The Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts welcome five new faculty this Fall.
Mitch Critel is assistant professor of practice in technical direction and technical production. He comes to UNL from the Barter Theatre in Tennessee, where he has been the technical director since 2010. Prior to that, he taught at the University of Evansville and served as assistant technical director and supervised the daily operations of the scene shop, prop shop and paint shop. Critel also served as the technical director for the Nebraska Repertory Theatre in 2008.
Critel received his B.F.A. from UNL and his M.F.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
J.D. Madsen is assistant professor of scenic design. He comes to UNL from the University of Maryland, where he was a visiting assistant professor in computer-assisted design, specializing in 2-D and 3-D drafting and Adobe Suite integration. He has done professional design work for 1st Stage Tyson’s Corner, Next Stop Theatre Company, The Studio Theatre, Catholic University and Weber Stage, among others.
Madsen received his B.S. in theatre arts from Weber State University and his M.F.A. from the University of Maryland.
Walker Pickering, III, is assistant professor of art. He is an artist and photographer from Austin, Texas. His work is primarily documentary in nature, and he uses photography as a means to get access to people and places that might normally be unavailable. A pianist and brass player for most of his life, his most recent work deals primarily with young musicians involved in the marching arts. His work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Wittliff Collection of Southwestern and Mexican Photography. He is the recipient of the 2013 Clarence John Laughlin Award. His work “The band marches on” was recently featured on CNN Photos (http://go.unl.edu/wq5u).
He received his B.F.A. from Texas State University and his M.F.A. from Savannah College of Art and Design. He has taught previously at Texas State University, The Art Institute of Austin and McHenry County College (Ill.).
Esti Sheinberg is associate professor of practice in music history. She has previously taught, designed courses and completed research at Virginia Tech University, the University of Edinburgh and Tel-Aviv University. She edited the recent book, “Music Semiotics: A Network of Significations—in Honor and Memory of Raymond Monelle” in 2012 and published “Irony, Satire, Parody and The Grotesque in the Music of Shosakovich” in 2000. She has numerous other articles and book reviews published.
She received her B.A. degree summa cum laude at Tel-Aviv University and received her Ph.D. in music at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Philip Sapirstein is assistant professor of art history. He was hired last year and was on leave for 2013-2014 for Fulbright research at Tel Aviv University, but begins teaching this fall in the Department of Art and Art History. Sapirstein’s primary research has been into the analysis and visualization of Greek architecture, in particular during the origins of monumental temple architecture during the Archaic Period (7th to 6th centuries, B.C.), and much of his work has been enhanced by digital technology. Last year he began a program of research called the “Digital Architecture Project” by doing a detailed survey of the Temple of Hera at Olympia, Greece. This involved a complete photogrammetric survey and reconstruction of the remains of this temple. Sapirstein and his collaborator David Scahill are generating a detailed 3-D model of the building from photographs and survey using a new photogrammetric software package and a high quality digital camera.
Sapirstein received his Ph.D. in the history of art and archaeology from Cornell University and his B.A. in studio art with an art history minor from the University of Notre Dame. He has taught at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. He has a number of publications to his credit, as well as a major grant from the American Council of Learned Societies. Last year he was a NEH Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research.