Samantha Sheppard was named the Mary Armstrong Meducki ’80 Assistant Professor in the department of performing and media arts at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She is the co-editor of From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry (University of Mississippi Press, 2016).
Dr. Sheppard is a graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she majored in film and television studies and women and gender studies. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in cinema and media studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Sean Jones was appointed to the Richard and Elizabeth Case Chair in Jazz Studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. Since 2014, he has been chair of the brass department at the Berklee College of Music. Professor Jones is also the artistic director of the Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra.
Professor Jones has recorded eight albums. He is the former lead trumpeter for the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He holds a master’s degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Marques Bradshaw, associate professor of clinical radiology and radiological sciences, at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was given the added duties of associate director for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the department of radiology and radiological sciences.
Dr. Bradshaw joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 2017. He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta and earned his medical degree at Duke University.
Charles Burnett was named visiting artist-in-residence in the Film and Electronic Arts Program at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is teaching this semester and in the fall 2018 semester.
Burnett’s film Killer of Sheep was a first-prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival. He is a former MacArthur Fellow.
