Assistant Professor Alisha B Wormsley begins her tenure during a period of historic national recognition for the graduate program and as it welcomes a dynamic new cohort of MFA candidates.
The School of Art is pleased to announce that Alisha B Wormsley has begun her tenure as the new MFA Program Director. An interdisciplinary artist, cultural producer, native Pittsburgher, and longtime member of the Carnegie Mellon community, Wormsley takes the helm at an exciting time for the program.
This spring, U.S. News & World Report recognized the School of Art in a tie for the #2 Best Fine Arts Program in the nation, marking its highest national ranking to date. This achievement underscores the success of a multi-year effort to redefine graduate arts education at CMU and foster a rigorous, student-centered approach to contemporary artmaking. Wormsley succeeds Lyndon Barrois Jr., who served as director for the 2025–26 academic year and is now Assistant Professor at York University in Toronto.
Wormsley’s deep history with the School of Art spans several roles, including Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar, Visiting MFA Core Faculty, and Adjunct Professor, before she joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Art in Social Practice in 2023. An internationally recognized interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer, her work moves across film, craft, print, sound, performance and social practice. Across these forms, she explores collective memory, futurity, and the possibilities of Black matriarchal structures, often creating spaces for gathering, reflection, and exchange within public infrastructure and community contexts.
Wormsley’s ongoing projects include There Are Black People In The Future, which uses objects, text, and micro-grants to open conversations around equitable world building in the face of displacement and gentrification. Cosmologyscape, a collaborative project on Radical Dreaming with artist Suzanne Kite, was recently presented in a major orchestral premiere at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York. Her permanent public artwork Portals was unveiled last fall as a central feature of the reimagined Pittsburgh International Airport. Her numerous accolades include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Time commission, and an Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grant. She holds an MFA in Film and Video from Bard College and is the founder of Sibyls Shrine, a residency and network supporting Black artists who m/other through community, exchange, and radical care.
“I have the deepest respect for Alisha’s extraordinary creative practice and her profound commitment to community,” said Meg Bisineer, Head of the School of Art. “Her work consistently challenges us to expand our vision of what art can achieve and where it can live. As an educator, that vital perspective asks students not only how they can push the boundaries of their work, but how that work might shape the social fabric of our lives. I look forward to working closely with Alisha as her leadership continues to nourish our graduate program, both structurally and for our students personally.”