ILLUSTRATOR, DESIGNER, EDUCATOR AND CHAIR OF BFA ILLUSTRATION & BFA COMICS AT SVA

Viktor Koen is an award winning illustrator, designer and educator. He holds a BFA in Design from the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design in Jerusalem and an MFA in Illustration with honors from the School of Visual Arts. His client list includes the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, Esquire, Nature, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Wired, ESPN, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, Fortune, Money, Forbes, BusinessWeek, Penguin Random House, Doubleday, Harper Collins, Rizzoli, Houghton Mifflin, Tor Books, Atlantic Records, Virgin, BBC and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. 

He is the Chair of BFA Illustration and BFA Comics Departments at the School of Visual Arts and founded the SVA Illustration Residency in 2007. A TED speaker, Mr. Koen lectures for academic institutions and conferences worldwide while serving among others, on the Adobe Photoshop Advisory Council and the Photoville board of directors.

Distinctions include: American Illustration Awards, Graphis Gold Awards, 3×3 magazine Educator of the Year and the Communication Arts magazine Award of Excellence.

ILLUSTRATOR AND AUTHOR

Andrea Tsurumi (they/them) is the Philly-based creator of the children's books Accident! (an NPR Great Read), Crab Cake (Vermont Red Clover Book Award), and I'm On It (an Elephant & Piggie Like Reading book) as well as the illustrator for numerous titles including Pop Goes the Nursery Rhyme, Embarrassed Ferret, My Head Has a Bellyache, Mr. Watson's Chickens, the Kondo & Kezumi series, and There's No Such Thing as Vegetables. They studied sequential storytelling for an English BA at Harvard and an MFA from SVA's Illustration as Visual Essay program. Also an indie cartoonist, they taught comics at PAFA's illustration program and SVA's summer artists residency. 

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AUTHOR, ILLUSTRATOR AND EDUCATOR

Doug Salatiis the creator of the picture book Hot Dog, recipient of the 2023 Randolph Caldecott Medal and Ezra Jack Keats Award, and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and the New York Public Library.  The first book he illustrated was In a Small Kingdom by Tomie dePaola, and his second, Lawrence in the Fall by Matthew Farina, was an Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Award Honoree, a Society of Illustrators Original Art Show selection and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection. Doug graduated from the MFA Illustration As Visual Essay Program at the School of Visual Arts in 2014. He was a 2015 Sendak Fellow. He lives and works in New York City.

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FOUNDER OF CREATIVE PLACEMENT, SOLUTIONIST, TALENT CONSULTANT AND EDUCATOR

Karl Heine is the Solutionist at creativeplacement®, a talent consultancy dedicated to evolving brands, agencies, and organizations where creativity, innovation, and design thinking matter. He is also the Co-founder of SoNo Spaces, a coworking environment in the heart of South Norwalk, now operating across two locations.

With over 30 years of experience in creative talent consulting, Karl has helped grow major brands, agencies, design firms, and in-house creative teams. Throughout his career, he has remained hands-on as a creative professional, earning numerous design awards and industry accolades. His work and perspectives have been featured in Communication Arts — Insights.

Karl is also a frequent lecturer at design-focused institutions and industry associations, sharing his expertise in talent development, creativity, and the evolving landscape of design.

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ART ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL AT EDWARD R MURROW HS

Spy Kontarinis is a dedicated educator and passionate advocate for the arts, currently serving as the Assistant Principal of Fine Arts and Career and Technical Education at Edward R. Murrow High School, a role she has embraced for the past 20 years. With 27 years of teaching experience, Spy has nurtured talent and fostered creativity among her students, guiding many of them into prestigious art schools where they can further develop their skills and pursue their passions. Spy's commitment to her students and the arts goes beyond the classroom; she continuously seeks innovative ways to integrate art into education, ensuring that the next generation of artists has the support and resources they need to succeed. Her journey from fashion designer to esteemed educator illustrates not only her versatility but also her unwavering dedication to empowering young minds through the transformative power of art.

GRAPHIC NOVEL ARTIST, WRITER, EDITOR, EDUCATOR

Carl Potts has worked as a comics/graphic novel artist, writer and editor for decades. During most of his 13 years on Marvel’s editorial staff, Carl was Executive Editor, overseeing a third of the company’s publications. He discovered and mentored many top talents including Jim Lee, June Brigman, Larry Stroman, Art Adams, Jon Bogdanove, Whilce Portacio and Scott Williams.

EDUCATOR

Joanne Riina-Denune is an art educator with twenty years of experience working within the New York City Department of Education. She is currently the visual art teacher at NYC LAB School in Chelsea, where she teaches a design thinking course, in addition to a studio elective and portfolio prep course for seniors. Prior to this position, she taught visual art at LAB Middle School for fifteen years, where she established a partnership with The Whitney Museum and developed an original curriculum grounded in the creative process and connecting it across disciplines. She acquired her undergraduate degree from Pace University and her master's degree from the School of Visual Arts (MAT 2004). When life allows it, she develops her own craft through mixed media illustrations in her home in Brooklyn alongside her husband and eleven-year-old son

ARTIST, ANIMATOR

Isam Prado is a Mexican born Artist and Animator living in Brooklyn, New York. 

He earned an MFA in film from Pratt institute in 2008 and has since been freelancing in animation for various ad agencies and animation studios across the city. As a freelancer he has worked on projects for PBS, Facebook,  and Google amongst many others.

In 2016 he became the Animation Director at Mike Perry Studios, During his time there he created animation and graphics for many clients. 

Some of the highlights of his time there include creating an animated installation piece for the Dolby gallery and winning an Emmy for his work as Supervising Animator on the Broad City “Mushrooms” Episode.

In his free time he enjoys teaching himself new skills and software.

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LCAT

Jamie currently works for Student Health & Counseling Services at SVA as a therapist. Jamie is thrilled to work with art students and educators and wants to be a lifetime advocate for artists' mental health. 

Jamie has been a NY licensed Creative Arts Therapist since 2016 with a social work and art education background. Jamie had experience working in high school, psychiatric hospitals, medical nursing homes, and women's shelters. Some of her specialties include depression treatment related to grief and loss, narrative art therapy for immigrants, individuals living with substance misuse, complex trauma, and/or other mental health diagnoses. 

Jamie believes creative arts are a powerful way to honor the beauty of one's culture, human resilience, and the uniqueness that each human can present.