Faculty

Full-Time Faculty

George Kopec

George Kopec is an assistant professor in the Visual Communication and Design program. His professional experience includes designing and creating media for the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's educational outreach program, technical writing in various IT and manufacturing industries and news reporting. He has had a lifelong interest in art, and his hobbies include figure drawing and portraiture. He has taught high school summer programs in game design, has served on the College's Game Design Curriculum Advisory Board, and continues to explore game design both as a powerful educational tool and a medium of artistic expression. Kopec holds a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Akron and is a master's degree candidate in Cleveland State University's Educational Technology program. Kopec also holds an associate degree in Electrical Engineering from Kent State University and is a proud graduate of Tri-C's Visual Communication and Design program.

View George Kopec's portfolio.

Daniel Levin

Daniel Levin's art often explores the postmodern tenet of the existence of multiple truths. The last few years have been prolific for Levin.

He cocurated The Way We Lived: Photographs of Shtetl Life — Solomon Yudovin (1912–1914), at the Roe Green Gallery. Levin also curated the widely praised rephotographic survey group exhibition Impermanence at the Heights Arts Gallery.

He was awarded a fellowship from the CJAC-Lab to make a film exploring creative thought, entitled The Root: From Dishes to Synapses.

Levin's one-of-a-kind camera obscura was selected to be a site-specific installation on the grounds of the renowned Chautauqua Institution during its Digital Identity week.

Most recently, he was awarded a grant to travel abroad to make a documentary on luthier Amnon Weinstein. His exhibition's opening kicked off the largest arts collaboration in Cleveland's history, including institutions such as the Cleveland Orchestra, MOCA and Case Western Reserve University.

Levin occasionally accepts commissions to create photographic environmental portraits. These commissions have taken him to over 40 states and across the globe to Switzerland, England, Mexico and Germany. Some of his subjects include Margaret Thatcher, John Glenn, I.M. Pei and Barbara, Laura and George H.W. Bush.

He holds a BFA, with honors, from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MFA in Visual Art from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

He sits on numerous arts boards and is a member of Tri-C's Speakers Bureau.

View Daniel Levin's portfolio.

Suzanne Meola

Suzanne Meola is an assistant professor of Visual Communication and Design. She has a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from the University of Akron and a master's degree in Visual Communication and Design from Kent State University. Her design specialty has been brand identity, advertising and package design with a specific interest in sustainability and the impact of design and product packaging on the environment. With 20 years of professional design experience, she promotes student learning and achievement by setting an example for students. Because of her constant study of new technology and design trends, she can address student questions about the visual communication and design industry realistically. Meola relates classroom exercises to real-world applications, such as meeting deadlines and working with marketing teams. Additionally, she has worked on and developed many collaborative classroom assignments within the College and the nonprofit Cleveland community. Most importantly, Meola stresses that a designer's primary job is to move business forward for a client, making client input and teamwork essential to a successful design project.

Sarah Morgenstein

Sarah Morgenstein has a background in software development, web design and user experience design. She earned her bachelor's degree in Software Engineering from Cleveland State University in 2001 and later attended Tri-C to earn an associate degree in Interactive Media and Design in 2010. In 2015, she earned a master's degree in User Experience Design from Kent State University. Morgenstein has worked full time and on a freelance basis for a variety of local companies, including Progressive Insurance, Dealer Tire and Windstream. She began teaching full time because she enjoys working with students and seeing their successes after graduating from Tri-C. She teaches a variety of courses, including Web Publishing 1 through 4, Media Design and Digital Studio Basics. Morgenstein continues to occasionally design and develop websites for local businesses and charitable organizations. She has particularly enjoyed her experience with Cleveland GiveCamp, a volunteer organization that designs websites for nonprofit organizations during a long summer weekend at Burke Lakefront Airport.

Seong-Ae Mun

Seong-Ae Mun is the faculty coordinator of Visual Communication and Design at the Western Campus. She is a 2015 recipient of the Besse Excellence in Teaching Award. Before taking up her tenure at Tri-C, she taught at Shoreline Community College in Seattle, Seoul National University, Duksung University and Konkuk University. She has also offered classes at Notre Dame College in Cleveland and freelances on various design work, such as infographics for the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance, the Tri-C College Catalog, the International Foundation for Ewha Womans University Inc. and the League of Innovation in the Community College.

Typography and page layout are her special interests, and she teaches the following courses: Visual Communication Foundation, Typography, 2D Design, Graphic Design and Illustration, Publication Design, and Graphic Design Studio. She has offered an ongoing international collaboration project with the design department at the Korea National University of Transportation since 2005.

Mun received her BFA in Applied Arts at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, and her Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design with an emphasis on semiotics. Two books written and designed by Mun were selected for the University of Washington's rare book collection.

Jonathan Wayne

Jonathan Wayne is a native Clevelander whose background in forestry and geology informs both his photographic and sculptural works. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1988 and his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the Maine College of Art in Portland in 2008. In addition to the 2011 Creative Workforce Fellowship Grant, he was a 1997 recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant and the 2007 Maine College of Art Roderick Dew Travel Grant. He also received a Golden Light Award for the Top 100 Photographers by the Maine Photographic Workshops in 1997. Wayne has been a full-time photography instructor at Tri-C since 2003.

Bill Whetsel

Bill Whetsel is an assistant professor in Visual Communication and Design, teaching courses in game design, 3D design and visual communication. Whetsel has worked as a designer, developer, technology advisor and education consultant. He has worked with private industry, academic institutions and government organizations, including Hasbro, the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Centers for Disease Control. He joined the faculty at Tri-C in 2003 and developed the 3D Design curriculum. More recently, he launched the Game Design program. He has a BFA in Electronic Art from the University of Cincinnati, an M.Ed. in Education from Cleveland State University and is an active member of the International Game Developers Association. His interest in design, technology and education stems from the belief that learning empowers individuals to invent their own future. As an educator, he continues to explore new ways to engage students, using the framework of game design to explore creative design, emerging technology and meaningful play.

Jenny Pan

Jenny Pan is an award-winning designer and educator with over 15 years of professional experience in user interface and graphic design. Her expertise spans branding and identity design, user interface and web design, exhibition and environmental design, and marketing and communications.

Her professional career includes leading design initiatives for major clients such as Sherwin-Williams, Coach, KraftMaid, Maidenform, Lincoln Electric, Vitamix, Medical Mutual and Midas, providing creative direction, design consultation and strategic visual solutions. Her work has earned numerous industry honors, including awards from MarCom Awards, WebAwards, Interactive Media Awards, Horizon Interactive Awards, ADDY Awards, Graphic Design USA and the American Advertising Federation, recognizing excellence in web, identity and marketing initiatives. 

Before joining Tri-C as a full-time tenure-track faculty member, Pan served as an adjunct instructor for more than seven years. She has also taught design courses at the Cleveland Institute of Art and Kent State University, sharing her industry expertise and commitment to high design standards.

At Tri-C, Pan teaches in the Visual Communication and Design program, where she helps students bridge academic learning with professional practice through applied design thinking, conceptual development and technical craftsmanship.