Whitney Sherman
Founding Director + Faculty MFA Thesis
Trained as a photographer, having worked as an art director, publications designer, and VP/Creative Director, Whitney served as undergraduate Chair of Illustration at MICA for 10 years.
She was Co-Director of Dolphin Press & Print @ MICA for 17 years, is proprietor of Whitney Sherman Illustration, and partner in Pbody Dsign producing limited edition illustrated home goods. Her award-winning illustrations have received recognition from the Society of Illustrators/NY; American Illustration; Communication Arts; Print Regional Design; Print Casebooks and others. Her Breast Cancer Research stamp is the first semi-postal issue and the longest running USPS issue in history raising over $97 million for research so far. She conducts lectures and workshops internationally, and served as President of ICON5, the national illustration conference.
She is associate editor and contributing author of the History of Illustration, and the author of Playing with Sketches, which has been translated into Chinese, Korean, German and Russian. In 2020, she was awarded the Distinguished Educator in the Arts from the Society of Illustrators/NY. She is an avid collector of vintage ceramics, miniatures and odd material culture.
whitneysherman.com
pbodydsign.com
@pbodydsign + @whitneysherman
Mai Ly Degnan
Faculty MFA Studio
Mai Ly Degnan is an award winning illustrator and educator based in Baltimore, MD. She earned her BFA in Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and later her MFA in Illustration Practice at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she currently teaches full-time. Mai Ly’s work consists of bright colors, patterned details, and stylized characters. She enjoys creating “slice of life” illustrations that celebrate everyday people in their day to day lives. When she isn’t freelancing, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two pugs, Uncle Fester and Little Debbie.
Her work has been recognized by The Society of Illustrators of New York and Los Angeles, American Illustration, and 3x3. Selected clients include Huffington Post, Washington Post, Readers Digest, Oprah Daily, Quarto Kids, Alba Editorial, Cosmopolitan UK, Norman Rockwell Museum, Boston Globe, Time Magazine, Harper Collins, NPR, VICE Magazine, Magic Cat Publishing, La La Land Australia, and more.
Mai Ly is represented internationally by the Anna Goodson Illustration Agency.
mailydegnan.com
@mailydegnan
Kerry Roeder
Faculty Critical Seminar 1 & 2
Kerry is a historian of graphic illustration and print culture, with an emphasis on 19th and early 20th century art. Previously, she was a guest curator and Luce curatorial fellow in American Art at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, where she curated Freer’s Global Network in 2022, Dewing's Poetic World in 2020, and co-curated Whistler in Watercolor in 2019. Her book, Wide Awake in Slumberland: Fantasy, Mass Culture and Modernism in the Art of Winsor McCay (University Press of Mississippi, 2014) was nominated for an Eisner Award. Her articles have appeared in American Art and The Comics Journal, and she contributed essays to A New Literary History of America and The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing is a Way of Thinking. She previously taught at George Mason University, George Washington University and the Corcoran College of Art, and held fellowships at the National Portrait Gallery and the Library of Congress.
She received her PhD in Art History from the University of Delaware; her MA in Art History from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her BA in English Literature and Art History from Trinity College.