Graduate Students
Kristen Easters is a ceramic artist from the coastal plains of North Carolina. She discovered her passion for ceramics at UNCA, where she graduated with a BA in 2016. She served as a resident artist and instructor at Odyssey Clayworks in Asheville from 2017-2022. Easters has had the privilege of being a work-study scholarship recipient at Penland School of Craft three times and has worked with several mentors in the WNC region to hone her technical skills in atmospheric kiln firing methodologies and traditional pottery techniques.
Easters relocated to northern California in 2022, where she spent two years in the residency program at Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project. She has since been focusing on expanding her ceramics practice beyond the functional form and is exploring figurative sculpture in her current body of work. Kristen is a second year MFA student in the Spatial Art program at SJSU.
Email | Website | Spatial Art
Damaris Guzman is a digital media artist and MFA candidate at San José State University who fuses 3D animation, layered video compositions, and digital fabrication. She earned her BFA in Film and Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz, where her fascination with new media and immersive storytelling sparked.
Guzman produces fast paced, dopamine driven simulations as well as meditative visual respites, building visual systems that magnify the dopamine loops of social media, the algorithmic shaping of desire, and the dissolving boundaries of posthuman identity. By warping texture, color, and speed, she reveals how screens blur reality and self-perception, urging viewers to confront the thrill and unease of tech life and to question perception, identity, and posthuman existence amid relentless technological consumption. Alongside her studio practice, Guzman teaches Art 74: Intro to Digital Art at SJSU, guiding students through glitch aesthetics, 3‑D modeling, net art, creative coding, and other emerging practices, culminating in a self‑built portfolio that showcases their projects and critical reflections. 🌟٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
Email | Website | Digital Media Art
Zoey Mubiru holds a BFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and is an MFA student based in San Jose, California. Her interdisciplinary studio practice explores the commodification of femininity through painting, craft, printmaking, and textile-based work.
She is one of the Graduate Student Representatives and is the Student Assistant to the Director of Public Programing for the College of Humanities & the Arts. In 2024-2025, she served as Project Manager for the Stray Dog Hydrophobia Beta Space exhibition at the San José Museum of Art and for the Data Trust exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose. She also has a recurring position as a Teaching Associate in the Department of Art & Art History at San José State University.
Email | Website | Pictorial Art
Andy Nguyen is a Vietnamese-born, San Jose–raised photographer with over 15 years of experience documenting personal narratives, cultural celebrations, and community events. He holds a BFA in Photography from San José State University, where he is currently pursuing his MFA in the Arts. Nguyen’s work is deeply rooted in exploring identity, heritage, and the stories of underrepresented ethnic communities, particularly within Santa Clara County. Through photography, Nguyen creates visual archives that honor the richness and diversity of the communities around him.
His work has been exhibited in numerous public and academic venues, including San José City Hall, Triton Museum of Art, Mercury 20 Gallery, Bedford Gallery, and Works/San José Gallery. He also contributes images to public news sources, further extending the reach and impact of his documentation. Nguyen has received multiple awards recognizing his community contributions and artistic dedication. His practice reflects a strong commitment to social engagement and cultural storytelling—values he brings into every project and collaborative opportunity.
Email | Website | Photography
Nicole Rudolph-Vallerga, known for her award-winning multi-media social practice artworks and writings on liminal spaces and identities, draws on her own liminality to create works that validate identities that fall outside of the binary. As a queer, multiracial, Chicana, Intersectional Feminist, Rudolph-Vallerga has a unique perspective as someone who lives in-between definitions and is intimately aware of the complications that this can have within rigid societal expectations and categorizations.
Within her artwork and her writing she employs the use of "Soft Space,” which can be characterized as a flexibility of the mind where the reader or viewer can work through rigid societal constructs that demand binary views. Nicole has a BA from UCSC in Art and the History of Art and Visual Culture and is currently an Art History and Visual Culture graduate student at SJSU and Director of Museo Eduardo Carrillo. She has found that her experiences as an artist, art historian, and curator enrich one another allowing her a deeper perspective when working within each discipline.
Email | Curatorial Work | Art History and Visual Culture
Heather Sanchez is a graduate student at San Jose State University. She is pursuing a master’s degree in Art History and Visual Culture. Additionally, she has an associate degree in Studio Art and a bachelor’s degree in Art Studio Practice. Her research centers around the cultural history of women throughout the ages. For example, she has investigated women creating woven art in ancient Greece, and women pursuing artistic careers. She has many favorite artists, including Edgar Degas, Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones, James Tissot, Charles Courtney Curran, John William Waterhouse, and many more. Researching helps Heather find underappreciated artists and non-famous artworks. Discovering unfamiliar artists enriches Heather’s research.
In the graduate program, she has primarily researched paintings and pastel drawings. She likes how pictorial art can be a window into the past. Cultural history is a vital part of her research. Additionally, she likes the whimsical paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites, too.
Email | Website | Art History and Visual Culture
Peter Schreiber is an artist born in Denver, CO and currently based in Menlo Park. His work employs elements of drawing, woodworking, and various other sculptural media, taking inspiration from artists such as Martin Puryear, Richard Deacon, and Jackie Winsor.
After graduating from Bard College in 2017, he worked as a student assistant in Martin Puryear’s studio, which led to a continued interest in traditional woodworking and other craft traditions. In addition to being a graduate student at SJSU, he is a Teaching Associate in spatial art at SJSU.
Email | Website | Spatial Art
