Dr. Marit Dewhurst
Art Education Program Director, Associate Professor of Art and Museum Education
Marit has coordinated arts education programs in museums, community centers, and detention centers, including developing the Museum of Modern Art’s free studio art program for teens. She received her BA from University of Michigan in Community Empowerment through the Arts, her Ed.M. in Harvard University’s Arts in Education program, and her Ed.D. in Communities, Culture, and Education at Harvard University. Her interests include social justice art education, community-based arts, youth empowerment and culturally-relevant teaching in the arts. She is the author of Social Justice Art: A Framework for Activist Art Pedagogy.
Email: mdewhurst@ccny.cuny.edu
Website: maritdewhurst.com
Jeff Hopkins
Adjunct Lecturer
Jeff Hopkins is a storyteller, educator, and children’s book illustrator. He is the creator and host of the popular Guggenheim Museum web series “Sketch with Jeff”, which has appeared for three seasons as a segment on the PBS children’s television show Camp TV.
For nearly two decades, Jeff has been a Teaching Artist for New York City arts institutions including the Jewish Museum, Guggenheim Museum, American Ballet Theatre, ArtsConnection, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Art Education at The City College of New York, and has previously taught at NYU and Tufts University.
Jeff has performed his “Pictures Come to Life” live drawing/storytelling shows at arts institutions all over the country including The Barnes Foundation, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The Delaware Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston).
He has created illustrations for nearly two-dozen early reader books for children, including the 2004 award-winning picture book The Only One Club (Flashlight Press).
Jeff holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Masters in Education from Harvard University.
Natalie Willens
Adjunct Lecturer
Natalie Willens is an artist, educator, and organizer originally born and raised in NYC. They have been designing and teaching arts-integrated curriculum for the last 15 years in contexts ranging from early childhood classrooms to elementary school libraries to university level arts and literacy courses. In their own work they use multiple exposure photography and poetry to explore gender identity, race privilege, and gentrification. They are a core member of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) at LaGuardia Community College where they created the Arts Activist working group for faculty and students, which explores ways to use art-making to influence structural changes and personal healing. Natalie holds an advanced certificate in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy from the CUNY Graduate Center and is pursuing a PhD in the Urban Education department where they are currently co-producing an arts-based archive with students about LGBTQ+ spaces in NYC, in order to creatively work towards resisting capitalist urban development.
Pedro Felipe Vintimilla
Adjunct Lecturer
Pedro Felipe Vintimilla anchors his practice in art making, art education, and culture care. Born in Ecuador and based in Queens, he centers material experimentation – papermaking, weaving, and digital imagery – to reflect on identity and immigration. His work has recently been exhibited at the Queens Museum – New York, Museo de Arte de Nogales – Mexico, and Casa del Artista – Ecuador.
Since 2018, he has consulted for the Ecuadorian American Cultural Center -EACC- developing art education and cultural programs, including a video series documenting stories of Ecuadorian immigrats in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
Pedro Felipe is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art Education at City College – CUNY, and of Studio Art at Norwalk Community College – CT. His teaching practice aims for a fruitful learning environment through sensibility, exploration, ingenuity, and collaboration. Participants explore their strengths and gradually expand into a community of creatives.
Arzu Mistry
Adjunct Lecturer
Arzu Mistry (she/her) is an artist, educator and researcher, and maintains a high level of dedication and enthusiasm for the arts as mediums for pedagogy, advocacy, transformation, and intervention for the building of sustainable inclusive communities. Arzu is the co-founder of the Art in Transit and placeARTS public art projects in the city of Bangalore with a focus on art as a medium for dialogue between people and the urban spaces they inhabit. Arzu co-facilitates the Accordion Book Project and is the co-creator of the artist book Unfolding Practice: Reflections on Learning and Teaching. Her art and education practice connects teachers, youth and families with place using memory, story, play and design practices through interdisciplinary education, public community art facilitation, livelihoods training, teacher professional development and educational research and practice. Arzu has a BFA from the California College of the Arts, an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is currently pursuing her doctoral work at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Website: www.accordionbookproject.com
Marissa Gutierrez-Vicario
Adjunct Lecturer
Marissa (she/her) is the Founder and Executive Director of Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE). As a committed human rights activist, artist, educator, and advocate for youth, Marissa launched ARTE in 2013 to help young people amplify their voices and organize for human rights change in their communities through the arts. Marissa holds an M.P.A. from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University and an M.Ed. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Marissa is currently a Doctoral Fellow in the Art and Art Education department at Teachers College at Columbia University. For more information on Marissa, please visit: www.artejustice.org/marissa.
Aliza Greenberg
Adjunct Lecturer
Aliza Greenberg is the Arts Enrichment Coordinator at the Learning Spring School, a school for students on the autism spectrum, where she teaches the arts and coordinates cultural partnerships. Aliza is also the Project Leader for Supporting Transitions with the Museum, Arts and Culture Access Consortium (MAC), a project to increase cultural opportunities for adults with autism and other developmental and intellectual disabilities. She is also a teaching artist with CO/LAB Theater Group and a consultant who has consulted with cultural organizations including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, Atlantic Theater Company, and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. She also serves as co-chair of Continuing the Conversation, an alumni led network of the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Previously, Aliza was a Program Manager at the Metropolitan Opera Guild and Education Program Manager at Roundabout Theatre Company. B.A., Bryn Mawr College; Ed.M., Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Website: www.alizagreenberg.com
Moriah Carlson
Adjunct Lecturer
Moriah Carlson is the Director of In School Programs and Partnerships at The Dreamyard Project, a Bronx-based social justice arts education organization. During her 13+ years as an artist and educator, Moriah taught visual art through a social justice lens to grades K-12.
Most recently, Moriah entered a partnership with NYC’s Department of Education and 10 Bronx partner schools to actively create anti-racist curricula, policies and procedures to undergird and transform school communities. In addition to her work as an educator, Moriah co-founded and was head textile and clothing designer for her sustainable fashion label, Feral Childe. Moriah and her design partner, Alice Wu, presented their work in diverse venues such as MAK Center/Schindler House, High Desert Test Sites, Santa Fe Art Institute, Parrish Art Museum, SCOPE Art Fair, and as faraway as Japan, Denmark, Qatar, and Canada. Feral Childe was sold in independent boutiques throughout North America, Europe and Asia. As an extension of her work as an artist and designer, Moriah developed the Fashion program at DreamYard where teens investigate and create sustainable fashion and fashion-as-activism. Education: New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and sculpture, B.A. from Wellesley College (magna cum laude).
Dyeemah Simmons
Adjunct Lecturer
Dyeemah Simmons (she/her) is an educator and arts worker focused on collaborating with artists to develop spaces for marginalized communities to create, commune, and gain access to critical resources. She is currently the Director of Social Impact at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is responsible for aligning the division of school, youth, and family programs with access and community to promote deeper and more accessible engagement for all Whitney Education audiences. Dyeemah joined the Whitney’s Education department as the Assistant to Teen Programs in 2015 and became the Coordinator of Teen Programs in 2016. She then became the Director of Access and Community Programs in 2019. Outside of her work at the Whitney, Dyeemah is an adjunct lecturer at CUNY City College and a member of The Door’s Advisory Committee. Prior to her work at the Whitney, she received a year-long art teaching fellowship at Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece where she worked with grades K-12. She has also interned in the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Education department and worked as a student docent at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio. She holds an M.A. in Art Education from CUNY City College and a B.A. in Studio Art and English from Oberlin College.
Anne Feng
Program Advisor
Anne is a recent graduate from Pratt Institute, where she earned her BFA and MA in Art Education with a concentration in Drawing. Through her years of study, Anne has developed a working pedagogy of grounding all actions in kindness, leading to empathy and honest communication with others. As such, she is thrilled to be joining the Art Ed family at City College and to support other artist educators in their studies of the field. She is interested in research on cross-cultural connections, particularly in the context and overlaps of language, art, and education.