Introducing professors Alessandra Sulpy and Talan Memmott

The Winona State University College of Liberal Arts welcomes eight new staff members this year. In the art and design department, Alessandra Sulpy is a new instructor who will be teaching painting and drawing.

Sulpy came to Winona State for the 2013-2014 school year to cover professor Donald Schmidlapp’s sabbatical. After Schmidlapp retired, Sulpy came back to fill his spot. Sulpy said her transition back to campus has not been hard, since she knew almost everyone in her department.

Originally from New Jersey, Sulpy came from an artistic family. Both of her parents are artists and she began drawing as soon as she could hold a pencil. Now, she is a figurative artist.

“It is a great time to be an artist in Winona,” Sulpy said. “And Watkins Hall is the next up for renovations, so the students will have an improved space.”

She moved to Winona for the position, which was her eighth move for a teaching position. Sulpy has worked at Southern Utah University, Indiana University South Bend, and others.

In her free time, Sulpy hikes with her husband and shops around the local thrift stores.

In Phelps Hall, the mass communications department has a new professor, Talan Memmott, in creative digital media. He started in 2016-17 as a fixed-term faculty member but wanted to stay at Winona State permanently.

Memmott grew up in California and started his career at the Georgia Institute of Technology and worked in computational media at the University of California Santa Cruz before moving to Winona State. His wife and daughter are joining him in Minnesota from California at the end of the school year.

“Winona State is great,” Memmott said. “I’ve enjoyed my time here so far. Working in creative digital media is pretty exciting. It is a new program with a lot of flexibility and potential.”

During his time at Winona State, Memmott has developed and taught classes in digital rhetoric, game design and interactive environments.

Memmott began working in digital media in the early 90s, starting out as a painter and video artist, as well as working in performance art and theatre. Once the World Wide Web was created, he began working in web development as a designer and programmer.

“The mass communications faculty is fantastic. They’ve been generous and very welcoming,” he said. “I think the creative digital media program is starting to attract more students and I am super excited.”

The other new College of Liberal Arts faculty and staff are Krista Phair in communications studies, Miho Nagai in global studies/world languages-Japanese, Avery Dame in mass communications, Isaac Sawie in theatre and dance, Allison Butterfield in sociology/criminal justice and Cassandra Dame-Griff in ethnic studies.