New Media Faculty + Staff

UNC Asheville New Media faculty are experienced innovators, educators, writers + creators in animation, video, interactive, art, design, digital storytelling, glass, digital fabrication + performance.

Department Chair + Faculty (Interactive)

Victoria Bradbury

Victoria Bradbury, Ph.D. specializes in interactive and immersive media storytelling. Associate Professor and Chair of New Media, she received a UNC Asheville Research Award (2022), an Epic MegaGrant (2020) to develop new projects integrating physical computing with the Unreal Engine, and was the co-PI on an NEH Connections grant (2022-25) to increase digital humanities capacity at UNCA. With Dr. Suzy O’Hara, she co-edited Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement (2020), which examines case studies of co-creation events in international artistic contexts.

Dr. Bradbury co-led workshops including The City is The City (is The City) at Baltan Labs (Eindhoven, Netherlands, 2015) and the Thinking Digital Arts // Hack (Newcastle UK, 2014). She was a member of the British Council team for Hack the Space, Tate Modern (2014) and participated in the IMMERSION: Art and Technology workshops (Shanghai, CN, 2012) and The Digital Media Labs residency (Barrow, UK, 2014). Her artworks have been exhibited at Revolve Gallery, Harvestworks, Albright Knox, Hallwalls, Squeaky Wheel, The Front NOLA, and The New Britain Museum of American Art. Dr. Bradbury was a member of the New Media Caucus board from 2013-23.

Website: www.victoriabradbury.com
E-Mail: vbradbur@unca.edu

Faculty (Animation)

Christopher Oakley

Associate Professor Christopher Oakley has worked as an animator on feature films at Walt Disney Animation, DreamWorks, and Rhythm & Hues. Film credits include Dinosaur, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Scooby Doo, Men in Black II, and Stuart Little 2. As an animation director at EA Games, he worked on multiple Medal of Honor titles. He also directed and animated the popular Penny cartoons for Pee-wee's Playhouse on CBS and animated the "Into the Groove" song for Madonna's Sticky and Sweet world tour.

Professor Oakley received his MFA in Film from Columbia University in New York City. At UNC Asheville, he teaches the intermediate/advanced animation and Senior Capstone courses. His popular Pencils to Pixels: History of Animation lecture course is typically the largest class on campus.

For many years, Professor Oakley led over 100 students on an undergraduate research endeavor called “The Virtual Lincoln Project.” His discovery of a previously unrecognized photo of Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg and his use of the digital humanities to determine exactly where Lincoln stood when he delivered the Gettysburg Address has garnered international recognition, including being featured on the front page of the New York Times.

Website: http://www.christopheroakley.com/
E-Mail: coakley@unca.edu

Dean + Faculty (Video)

Lei Han

Lei Han is an artist, educator and designer whose work bridges the intersection of technology, science and philosophy, exploring themes of perception, memory, transience, and time. She is the recipient of the UNC Asheville Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award (2023) and the Ruth and Leon Feldman Professor (2020). Dedicated to cross-disciplinary collaboration, Professor Han has led and contributed to numerous impactful initiatives, including Asian/Pacific Islander College Students: Beyond Isolation to Inclusion, Student High Impact Focused Time (SHIFT) Project (2022), and the Burroughs-Wellcome Grant initiative: Science on the Move: Closing the Opportunity Gap for Migrant Youth with Science, Technology, Multimedia (2018-2021).

Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Shenzhen & Hongkong Bi-City Biennial (Hongkong), Greece Biennale, Krannert Art Museum, CYFEST, Currents Festival, FILE, {Re}HAPPENING, Asheville Fine Arts Theater, Revolve Gallery, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville Art Museum, the Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum and Luohu Art Museum (China)

Professor Han eared her BA from Shenzhen University in China and MFA from Memphis College of Art in Tennessee. Having served as Chair of the New Media Department from 2010 to 2018, she currently holds the roles of Interim Dean of Special and Graduate Programs and Professor of New Media. She also serves as a trustee on the Asheville Art Museum’s Board, where she continues to champion creativity, education, and community engagement.

Website: https://leihandesign.com/
E-Mail: lhan@unca.edu

Faculty (Interactive + History/Theory)

Curt Cloninger

Curt Cloninger is an artist, musician, writer, and Associate Professor of New Media. His art is curious about the force of language and the meaning of sound. His work has been featured in the New York Times and at festivals and galleries from Korea to Brazil. Exhibition and performance venues include Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Granoff Center for The Creative Arts (Brown University), Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (Chicago), Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (Asheville), and the internet.

He has been published on a wide range of topics, including new media and internet art, installation and performance art, experimental graphic design, popular music, and network culture. His fifth and most recent book is entitled Some Ways of Making Nothing: Apophatic Apparatuses in Contemporary Art (Punctum Books). His art, music, and writing may be accessed at lab404.com, playdamage.org, and deepyoung.org.

Website: www.lab404.com
E-mail: ccloning@unca.edu

Faculty (Video + History/Theory)

Peter Kusek

Peter Kusek, Assistant Professor of New Media, earned an MFA in Film, Video, and New Media and an MA in Visual Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

I engage critically with and playfully repurpose emerging technologies to discover new aesthetic opportunities, exploring the liminal spaces between art history, media studies, and philosophy.

The ever-evolving landscape of technology presents vibrant prospects for such inquiries.

My artistic practice also investigates concealed artifacts and lyrical traces within outdated media, reinterpreting them to transform archival resources into lively, generative aesthetic experiences.

As a teacher, I view artistic creation as a means to process experiential research, where writing acts as a method to outline conceptual connections. I examine links among varied ideas and influences, welcoming ambiguity to enhance both my technical capabilities and conceptual understanding.

My current research centers around analyzing memes, scrutinizing social media, and reflecting on the ethical ramifications of artificial intelligence in media creation. Additionally, I teach and explore Afrofuturism and video game studies.

E-Mail: pkusek@unca.edu

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Faculty (Animation + Digital Fabrication)

Mark Hursty

Mark Hursty, Assistant Professor of New Media, is a glass and new media artist, teacher and researcher. He has taught "The Glass Electric" workshop at Pilchuck Glass School in 2018 and 2019. In 2017, he completed his Ph.D. from the National Glass Centre (NGC), University of Sunderland, UK. He was a 2011-12 Fulbright Fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing where he researched and taught glass studio practice across China. Professor Hursty founded Hurstin Studio Glass and Metal in Hamilton, MA, in 1999 and received his MFA from Alfred University in Glass and Sculptural and Dimensional Studies in 2008. His BFA (1993) is in Film from Rhode Island School of Design.

Professor Hursty’s work has been exhibited internationally including at the Shanghai Museum of Glass, Ken Saunders Gallery (Chicago), Lattitude Gallery (Boston), S.O.F.A. (Chicago), and the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Portland, OR). He has participated in symposia about contemporary glass art including at Urban Glass (Glass Pedagogy Forum, 2015), The Gerrit Rietveld Acadamie (Glass Virus Think Tank, The Netherlands, 2016 and 2018), and National Academy of Art and Design (Glass Society of Ireland Annual Conference, Dublin, 2014). Professor Hursty’s work was included in The Corning Museum of Glass New Glass Review 30 (2009), and his writing has been published including in The Glass Arts Society Journal (2014). He is on the board of the North Carolina Glass Center.

E-Mail: mhursty@unca.edu

Faculty (Animation)

Ashe Cosette

Ashe Cosette, Lecturer of New Media, is a digital artist and musician. She is a UNCA Alumnus (2011) with a BA in Multimedia Arts & Sciences and Savannah College of Art and Design graduate with an MFA in Animation (2014). She teaches New Media’s introductory digital design principles courses as well as intermediate and advanced courses in storyboarding, character design, 3D modeling & rigging.

Ashe currently tours cross-country with trash-rock sensation Cam Girl as lead guitarist and backing vocalist “Kozy”. In 2023, Cam Girl published their first full-length studio album / LP and released 4 supporting singles. Not only a primary songwriter for the band, she is also the designer for on-and-offline visual media as well as stage designer for the band’s live performances.

She has worked for over 15 years as a freelance graphic designer, having experience in digital design and illustration, DTG printing, 3D printing and CNC design. She builds and repairs guitars in her spare time.

E-Mail: acosette@unca.edu

Site: https://www.camgirl.band/

Visiting Faculty (Animation/Video)

Forest Gamble

Forest Gamble is an animator, illustrator, comics artist, and Lecturer of New Media. He earned a BA in New Media and German from UNC Asheville (2019) and a Master's in Stop-Motion Animation from the BAU, College of Arts and Design of Barcelona (2021).

Forest is the co-director of the stop-motion short HEXED and the forthcoming hybrid animated short Chicken of the Woods. His work has been featured in Times Square, the Center for Craft, CERN, SXSW, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Alamo Drafthouse, TEDx UNC Asheville, and over 40 international film festivals. He was a 2022 Maker-in-Residence at the UNC Asheville STEAM Studio in Asheville, NC, and a 2022-23 Artist-in-Residence at the Sequential Artist's Workshop in Gainesville, FL.

In Spring 2025, Forest curated the exhibition Material Worlds: The Craft of Place in Animation & Interactive Media and co-edited the anthology Holler Back: Artists & Writers in Western North Carolina Respond to Hurricane Heléne (Sequential Artists Workshop, 2025).

His research interests include sustainable design for stop-motion animation, traditional craft of Appalachia, and mycology.

Email: dgamble@unca.edu

Website: https://www.dforestgamble.com