Meet Our Russell Sage VISUAL & PERFORMING ArtS Faculty
DAVID BAECKER
Theatre
David Baecker has been a professor of theatre at Russell Sage College since 2002. He is also a long-time communications coach with the New York State Defenders Association. During Professor Baecker’s time at Sage, he has collaborated with the Hart-Cluett Museum, Troy Foundry Theatre, Oakwood Cemetery, the WORKER Center of the Capital District, and other local organizations. Professor Baecker has taught for many years in RSC general education core classes, like Women in the World and Exploring Intercultural Perspectives, and values the aspects of diversity, social justice, and civic engagement that are introduced to students. In addition to directing productions with the Theatre Institute at Sage, Professor Baecker has directed with the New York State Theatre Institute, Theater Voices, Saratoga Shakespeare Company, the Santa Fe Theatre Festival, and at the New York Fringe Festival. He recently completed a sabbatical project in the UK, collaborating with a disability activist on a new play, Let Right Be Done. Professor Baecker has an MFA from Florida State University, a BA from Washington University in St. Louis, and a teaching certificate from London’s Shakespeare’s Globe. He is a member of the Actors’ Equity Association.
Lynn Capirsello
Interior + Spatial Design
Lynn Capirsello is a designer and educator who specializes in interiors. She is a two time graduate from Syracuse University receiving her BFA in interior design and her MS in Art Education Preparation. After working in architecture firms in Syracuse and NYC, she designed and opened her own coffee house (called The Red Monk). She began her teaching career at Syracuse University where she taught for 9 years.
She came to Sage in 2009 and is currently the Interior + Spatial Design Program Director. Lynn believes that through design education, one can inspire and challenge each student to become the future creative leaders and thinkers in the profession.
ANTHONY CINQUE
Interior + Spatial Design
With eight years of experience as a business entrepreneur and 15+ years’ experience in interior design, Anthony Cinque’s work has grown to encompass a wide variety of projects including single-family residential homes, multi-family residential, commercial, healthcare, retail, hospitality, and education clients. Anthony takes pride in bringing a client’s vision to life, producing spaces for work or play that are sustainable, functional, practical and beautiful.
Anthony is a professional member of The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) where he previously served on the local board as President. Since 2020 Anthony has returned to his alma mater, Russell Sage College where he teaches building codes, professional practice, and construction documentation in the Interior + Spatial Design BFA program.
Karen Conway
Interior + Spatial Design
Karen E. Conway, Allied ASID, LEED AP ID+C is an instructor in Interior Design. Karen earned a BS in biology and journalism at Cornell University. She returned to Sage College and earned a BFA in Interior Design.
Karen’s previous career in the environmental field heavily influences her work as a designer and she is certified LEED AP with the US Green Building Council (USGBC) with a specialty in Interior Design and Construction. Karen has worked in commercial interior design, architecture, historic preservation and high-end residential design firms in all aspects of design and specification. As a part-time instructor, she continues to work in the Interior Design field creating architectural drafting and construction documents, 3D models, presentation materials, web sites and photo realistic renderings. Karen is a member and has served in various committee roles with ASID (American Society of Interior Designers), National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) and USGBC.
William Fillmore
Art + Extended Media
William Fillmore is a surrealistic sculptor born and raised in Southern California. After earning a Business Administration degree in 2005 from California State University of Fullerton, he pursued his desire for making art, earning his MFA in Sculpture in 2013 from Indian University, Bloomington, Indiana. Since graduating, William has participated in numerous Artist in Residence programs including The Banff Centre, Banff, Alberta, Canada; Core Clay Studios, Cincinnati Ohio; Franconia Sculpture Park, Schafer, Minnesota; Campos De Gutierrez, Medellin, Colombia; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont; and Arts Letters & Numbers, Averill Park, New York. Working in multiple sculptural disciplines from ceramics, cast metal, and fabricated steel, William’s sculptural works feature the pain and beauty found in memories both forgotten and the discarded. Each piece stands as a grotesque surrealistic testament to the indelible sting of nostalgia and regret.
TRACY GILBERT
Expressive Arts in Mental Health
Tracy Gilbert, ATR-BC, LMHC is a Board Certified Art Therapist and NY Licensed Mental Health Counselor. After working in clinics, non-profits, schools, and hospital settings for many years, Tracy established a private practice specializing in teens and younger adults who were facing struggles with anxiety, life transitions, and trauma. Tracy is currently an Assistant Professor and the Program Director for the Russell Sage Creative Arts in Therapies/Expressive Arts in Mental Health program. She continues to maintain a small art therapy/counseling practice so that she can be current in her teaching methods. Tracy has a working knowledge of American Sign Language and is a newbie at Spanish. She is an avid reader, baker and painter and loves to sing in the car. If you can’t find her inside, you’ll likely find Tracy outside pursuing a new adventure or curled up with a book in her hammock.
Jen Horn
Expressive Arts in Mental Health
Jennifer Horn, ATR-BC, LCAT is a Board Certified Art Therapist and Licensed Creative Arts Therapist and joined the Expressive Arts in Mental Health faculty at Russell Sage College in 2023 after working in a wide variety of agencies, schools, hospitals, shelters, clinics and private practice. Jen continues to run art therapy groups locally. When Jen is not wearing an art therapy hat she can be found gardening, volunteering, watching baseball or on a softball field giving fastpitch softball pitching instruction.
Sean Hovendick
Graphic + Media Design
Sean Hovendick is Chair of the Department of Visual & Performing Arts and Professor of Graphic + Media Design. Born in Nebraska, Sean spent half his childhood in New Mexico and started his career as a paratrooper in the US Army. He received his bachelor’s degree from Eastern New Mexico University with a concentration in art, broadcast production, and computer animation. After ten years of industry experience, Sean earned an MFA from Syracuse University. Professor Hovendick is a member of AIGA, the New Media Caucus (NMC), and a national AP Reader for the College Board.
Professor Hovendick is a graphic designer, web developer, and interdisciplinary artist creating interactive, photographic, and time-based artworks that explore the hidden forces of power, identity, and social order. Sean’s work has been recently shown at the University at Albany (SUNY), Eastern Kentucky University, Terrault Contemporary in Baltimore, MD; Black Box Gallery in Portland, OR; the CCA Contemporary Art Center in Tbilisi, Georgia; and FUSE Art Space in Bradford, UK.
Mindy McDaniel
Art + Extended Media
Melinda McDaniel grew up in Florida, inspired by the visual overload of Walt Disney World and the endless light at the center of the state’s predictable weather. Her processes are dependent on light and water: her photographic and ceramic works examine contradictions in politics and absurdities in personality. She received a BFA in studio art from Florida State University and an MFA in photography from The Ohio State University. Her work has exhibited at Crowell & West Galleries at Union College in Schenectady, New York, SPACE Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the Governors Island Art Fair in New York, the BRIC Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Illinois. In 2014 Melinda received the Emerging Artist Award from the Arts Center of the Capital Region in New York. She calls Albany, New York home where she lives with her husband and her dachshund Pbo.
Matt McElligott
Graphic + Media Design
Professor Matt McElligott has been a member of the Russell Sage faculty since 1998. He teaches illustration, graphic design, and digital multimedia courses, and is a graduate of Alfred University and the University of Buffalo.
Matt is the author and illustrator of eighteen books for children including Do Not Eat The Game! the Mad Scientist Academy series, Even Monsters Need Haircuts, and the Benjamin Franklinstein series, as well as the author and lyricist of the musical Backbeard The Pirate, based on his stories. His books have been published in six languages on five continents, and have nearly a half-million copies around the world. Recent awards include the 2012-13 Oregon Patricia Gallagher Picture Book Award for The Lion’s Share and the 2012-13 South Dakota Prairie Bud Children’s Book Award for Even Monsters Need Haircuts.
Leah Rico
Graphic + Media Design
Leah Rico received an MFA in Visual Studies and BFA in Painting and Printmaking from SUNY Buffalo. Leah Rico is an interdisciplinary artist and designer whose practice explores language as its subject matter. Leah uses sound installation, experimental audio, drawing, print, and graphic work to examine the embodiment of voices as words and gestures, and language as a metaphor for worldly experience. Her latest body of artwork uses the experiential nature of sound in her audio installations to investigate the experience of spoken language. She is currently researching how the field of design can better reflect numerous cultural perspectives, specifically through typography and language preservation. Leah believes that the field of design is not only concerned with function and form, but includes a responsibility for the production of feelings and experiences at a massive scale, and encourages young designers to explore new practices and methodologies to address current societal challenges.
SARA SENECAL
Dance / Performing Arts
Sara Senecal joined the faculty of Russell Sage College in 2018. She holds an MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University and a BA in Dance and a minor in Education from the University at Buffalo.
Sara has been presenting solo choreographic works with an emphasis on performer/audience dynamics, most recently at WAXWorks in Brooklyn, NY and Art Society Kingston. She was one of the 2024 New York State Choreographer Initiative artists, a funding opportunity administered by The New York State DanceForce and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).
She has presented choreography at many locations across NYS such as The Poet’s Den in Harlem, Cohoes Music Hall, Byrdcliffe Theatre in Woodstock, The Carrier Theater in Syracuse, and The Egg. She has been a dancer with the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, resident company of The Egg PAC, since 2010 and is an Arts in Education Coordinator for the company. In 2023, Sara was commissioned by the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company to create a new work which premiered May 2023.