Shayla Brown

George Mason student uses his passion for filmmaking to give back

Colleen Rich — Wed, 07 May 2025 19:43:49 +0000

George Mason student uses his passion for filmmaking to give back Colleen Rich Wed, 05/07/2025 - 15:43

George Mason �鶹�� Film and Video Studies student James Bah will graduate with a pretty impressive resumé.

James Bah (center right) directing his senior film, The Lick. Photo provided

At the 2024 Best of Film at George Mason showcase, he screened his music video, The Show, which he directed for rapper Bobby Feeno, also known as former NFL running back Arian Foster. Bah, who was a content creator and uploading his own videos, met Foster when they were both streaming on the platform Twitch, and made a cameo appearance in the video.

“He reacted to one of my videos and we eventually got acquainted. I started editing content for him when I was still in high school,” said Bah, who is from Washington, D.C.

Bah traveled to Houston to direct the music video. “It was a fantastic experience and it still feels surreal that it happened. It was also my first time participating in Best of Film and a lot of people seemed to really enjoy it.”

The music video was also featured at the Washington West Film Festival in October.

The College of Visual and Performing Arts senior started off with an editing concentration before transitioning to a directing focus. “As a kid I didn't have cable, so I would watch highlights on YouTube and then I started to recreate those highlights and really got into editing,” said Bah.

After attending predominantly Black schools growing up, Bah wanted to connect with other Black filmmakers, “so I founded the Black Filmmakers Association (BFMA), whose mission is to bring together Black storytellers on campus,” said Bah.

James Bah (left) directing a film project. Photo provided

“A lot of the times you’ll see the same producers, directors, and cinematographers working on multiple projects together. The experience of being on set, that networking and collaborative culture, is essential in the film industry. BFMA provides us with those kinds of opportunities to get more projects on our reels,” said Bah, who is the president of the organization.

In addition to the Best of Film showcase, Bah has participated in numerous George Mason film events, either featuring his own work or supporting the work of his peers and professors.

In 2024, Bah was the moderator for Professor Nikyatu Jusu’s film Nanny at George Mason’s Visiting Filmmakers Series. “I was nervous at first, but I’d watched the film multiple times and we have a good relationship, so after a while it just turned into a conversation and was smooth sailing from there,” said Bah.

“Professor Jusu has been such an instrumental figure into my development and into my craft. I joke all the time that she’s my ‘auntie’ because we're both Sierra Leonian,” said Bah, who took FAVS 475 Advanced Fiction Directing with Jusu.

Bah said his early academic advisor Lori Yi and current BFMA faculty advisor Leonard Collins were also really impactful in supporting him throughout his academic journey.

“James is a really passionate filmmaker. I’ve enjoyed so many of his projects, but my favorite is his senior thesis project, The Lick, about the challenges of growing up in Southeast D.C. Even with just the first draft, I was in awe. He has a gift and he has something special with this film,” said Leonard Collins, BA Film and Video Studies ’20, a FAVS adjunct professor and teaching assistant.

“I see James giving back to the students of George Mason and his community as an award-winning director, producer someday,” said Collins.

Bah has already been on a professional set as a location assistant on the Academy Award-nominated Netflix film Rustin. He learned about the opportunity while working at the nonprofit Life Pieces to Masterpieces as a videographer and mentor to grade school students.

“Location assistants are next to production assistants where they're essentially handymen doing what’s needed in order to keep everything on set moving. I spent a couple of weeks working 14-to-16-hour days on set. It was a lot of work, but I loved the experience. I was grateful for the opportunity and I had a blast,” said Bah.

In addition to working at Life Pieces to Masterpieces, Bah also worked at George Mason’s Student Technology Assistance and Resource Lab, and did digital storytelling work for Project Create and CityWorks D.C.

“After graduation, I hope to be working with an organization where I can use my creative ambition to give back to community and help others by any means,” said Bah.

Explore Film and Video Studies at Mason

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This alumna was a production supervisor for the Oscar-winning film, "Anora"

Shayla Brown — Fri, 02 May 2025 20:17:28 +0000

This alumna was a production supervisor for the Oscar-winning film, "Anora"  Shayla Brown Fri, 05/02/2025 - 16:17

Only five years after graduating from George Mason �鶹��, alumna Rhyan Elliott, Film and Video Studies ’20, was recently a production supervisor for the five-time Oscar-winning film, Anora (2024), directed by Sean Baker.  

“I've always been interested in telling stories, but everything really started happening for me when I got to George Mason,” said Elliott. 

Rhyan Elliott. Photo provided.

When she first arrived on campus, Elliott joined the student organization Delta Kappa Alpha (DKA), which focuses on the professional growth of students who hope to work in the cinematic arts. 

Although Elliott initially pursued a screenwriting concentration and had hoped to work in video game production, she soon realized she liked working in film production. 

“[With] DKA, I learned a lot more about myself as a creative artist and discovered that I also loved the office side of things, since we’re required to do a lot of different paperwork for events and things like that,” said Elliott.

Elliott credits George Mason professor and award-winning filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu and her course FAVS 475 Advanced Fiction Directing for inspiring her. 

“Professor Jusu was very influential to me as a creative artist. I did a couple of projects for George Mason’s Best of Film that are the results of her classes and guidance,” said Elliott. 

The two projects were the student short film Close Call, which won a student Capital Emmy and the short film, Always Carry a Bible, which she screened at the Washington West Film Festival for. 

“I had the pleasure of teaching Rhyan and was immediately struck by her unshakeable confidence and ability to harness a room,” said Jusu. 

“She is a talented, unique storyteller and thinker who bravely made her way to New York after graduating from Mason. It comes as no surprise that she found her place in the crew of such a poignant indie film.”

George Mason’s Film and Video Studies Program also requires its students to complete an internship before graduation. 

Rhyan Elliott (bottom right) with the Anora film crew. Photo provided.

 “I went to New York in summer of 2019 and worked on two films, Naked Singularity and Black Lady Goddess, as a production assistant, and everything just snowballed from there,” said Elliott, who has worked on multiple indie films, television shows, and A24 productions since graduating. 

She was also a health safety officer on sets in the wake of the pandemic. 

“We started pre-production for Anora in November 2022, so this has been a years-long journey,” said Elliott. 

As production supervisor, Elliott worked closely with the film’s line producer, managing the finances and budget of the film, and making sure that spending was on track with projections. 

“The cast and crew members are still pretty close, so we had an Oscars watch party at a really cool bar in New York,” said Elliott, who also attended the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in France. 

“It’s surreal to think that this little movie that we put all of our blood, sweat, and tears into and worked so hard and passionately on is now on the big screen and receiving so much praise. There have been so many big moments that you don’t realize are building up to something so amazing,” she said. 

In This Story

Nikyatu Jusu

Learn more about the College of Visual and Performing Arts

Listen to Access to Excellence EP 51: Nikyatu Jusu

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Alumni

College of Visual and Performing Arts Film and Video Studies

Awards

Capital Emmys

College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

Graduating community health student has her own floss-ophy

Shayla Brown — Fri, 02 May 2025 17:09:05 +0000

Graduating community health student has her own floss-ophy Shayla Brown Fri, 05/02/2025 - 13:09

Growing up, George Mason �鶹�� senior Haila Salaheddine was not a big fan of going to the dentist.

“I was initially very fearful of the dentist. When I was living in Lebanon, there wasn’t really preventative care for oral hygiene,” said Salaheddine, a community health major.

After high school, Salaheddine moved to the United States and discovered she had eight cavities.

“I got them filled in quadrants, which was not fun, but I paid close attention to what the dentist was doing; all the material he was picking up. I started asking questions and ended up shadowing the same dentist, and soon fell in love with it,” said Salaheddine.

Salaheddine is graduating this spring with a bachelor of science from George Mason’s College of Public Health and plans to attend dental school at the �鶹�� of Maryland.

“Now it will be my responsibility to make sure that patients feel comfortable with me, which is something that I'm very excited for. Going to the dentist is a different experience for everybody and I want to help make the process as easy as possible,” said the Honors College student.

Haila Salaheddine. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of �鶹�� Branding.

During her time on campus, Salaheddine was president of the Volunteers Around the World dental outreach program, vice president of Patriots for Public Health, and a member of the Pre-Dental Society, Chemistry Club, and Alpha Phi sorority.

“�鶹�� main goal with Volunteers Around the World is to get enough members to travel overseas for two weeks in the summer and provide dental care for underserved communities in countries like the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Peru,” said Salaheddine, who has attended multiple national meetings.

She was also president of a student advisory group that advocated for more global and community health (GCH) courses in Peterson Hall.

“We met with President Gregory Washington on a monthly basis and discussed how having more courses in this building can help GCH students to integrate themselves more in the major and with fellow peers,” she said.

Salaheddine is in her third semester of being a learning advisor for College of Science professor Gwendolyn Fondufe, providing support to students in Fondufe’s classrooms.

One of Salaheddine’s favorite courses was organic chemistry taught by Greg Petruncio.

“Haila has a high capacity for memorization, something that is necessary to perform well in organic chemistry and is evidenced by her stellar performance in the course,” said Petruncio, a postdoctoral fellow in George Mason’s College of Science.

“She would show up to my office hours regularly and would often ask exam-focused questions to target her studying efforts,” he said.

Salaheddine describes the course as the climax of her college experience.

“It taught me a lot about myself, about my time management skills, and it was really impactful in me passing my dental admission exams,” she said.

What’s your best memory at George Mason? 

My freshman year in fall 2021. It was the turnover of the COVID-19 era and we were getting more social interactions, but it was still very quiet on campus. It was a really new and unique experience, and a critical point for me. I often question what it would be like if I was to go back freshman year and have it completely in person, and whether that would've changed my way of thinking or the places where I usually hang our and study now.

How have you grown at George Mason?

My senior year is when I found my love of joining clubs and trying to hold leadership positions because it was something that kept me intertwined with George Mason as a commuter. Something that’s important for me is being able to receive constructive criticism when working with others so being able to socialize and ask this from people was really significant for me, especially as I started applying to dental schools and interviewing for programs. I don't think I would be where I am now as a leader in two different clubs and admitted into dental school otherwise.

What advice do you have for incoming students?

As a learning advisor for BIOL 213 [Cell Structure and Function], a lot of my students are freshmen, and funny enough I oftentimes advise them to socialize and put themselves outside their comfort zone and make friends with people they wouldn't typically interact with. It builds a lot of personality and social awareness.

There are so many different perspectives surrounding us at all times and being able to keep an open mind while interacting with all these different individuals helps you, especially as a person who's still growing. We can't always control the environment we’re in and being able to communicate with others in a meaningful way is crucial.

What’s next for you? 

I'm very excited to finally go to dental school at the �鶹�� of Maryland. As a dental assistant, you're shadowing professionals and helping on the sidelines. I finally get to say that I am pursuing my future career and providing firsthand care to others. That's something that's very heartwarming and amazing to hear.

Topics

Graduation

Community Health

College of Public Health

College of Science

Students

Criminology student interns at an adult detention center

Shayla Brown — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 20:28:26 +0000

Criminology student interns at an adult detention center  Shayla Brown Thu, 04/24/2025 - 16:28

When George Mason �鶹�� junior Megan Miller toured the Prince William-Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center as part of her coursework, she didn’t realize she was being interviewed for an internship position. 

“It was a tour group of about eight of us, and we went into it very excited. For once, I wasn’t shy; I was talkative and outgoing, which is good because they were essentially evaluating us to see if we’d be a good fit for the environment,” said Miller, who is a criminology, law, and society (CLS) student in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.  

Megan Miller (back right) at a session in the detention center. Photo provided.

“No resumes were required. It was simply based on how we spoke and acted during the tour. I had never toured a jail before, but it was something that I was interested in because I do plan to work professionally in a prison or correctional facility one day,” she explained. 

 Miller interned from August to December 2024 in the center’s classification department and worked with inmate visitation and reentry programs, such as the center’s GED courses.  

 “They have different tiers in the adult detention center. [For example] orange is [maximum] custody, blue is middle custody, and green is lower-level crime. The classification department ranks where inmates should be placed based on their crime and prior offenses,” explained Miller. “It’s one of the most important jobs in the center, because if someone is classified wrong there could incidents that lead to injury or death because of it,” she said. 

Megan Miller. Photo provided.

 As someone who hopes to work with inmates on their reintegration into society after incarceration, Miller said she was fascinated by the center’s mental health facility. 

“I think that having a mental health unit in any type of correctional facility is extremely beneficial,” said Miller. “I hope to one day work with mentally ill inmates, evaluating their mental state and trying my best to understand mental illness and its correlation to crime.”

 Miller obtained this internship as a result of CLS professor Catherine Dobson’s CRIM 479 Introduction to Internship and CRIM 480 Internship courses. 

 Dobson is also director of the department’s internship program.  

 “Students are much more likely to have jobs after graduation if they do an internship, and many times the internship itself turns into a full-time job. [In the course] we do all the foundational work of putting together strong resumes with transferable skills and working closely with George Mason’s Career Services because they've got lots of great resources for the students,” said Dobson. 

 “Students will have a fixed idea of what they want to do, so I introduce them to different local, state, and federal options, and also nonprofit and private sector options. George Mason has a lot of great partners throughout the community for our students to reach out to,” Dobson said. 

Megan Miller (left) and her roommate, Sophia Figler. Photo provided.

Miller said they attended the internship expo as a class and were given the opportunity to speak to different organizations including the Fairfax and Loudoun County sheriff' departments.  

“I took the most interest in the adult detention center because of the sergeants who were there speaking that day. My roommate and I gave them our names, and we actually did the internship together,” said Miller. 

After she graduates, Miller hopes to continue her education at George Mason, earning her master’s degree in criminology, and become a full-time officer at the center.

Topics

internships

criminology law and society

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Students

George Mason bioengineering team’s start-up is the next wave of athletic rehabilitation and performance

Shayla Brown — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 21:09:36 +0000

George Mason bioengineering team’s start-up is the next wave of athletic rehabilitation and performance Shayla Brown Tue, 04/22/2025 - 17:09

Based on their years of research studying how student-athletes move, George Mason �鶹�� bioengineering professors Parag Chitnis and Siddhartha Sikdar have created a start-up called Myokinetics LLC with the goal of providing personalized rehabilitation programs for injured athletes that can help them recover faster and prevent them from getting injured in the future.

Erica King (left) and researcher testing the Myokinetics device. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of �鶹�� Branding.

This effort builds on more than $5 million in funding from the Department of Defense for developing wearable ultrasound technologies that help rehabilitate musculoskeletal injuries through a Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs grant, and two Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium awards, which is a funding mechanism that supports fast translation and development of new technologies relevant for military health.

For the past 10 years, Chitnis and Sikdar have been developing the Myokinetics device “to understand not only when musculoskeletal injuries occur, but to help track the recovery process from the injury as well as prevent re-injury,” said Chitnis, who along with Sikdar, co-directs George Mason’s Center for Advancing Systems Science and Bioengineering Innovation (CASSBI), formerly the Center for Adaptive Systems of Brain-Body Interactions.

Their device personalizes the treatments and rehabilitation that's provided so that users can recover in the most optimal manner. Chitnis and Sikdar are also working with multiple collaborators including George Mason PhD students, George Mason Athletics, and the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD).

Margaret T. Jones is the director of the Patriot Performance Lab within CEHD’s Center for Sport Management. The lab conducts research and provides services that focus on athlete health and performance.

Margaret T. Jones (center right) with student athletes. Photo provided.

“The wearable ultrasound allows you to look at what the muscles are doing underneath the skin when they contract and what the contraction looks like,” said Jones, who has been working with the George Mason men’s and women’s volleyball teams since August 2024.

“The research methods vary based on the sport, but [the volleyball players] wear the ultrasound device and we go to their practice facility once a week. Since the sport involves a lot of jumping, we have them jump on what's called a force plate, which is sort of a fancy scale, and collect data to share with the bioengineering team that way,” she said.

In addition, Jones and the team monitor the athletes during their practices and games via the wearable microsensor, which assist in the interpretation of their findings from the weekly jumps and ultrasound tests.

As the team’s research scientist, fourth-year PhD bioengineering student Erica King, BS Bioengineering ’21, works closely with Jones and the Patriot Performance Lab.

“I’m using the device for specific applications and testing and validating against other gold standards that are currently in the market,” said King, who spent all four years of her undergrad on George Mason’s women’s swim and dive team.

“I've seen my fair share of injuries as an athlete, either my own or my friends, and it’s a continuous cycle. You'll rehabilitate the injury, feel better, and then when you go back to your sport or activity, you'll get injured again,” said King, who was in the Honors College.

“Being able to have a device to help understand what's going on at the muscle level during your rehabilitation to ensure that you're doing the exercises correctly to get the desired results and perform your sport while mitigating the risk of reinjury is so beneficial,” she said.

Partner collaborators include North Carolina State �鶹��, Cephasonics Ultrasound, and Infinite Biomedical Technologies (IBT). IBT CEO Rahul Kaliki is also a co-founder of Myokinetics LLC.

A close up of the device. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of �鶹�� Branding.

“At CASSBI, different people and resources are pulled in to work on multidisciplinary projects like this one. This collaboration enables a lot of iterative prototyping efforts, which would not have been possible without the center,” said Abhishek Aher, MS Bioengineering ’24.

“I would like to see the Myokinetics device being used nationwide on the fields of major sports leagues. This should enable more metrics for the players,” said Aher, who is the Myokinetics team’s research engineer.

“For example, metrics such as how many points a player scored or how many minutes they ran are discussed pregame or postgame, but with our device, Myokinetic metrics can become an essential conversation point. That’s where I would like to see this go in the next five years,” he said.

King hopes to continue researching human performance after injury and focus on the most safe and effective ways that athletes can get back to their optimal performance.

“I hope to stick with Myokinetics and implement the devices and the metrics that we're currently developing into the rehabilitation setting. This is for the general population, but athletes will always have a special place in my heart,” said King.

In This Story

Siddhartha Sikdar

Parag Chitnis

Learn the origins of Myokinetics LLC

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College of Engineering and Computing

College of Education and Human Development

Mason Athletics

Honors College

Center for Adaptive Systems of Brain-Body Interactions

Research

Students

Professor, students travel to Rwanda for peace-building mission

Shayla Brown — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 14:14:32 +0000

Professor, students travel to Rwanda for peace-building mission Shayla Brown Wed, 04/16/2025 - 10:14

This spring, George Mason �鶹�� Professor Al Fuertes traveled to Rwanda to facilitate workshops for former victims and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan mass genocide.

“These are people who have extended forgiveness and reconciliation, something many of us might think is surreal or impossible,” said Fuertes, who teaches in the School of Integrative Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “But this is proof that even against the backdrop of genocide, it’s possible.”

Al Fuertes (bottom center) at a peace-building workshop in Rwanda. Photo provided.

Fuertes, who has a background in conflict analysis and resolution and specializes in trauma healing, has previously traveled to Rwanda in March and November 2024, and has taken students with him on some of his excursions as part of a study-abroad program for which he is the faculty director.

His most recent trip was in collaboration with the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Protestant �鶹�� of Rwanda (PUR) located in Huye District. Fuertes also connected and collaborated with the grassroots organization, "Light Group" in Remera, and the Aegis Trust, a program component of the Rwanda Genocidal Memorial.

Al Fuertes conducting a peace-building workshop. Photo provided.

“It's a different level of learning when students have the opportunity to meet firsthand those who were involved or impacted and are now sharing their stories,” said Fuertes.

“It is an extremely freeing and life-changing thing for students to experience, especially those who don't necessarily believe in forgiveness or who struggle to forgive.”

Each semester, Fuertes hosts a panel presentation of Rwandan survivors as part of the learning activities in my graduate courses CONF 695 Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation amid Polarization and CONF 695 Psychosocial Trauma Healing. This spring semester’s panel resulted in increased participation from George Mason students.

“Knowing that one of the challenges to reconciliation in Rwanda is poverty, students from my trauma-informed and resilience-oriented practice class decided to donate 15 goats to families of both former perpetrators and former victims, now survivors,” said Fuertes.

Dianne Rambo, BIS in Peacebuilding and Well-Being Studies ’24, has been a federal contractor in the intelligence world for more than 20 years. She came back to George Mason to study the process of healing childhood trauma in adults in hopes of becoming a mental health counselor.

“I took [CONF 695 the Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation] with Al, and the course material and experiential learning have really changed the course of my life and career goals,” said Rambo, who met Fuertes at an online workshop for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Rambo, who is currently a non-degree graduate student in George Mason’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and part of George Mason's Working Group on Forgiveness and Reconciliation along with Fuertes, traveled to Rwanda with Fuertes for the 14-day winter study-abroad program focusing on genocide, healing, and reconciliation.

A healing circle. Photo by Al Fuertes.

“I met the Rwandans via Zoom panels while in Al’s class. We learned about their stories and it just blew my mind how they were facilitating this reconciliation as a nation and how it transformed their nation from this mass atrocity that happened just a couple decades ago,” said Rambo, who has also traveled to Northern Ireland, Scandanavia, and the Philippines for peace-building missions.

“�鶹�� program partners facilitated visits to the genocide memorials, and we were able to build a space that felt safe and comfortable. We'd debrief afterward where you can share the intense feelings that you may have experienced. We're seeing really hard things, but we're able to process our emotions,” said Rambo.

Rambo has been accepted into George Mason's CEHD Counseling degree program and will begin the cohort program this fall.

Rambo, Fuertes, and their program partners also have participants journal and conduct community-building activities.

“I thought of bringing healing through peace-building because it's not enough just to resolve the conflict,” said Fuertes. “If victimization is not healed, most likely, people may start embracing the victim narrative and eventually become the new perpetrator.”

In This Story

Al Fuertes

Discover the School of Integrative Studies

Topics

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Mental Health

Peacebuilding

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Students

New art course teaches students how to think differently about design

Shayla Brown — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 15:49:48 +0000

New art course teaches students how to think differently about design Shayla Brown Wed, 04/02/2025 - 11:49

“Furniture isn’t just a tangible item that’s supposed to mold to your body, but it can also mold to your lifestyle,” said Katherin Salazar, a George Mason �鶹�� senior art and visual technology major.

She is currently taking a new College of Visual and Performing Arts special topics course, AVT 496, which focuses on furniture design and is offered through the university’s School of Art.

AVT 496 students discussing their sculptures. Photo by Ayman Rashid/Office of �鶹�� Branding.

“The goal is to teach students about the power of furniture and how the built environment is constantly communicating and reorchestrating hierarchical structures,” said Mallory Kimmel, a Washington, D.C.-based interdisciplinary artist who created and teaches the course.

“We’re learning how to cultivate a greater awareness of the intended power dynamics in space, and also to become a curator of reshaping hierarchies in space to be more oriented to social justice ethos,” she said.

Salazar, who has contracts with Smithsonian Folklife Festival and Skate Folk creating competitive atmospheres that serve as a gateway for local skaters, is currently building a quarter pipe ramp for a class project.

AVT 496 student showcases the functionality of a sculpture. Photo provided.

“The techniques we’re learning in this course go hand in hand with building a lot of structures related to skating,” said Salazar, who works as a student monitor in the university’s Sculpture Studio under the supervision of Ben Ashworth, sculpture and foundations supervisor in George Mason’s School of Art.

“Mallory and Ben have taught me the ways of the art world and how it's constantly changing and growing. The biggest lesson I’ve learned so far is to take pride in my skills and realizing the worth of them,” she said.

As a part of the course, the students will tour the National Gallery of Art and put what they’ve learned to practice by identifying and recommending ways to create a more welcoming environment for people to experience the art.

The students will also present how their finished sculptures address hostile architecture, which Kimmel defines as the “built environment containing features that aim to reject certain people or behaviors.”

An example of hostile architecture is public benches that have handrails in the center so that it's prohibitive for the houseless population to lay down, explained Kimmel.

AVT 496 student showcases the functionality of a sculpture. Photo provided.

“[This course] has allowed me to expand my thinking beyond just the functions of furniture, but about its design ethics and the body itself,” said Roland Payabyab, a senior art and visual technology major.

For Payabyab’s first project, he focused on posture in honor of his parents.

“I'm noticing as they age, they're developing a lot of back problems, so I'm creating a bench meant to relieve some of that pain by incorporating a function within this piece to move with them as they need, for example, when they’re bending over to put on shoes,” he said.

Payabyab was able to build his project with techniques, such as woodworking and joinery.

AVT 496 students discussing their sculptures. Photo by Ayman Rashid/Office of �鶹�� Branding.

“Joinery was one of the things I was most excited to learn about, and it just so happened to be the first topic we would cover,” said Payabyab. “Now I know how to combine different materials without nails or screws to build my sculptures, which is great for me because that’s what I’d like to do as a career after I graduate.”

In This Story

Mallory Kimmel

Benjamin Ashworth

Topics

College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

National Gallery of Art

This alumna’s first feature film is all about Him

Shayla Brown — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:43:42 +0000

This alumna’s first feature film is all about Him Shayla Brown Thu, 03/27/2025 - 09:43

George Mason �鶹�� alumna Rebecca Wahls’ directorial debut film Him centers on the last five contestants of a reality dating show, who discover that their potential “soulmate” isn’t what he seems to be.

"The screening was a really special opportunity to share the film with the George Mason community, from my old classmates to current students. It was fun to talk with the students who asked such detail-oriented questions during the Q&A and after the screening," said Wahls, BA Theater ’15.

Rebecca Wahls (right) and Kira Omens on set of Him. Photo by Madeleine Murphy.

Wahls received the 2024 Young Alumni Creative Development Award from the Young Alumni Commissioning Project (YACP) for the film, which was screened in the Johnson Center Cinema on March 21.

“We immediately realized this was a topic that inspires big time conversation because a lot of people really don't know much about how reality TV works behind the scenes. For example, contestants aren’t allowed to have their cell phones with them, which is a big part of the film’s plotline,” said Wahls, who is also a writer and producer.

“The core theme of Him is that women in particular have to put on various masks in the different areas of their lives. In this scenario, the face that's being put on them is completely outside of their control,” she said.

Filming took place in January 2023 in Sedona, Arizona, over the course of 17 days. This film, which Wahls describes as an “anxious comedy,” is a partnership between Wahls and Tess Higgins. Higgins originally wrote the story as a stage play, which was previously directed by Wahls in Washington, D.C.

“There are always three movies: the one that you write, the one that you shoot, and the one that you ultimately edit that ends up being the final product. Every step of the way, Tess and I would reach out to people [for advice],” said Wahls.

“We went into production and reached out to everyone we knew who had successfully shot a feature film. Now we're going into editing or music, so we reach out to everyone who has successfully done that. Every round of that there are fewer and fewer people to reach out to, so I think it's a huge achievement to have finished it as quickly as we did and as well as we did,” she said.

After the film was finished, they began submitting it to festivals and sought distribution for it.

A still of the film Him. Image provided.

Wahls said she and Higgins applied for the YACP funds so they could hire a lawyer for the protection and distribution of the film.

“This grant was really essential, and we couldn’t be doing what we’re doing without it,” she said.

The film premiered at the Sedona International Film Festival and has been screened at nine festivals total, including the Richmond International Festival, the Three Rivers Film Festival, the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, and the Ampersand International Arts Festival at the College of William & Mary, where Higgins graduated from in 2015.

In addition to Wahls, there are several other George Mason alumni involved in the film. The lead character Jenna is played by Kira Omans BA Theater ’17, and behind the scenes, Eric Stenmark, BA Film and Video Studies ’13, was the VFX supervisor; Noah Peterson, BA Theater ’18, was first assistant director; and Keenan Gibson, BA Theater ’18, was a production assistant.

Other cast members include Sydney Battle, a co-host of the "Diss and Tell” podcast; Kyle Prue, a TikToker with 1.2M followers; and Troy Baker, a voice actor who originated the voice of ‘Joel’ on The Last of Us video games.

Left to right: Tess Higgins, Margaret Berkowitz, and Rebecca Wahls. Photo by Madeleine Murphy.

Wahls is also active in George Mason’s Acting for Young People (AFYP) program within the Mason Community Arts Academy (MCAA).

“From the moment I met Rebecca in her freshman year, she stood out as vibrant and whip-smart,” said AYFP artistic director and MCAA executive director Mary Lechter, who was one of Wahls’ first acting teachers. Lechter and Wahls have remained friends and collaborators.

“I am in awe of Rebecca’s wisdom, artistry, vision, and humanity, and am proud to support her in this and every endeavor,” Lechter added.

“Mary continues to be one of the most influential people in my life and is a huge supporter of this film along with her husband, Kevin Murray. When I think about my [George] Mason family, it's them,” said Wahls, who will direct The 39 Steps for MCAA’s Advanced Actors' Showcase this summer.

After graduating from George Mason, Wahls cofounded the nonprofit theater Who What Where Productions. She also earned her Master of Fine Arts in directing from Carnegie Mellon in 2023 where she was a John Wells Fellow. She currently teaches Acting for the Camera, Musical Theater, and Adaptation at Duke �鶹�� as an artist-in-residence.

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Mary Lechter

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Engineering professors develop human-AI colorization tool for cartoonists

Shayla Brown — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:28:34 +0000

Engineering professors develop human-AI colorization tool for cartoonists Shayla Brown Mon, 03/03/2025 - 12:28

George Mason �鶹�� professor Sungsoo Ray Hong has always been a huge fan of cartoons, comics, and animations. By combining his passion with his research area of human-computer interaction, he has created a new tool for cartoonists, ShadowMagic.

Hong, his colleague Yotam Gingold, and their PhD students published a paper, “ShadowMagic: Designing Human-AI Collaborative Support for Comic Professionals’ Shadowing,” elucidating the need for the tool, which aims to boost product quality and designer productivity through study-informed human-AI interaction.

The team worked with professional cartoonists to find common workflow of colorization that is shared within the industry as a reference point for their research, which examines the evolution of designing technology as cartoonists transitioned from using PCs in the 1980s to artificial intelligence, said Hong, who is an assistant professor at the Department of Information Sciences and Technology.

Creating a comic book is a team effort as there are many roles throughout the process including story drafting, sketching, colorizing, editing, and sending to a production company, said Hong.

“Professional cartoonists are sometimes producing content every other day,” said Hong, who is also director of George Mason’s Alignment Lab. “You cannot commit to these kinds of deadlines doing everything by yourself. That's why the colorization industry is so helpful to professional cartoonists.”

Colorization is a sequential process of line drawing, flatting, base colorization, shadows and/or lighting, background and other special effects. The tool stems from a previous project, FlatMagic, another AI-driven tool designed to improve the creative process for digital comic professionals.

“This is a fairly standardized process, especially in South Korea and growing throughout the United States as well,” he explained. “The solutions to these network visualizations should be contextualized, but we have the limited resources. We can’t build everything for everybody. That’s my motivation here.”

Gingold also specializes in human-computer interaction and “has always been interested in sketching and how computers can help us express ourselves,” said the Department of Computer Science associate professor.

Yotam Gingold (left) and Ray Hong in Research Hall, presenting their colorization tool. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of �鶹�� Branding.

“We looked at artistic challenges, usually tedious things that aren’t so fun for the artists and break down those problems, so that they can focus more on the creative parts of it,” said Gingold, who is the director of George Mason’s Computational Reality, Creativity, and Graphics Lab.

There are millions of pixels in an image, and if an artist wants to move or change the color of a building for example, they point at one pixel among the millions. The artist wants the rest of the pixels to follow along naturally so the rest of the building should also change, he explained.

“The computers will do the math where we can write formulas to update all the other millions of pixels. Another example would be keeping lines parallel and corners perpendicular, and that’s where a lot of my research comes in,” said.

While a doctoral student at George Mason, Chuan Yan, PhD ’24, was recruited by Gingold for this project and conducted research on sketching and painting. Yan’s area of expertise encompasses computer graphics fundamentals and sketch-related computer vision techniques, which he had learned extensively from Gingold, he explained.

The ShadowMagic tool was built as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in, and since its release, the team “has garnered significant interest from artists inquiring about updates and expressing a strong desire for a tool that could free them from the labor-intensive flatting process,” said Yan, who is currently a postdoc researcher at Stanford �鶹��.

“This response is both exciting and humbling. It confirms that our research is addressing a real need in the industry yet also highlights the remaining challenges in making [the tool] ready for widespread adoption.”

Yan believes that as more sophisticated generative AI systems continue to emerge, AI-human collaboration will become increasingly vital.

“I am excited to witness and contribute to this transformation, helping to shape a future where AI acts as a powerful tool that amplifies human creativity rather than replacing it,” he said.

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Sungsoo Ray Hong

Yotam Gingold

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New coaching course in the College of Public Health motivates students of all majors

Shayla Brown — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 14:58:30 +0000

New coaching course in the College of Public Health motivates students of all majors Shayla Brown Mon, 03/03/2025 - 09:58

George Mason �鶹�� recently welcomed Martin Binks as professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. He brought a new special topics course with him to the College of Public Health: NUTR 594 or “Motivation: Learning to Coach.”

Martin Binks. Photo by Mary Cunningham/College of Pubic Health.

“[The topic] is rooted in health coaching, specifically for improving health, overall quality of life and well-being, but the skillset that we teach is very applicable across various professions business settings, and so forth,” said Binks, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and behavioral medicine.

With more than 20 years’ experience working with patients, he has typically done work under the umbrella of the organizations that he works for, Binks said his career has been about building new clinical and research programs where they didn't exist or improving those that were already in place.

He started with a health coaching program at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center, where he was a director of behavioral health, research, and new business and strategic alliances, and continued his work at Texas Tech �鶹�� where he founded a clinical research institute, the Nutrition and Metabolic Health Initiative.

“There are lots of theories in psychology—self-determination theory, self-efficacy theory, cognitive behavioral theory—so how do we use these theories and translate that into tools that we use to motivate people?” he said. That is the question that his course aims to address.

The graduate course doesn’t require any pre-requisites and provides an unwavering client- focused approach to motivating and empowering people, Binks said, redefining the relationship between medical professionals and their clients, who benefit from having control and autonomy over their own health goals.

Kathryn Tadio. Photo provided.

While techniques such as motivational interviewing are commonly taught in medicine and used to understand how to motivate an individual person specific to their needs, Binks said this class teaches so much more.

“A coach’s primary tool is questions,” he said, “because it’s about the person in front of you. We often, especially in health care, assume that we know everything and the patient doesn't. That’s the worst thing we can do.”

Kathryn Tadio, MS Nutrition ’18, is an adjunct professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies and is taking the course as a nondegree student.

“I am counseling clients now, and I'm already learning how to apply this course material with them. Having this resource has been really beneficial,” said Tadio, a registered dietitian who works for Dietitian Live, a telehealth program.

The first assignment students receive is an improv assignment, allowing students to practice thinking and speaking on their feet, which is a great tool for a coach.

Students provided verbatim transcripts, and then used a dictation software to edit the scripts and analyze their own conversations.

One of the cons with the class is that students might think they’re just having a normal conversation because it appears so natural, Binks explained, it takes time to fully appreciate the depth of thought that a coach brings to each and every choice they make in that conversation.

Two women having a discussion. Photo by Getty Images

“The assignment was so well thought out and it involved a lot of role playing and practicing what we're learning with fictitious clients. We were asking questions around people's triggers, for example, what makes them eat even when they're not hungry,” said Tadio. “That’s definitely something that I’d tiptoe around with actual clients, so it's good to practice with those questions now because it really lowers the risk of miscommunication or mistakes in the real world.”

The asynchronous aspect of the course provides an interesting real-life element, Binks said. Students practice their new skills in role play assignments.

“We’re online, but the assignments require the students go out into their personal world talking to their friends and family and coaching them,” said Binks. With these assignments, students learn and practice the necessary complex skill sets that they can then apply to pretty much any field they want.”

Tadio was pleased to have access to such a resource. “I’m really happy to see how George Mason’s nutrition department has grown since I was a student. Now they offer the registered dietitian track and courses like this one, which will make more well-rounded health care professionals.”

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Martin Binks PhD, MBA

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