Director of the Virginia Serious Game Institute, was interviewed about the metaverse, crypto, and the evolution of the internet by President Washington on the WGMU's Access to Excellence podcast.
This Spring, the subject of the Great Migration was reprised at a Chicago exhibition called A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, which featured School of Art Director, Zoë Charlton's work, Permanent Change of Station. The exhibition explores how artists unearth stories that have been moved, buried, and stretched across time and place.
Loudoun Country Sheriff's Office recently approached School of Art sculpture professor and forensic artist Joe Mullins to assist them in a cold case from 1973. He sculpted the likeness of an unidentified victim's face in the hope someone would recognize her. Mullins has been a forensic artist since 1999 with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and has been teaching a forensic figure sculpting class at George Mason's School of Art since 2022.
In 2025, Mullins worked with students in a special forensic reconstruction program at Florida's Ringling College of Art and Design, where one of his students was able to help identify a man who vanished 2 years ago.
Award-winning designer and School of Art professor, Dr. Miriam Ahmed, published a new children's book called Zillybits Adventures: The Dragon Under the Stairs, for children aged 5-6. This is the second of two books in this series that she has created and it is available on Amazon.
Associate professor Dr. Thomas Stanley (a.k.a Bushmeat Sound) is an artist, author, and activist deeply committed to audio culture in the service of personal growth and noetic (r)evolution. His latest work Bushmeat Sound System, NitroZeus! was featured in a January 2025 Washington CityPaper article on latest audio releases. Stanley has written about Sun Ra and P-Funk, hosted radio shows, and made his presence felt at venues like Rhizome. The message is always clear: vibrations matter, and we should experience them in as many ways as possible.
Music - Darden Purcell
Dr. Darden Purcell, Director of the Jazz Studies Program at the Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, was honored by having her session Shaping the Sound: Attaining Authenticity in your Jazz Vocal Ensemble selected for the 2025 American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Conference, Celebrating the Choral Art: Past, Present and Future, to be held in Dallas, Texas in March, 2025. She will be bringing the George Mason University Jazz Vocal Ensemble with her as the demonstration choir.
In 2024, Professor Sang Nam, Director of the Computer Game Design Program at George Mason, was one of 17 faculty members awarded the 4-VA@Mason 2024-25 Collaborative Research Grant for his proposal Developing A Multimodal LLM AI Agent for the XR, Extended Reality Platform for Personalized and Highly Immersive Trauma Training (in collaboration with partner school UVA).
Professor Nam is a distinguished faculty member specializing in technology-intensive courses and his innovative projects have been showcased globally. His exceptional contributions have earned him numerous accolades including the Elon Teaching Scholar Award (2010-2021) and the 2010 National Teaching Scholar Award (Carnegie Foundation/Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). He has been producing serious games for clients including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Agency for International Development USAID), and the Department of Defense, and many other government agencies and private companies.
Art - Zoë Charlton
Director of the School of Art and full professor, Zoë Charlton, has participated in many national and international exhibitions, the latest of which was Multiplicity, at the Frist Art Museum in the Fall of 2023, during which she also gave a gallery talk with fellow artist Wardell Milan. In the summer of 2023, she participated in A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, co-organized by the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art and also shown at the Brooklyn Museum and the California African American Museum. Her works on paper and photographs were on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art in the summer of 2023.
Justin Sutters, art education professor and assistant dean of research and assessment in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA), is taking the lead on George Mason University's new membership of the Alliance of Art Research Universities (a2ru) and has already attended one of the alliance’s conferences. This action uniquely positions George Mason among other R1 institutions to support an emerging research culture in the arts.
Dr. Lisa Billingham lead the George Mason University Chorale with the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall.