Administration

AMY CURTIS has been working in the administration of IDSVA since its founding in 2006. Prior to that, she worked as a fashion designer. She ran her own custom design studio for seven years, designing and producing couture wedding dresses.

SIMONETTA MORO is a visual artist and scholar with a focus on painting, drawing and mapping practices. Her work has been exhibited internationally; publications include Mapping Paradigms in Modern and Contemporary Art: Poetic Cartography (Routledge, 2021) and The Vattimo Dictionary (Edinburgh University Press, 2023). Moro holds a PhD in Fine Arts, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK; an MA in European Fine Arts, Winchester School of Art, UK; and a BFA in Painting, Accademia di Belle Arti, Bologna, Italy. Born in Italy, she currently lives between New York City and northern Italy.

GABRIEL REED (IDSVA PhD, 2024) is an artist-philosopher based in Cali, Colombia. Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, he previously served as the Director of Innovation at Via International, a San Diego-based institution where he designed and coordinated immersive educational programs and fostered international partnerships through community development and global travel. He continues to present his scholarly work at conferences and exhibit his artwork internationally. He also holds an MFA in Ceramics and Three-Dimensional Design from Bowling Green State University and a BFA in Ceramics from the Kansas City Art Institute.

AMY SCHUESSLER (IDSVA PhD, 2026) is a visual artist, curator, and scholar based in
Columbus, Ohio. She holds a BFA in Photography from Columbus College of Art &
Design and an MFA from Ithaca College's Image/Text program, since acquired by
Cornell University. Her alternative photography and collage work has been exhibited at
Sarah Gormley Gallery. She recently served as Executive Director at ROY G BIV
Gallery for Emerging Artists and remains on its board. She has taught and designed
courses in museum/curatorial ethics and philosophy of art at The Ohio State University
and Columbus College of Art & Design.

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ELINA STAIKOU is a philosopher and transdisciplinary scholar, who has taught the history of ideas, philosophy and liberal arts at Goldsmiths, University of London and the University of Winchester, UK. Her research is focused on deconstruction, critical maternities, the life sciences and the ethico-aesthetics of decomposition. She is the author of Deconstruction at Home: Metaphors of Travel and Writing and of articles on philosophy, literature and biomedicine. She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Derrida Today and has participated in numerous international conferences. She has participated in several IDSVA symposia with talks on migration, hospitality, the ethics of eating, and the Nitrogen Anthropocene.

JESSICA MYER earned her MFA in 2013. She has an extensive background in fine art gallery management and keeps an illustration and fine art practice at her home studio in Portland, Maine.