With 166 Gold records, Ken’s work has contributed to the success of global superstars including Taylor Swift, BTS, Kanye, Drake, NF, Khalil Fong, Alicia Keys, Ariana Grande, Vybz Kartel, NewJeans, Assi El Hallani, Mark Ronson, and Bruno Mars. Ken owns a plugin company, Mixing Night Audio, designing and using his own plugins extensively. Ken’s LA based sync agency, Magnetic Music, was featured in a Super Bowl commercial this year and has recent sync placements with Xbox and Netflix. With over 50 billion career streams, Ken continues to push the production envelope with new artists Anushka Sen and COBURN, while mixing current Kpop hits from NMIXX, Unchild, and Rain.

This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy.

Lunch at 11:45am, RSVP by 10/22 for lunch

Two accomplished UMBC Arts alumni, Hannah Kelly (Theatre, Acting BFA, ‘17) and Franki Graham (Dance, Linehan Artist Scholar, ‘13) will tell us about the trajectories of their respective careers since graduating from UMBC.

Hannah Kelly will tell us about the path of her acting career after graduating from UMBC and creating a work/life balance: having a fulfilling acting career and starting a family, spending time with loved ones, and traveling. Finding the balance in life is something that is important to her, especially in a career that is known to take a huge toll physically, mentally, and financially. Hannah’s philosophy: life enriches art, life informs your art. Hannah had her first professional role in 2018 at Everyman Theatre and became a Resident Company Member at Everyman Theatre in 2019. Hannah has been in many professional productions in and around Baltimore throughout her career, most recently: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, And Then There Were None, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You can see her perform next in The Mirror Crack’d at Everyman from November 29 to December 30, 2026. When not acting, Hannah cares for her 5 month old daughter, Eleanor, owns a floral company, Charmed Florals, and works as an installation manager for a sign company.

Franki Graham will explore how her roles as an artist, educator, administrator, and arts leader have mutually reinforced each other and created unique career opportunities. Her connections within the dance community have opened unexpected doors, and her curiosity and willingness to explore different avenues in the field continues to serve her. Franki’s career has been non-linear, each role giving a new opportunity to provide meaning and make an impact. Franki is a dance artist, educator, program administrator and director in Baltimore, Maryland. Currently serving as the Dance Department Chair and Director for the Peabody Institute Preparatory Program since 2022, Franki has spent her career using dance as the medium to transform lives and build community. After earning a BA in Dance as a Linehan Artist Scholar, she earned an MA in Dance Performance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, England as a Leverhulme Scholar, which launched a professional performing career. Franki founded and directed a dance company with artist Jeanna Riscigno from 2017- 20, called LucidBeings Dance, that performed across the DMV and was a catalyst for creative work. As an educator, Franki has held roles in the Anne Arundel County Public Schools System, within non-profit organizations, as an Adjunct Professor at UMBC, a master teacher and consultant for the Maryland Centers for Creative Classrooms program and served as a Board Member for the Maryland Dance Education Association. Franki is a certified Functional Awareness movement educator.

This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy.

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Stephanie J. Williams will tell us about her artistic practice, which bridges sculpture and animation. Her work navigates hierarchies of taste, unpacking how “official” histories are constructed in order to understand contemporary social coding.

Stephanie J. Williams is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose work has been exhibited in Fictions, part of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s F-show exhibitions, at the Walters Art Museum as a Sondheim Finalist, as well as with Washington Project for the Arts, Lawrence University, and the Delaware Contemporary. She has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Sculpture Space, Williams College, the Nicholson Project, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and ACRE. Recent animated works have screened at Slamdance (2024), Ann Arbor Film Festival (2024), the New Orleans Film Festival (Best Animated Short, 2022), Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival (2023, Jury Citation – 2022), the Atlanta Film Festival (2023, 2024) and Outfest LA LGBTQIA+ Film Festival (2023). She has received grants from the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund at Johns Hopkins University and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities. She received an MFA in sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design under a Presidential Scholarship and is currently full time faculty in Animation at Maryland Institute College of Art.

This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy.