On August 1, 2020 five new tenure-track faculty members will join OCAD University's Faculty of Design. The new hires make up part an effort to address the university's Academic Plan 2017-2022, which the institution has structured to establish a commitment to "decolonization, diversity, and equity."

According to Dr. Dori Tunstall, Dean, Faculty of Design at OCAD, candidates were sought out to fill the needed positions for their work with and within the Black community and for their technical, theoretical, and design/making expertise. 

Dr. Sara Diamond, President and Vice-Chancellor, OCAD University shared in a press statement, "This is an important announcement within today’s context, given recent anti-Black racism protests and events [...] “OCAD U understands that valuing diverse creative practices and forms of knowledge are essential to, and enrich, the institution’s core mission and vision as an art and design university with a local and global scope."

Meet the faculty below:

Angela Bains

Angela Bains is a co-founder and strategic director of TransformExp, an award-winning design firm. Originally from the UK, Bains has more than 25 years of experience in the design industry, working on social change causes, including the Free Nelson Mandela Campaign and commercial accounts including: BBC Television, Swatch Canada, Westinghouse Canada, and the Ritz-Carlton.

Marton Robinson

Costa Rican artist Marton Robinson has an interdisciplinary background informed by his studies in both Physical Education and Art and Visual Communication. He completed an MFA at the University of Southern California. Robinson’s art, which is informed mainly by African-American traditions, challenges the conventional representations of black identities in art history, mainstream culture, and the official national narratives, especially those of Costa Rica.  

Kathy Moscou

Kathy Moscou’s background is eclectic and unique, merging visual arts and health. Her lived experience, born as an African-American, informs her art, focus on Black cultural aesthetics, contemporary design for social justice, commitment to the Black community and choice of research, which focuses on equity and empowerment of Black and Indigenous youth in Canada, the United States and across the African diaspora. Moscou’s experience, contributing to the education of post-secondary students and exhibition history, spans more than 20 years. Her PhD research of pharmacogovernance and comparative health policy addresses equity in drug safety and governance to foster healthy communities.

Kestin Cornwall

Kestin Cornwall grew up in the Windsor, Ontario area. His father is Grenadian and his mother is American. He spent much of his youth in Detroit Michigan with family. In 2001, he moved to Oakville, Ontario to begin his training at Sheridan College. While completing the Art Fundamentals and Illustration programs, Cornwall’s focus and love for the arts grew quickly. He increasingly combined both classical drawing and painting with modern digital reproduction and screen-printing. Over the past 10 years, Cornwall has focused on creating relevant progressive art. 

Michael Lee Poy

Michael Lee Poy is an Afro-Caribbean artist-activist and architect in Trinidad and Tobago. His practice and interests are centered on post-colonial Caribbean design and fabrication in the festival arts – especially Carnival. A graduate of Pratt Institute of Technology in architecture (B. Arch.) and the Yale Graduate School of Architecture, Environmental Design (MED), Michael aims to use interdisciplinarity to augment the innovative, creative, and collaborative process of design.

Since 2015, Lee Poy has been teaching the Hero's Journey process as a design curriculum for graduate students in the Creative Design Entrepreneurship (CDEN) program in the Department of Creative and Festival Arts (DCFA) at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine campus.

To learn more about about each faculty member and their work  click here.