Our Faculty | MDes in Animation, SJSU
Our faculty has artists with broad industry experience in feature film, TV productions, and games. Many of our classes are taught by professionals who are currently active and leaders in their fields. You will work and will be mentored by accomplished designers, animators, technical artists, scholars, and educators. This direct interaction and guidance from industry professionals will help you take your project to the next level.
Raquel Coelho
Also known as Raquel Rabbit, she is a Brazilian author, animator and Illustrator. She has published 17 Children's Books in Brazil, and won several prestigious Brazilian awards for her illustration and writing. Raquel has worked as a 3D animator in some of the best US animation studios, such as Laika, BlueSky Studios, Dreamworks, and Tippett Studio. She has recently participated in various independent short film projects, was a story consultant for the Dash and Dot robots during the development phase, and has collaborated in AR projects (Augmented Reality) with Tactic Studios, in San Francisco. Raquel Rabbit currently teaches 3D animation in the Animation and Illustration program of San José State University, where she also helps with curriculum development and coordination of several of the many extra curricular activities of the program. She is the Program Director and Faculty Advisor for the MDes Specialization in Animation program.
Roque Ballesteros
A creative leader with a passion for storytelling and innovation, with experience in guiding teams to bring big ideas to life. Roque co-founded and built Ghostbot INC, a top 2D animation studio, leading multimillion dollar campaigns for major entertainment and tech brands. His work has reached millions on multiple platforms, earning industry recognition including a daytime Emmy nomination and international festival awards. In addition to his work at Ghostbot Inc., Roque has worked at Leapfrog, Wildbrain, Curious Pictures, ILM Xlab and several other studios in several capacities, including as an animator, storyboard artist, narrative game designer, director, and creative leader.
Ryan Eways
Ryan Eways is a visual development artist, character designer, illustrator and animator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has experience working as an artist & animator at The Walt Disney Family Museum, Funomena games, and freelanced for various professional projects within the industry for over a decade. In addition to his art roles, Ryan has been proudly teaching animation to a wide range of students over the years, including at his alma mater - San José State University. Ryan also has a rich background in music, acting, improv theatre and storytelling.
Rex Grignon
A Canadian-American animation director, entrepreneur and a creative leader in the animation industry for nearly 30 years across Pixar, DreamWorks, Nimble Collective, and most recently, Amazon, Rex’s passion is to create stories through animation, having directed short films and overseen animation units across several major franchises including Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, all beginning with animating on Toy Story. Rex Grignon has a long relationship with SJSU, having worked with our students in several capacities over the years. He joins our faculty to help student to define and develop their thesis ideas.
Jake Goldman
An Emmy-nominated writer based in the greater Los Angeles area. You might know him from his work at Netflix and Cartoon Network. Jake has worked on such shows as The Powerpuff Girls, Futurama, and When Good Pets Go Bad?!. Jake brings his expertise in writing for animation to our program, teaching Story Structure and Narrative.
Ishmael Hoover
Also known as Izzy Hoover, he is a Concept Artist and Illustrator with vast experience in video games and animation. He graduated from San José State’s Animation Illustration program in 2012, and worked in the entertainment industry for 7+ years at large and small studios. He was an art director, game designer, and concept artist at Team Punkzilla, and a concept and texture artist at Blizzard Entertainment. Now Izzy is back to his alma mater teaching visual development for our Master’s students. Izzy’s day-to-day schedule involves a lot of Photoshop, 3DS Max, and 3DCoat. He is also developing his own game—keep an eye for it! He is passionate about history, mythology, archaeology, and fossils. His personal art sometimes reflects these interests.
Jaydeep Hasrajani
An animator, designer, storyboard artist and director based in Los Angeles, CA, Jaydeep is the creator of Boons And Curses, an original fantasy story inspired by the South Asian myths he grew up listening to. Previously, Jaydeep has worked on The Powerpuff Girls (Cartoon Network), The Fungees (Cartoon Network), and Ghee Happy (Netflix Animation). Outside of work, Jay is on a first-name basis with every coffee shop in LA. He is also a co-founder of SAVA, South Asians in Visual Arts—an organization whose mission is to cultivate a vibrant South Asian community in the Animation, Games, VFX, and AR/VR industries
Bryan Lind
A graduate of the San José State Animation program in 2009, Bryan has worked as a character animator in the videogames industry for 7+ years while also having animation experience as a contractor in commercials as well as short films. Although crafting highly polished animations is his passion, his main priority in life is his family, raising children with his wife, and cooking for them as his love language. Videogames are a big hobby and he has dabbled in learning basic coding to create a couple prototypes, but his biggest obsession has to be getting his friends and family to the table for board and card games.
Kevin Mannens
With a career anchored by Academy Award-nominated and Annie Award-winning productions, Kevin Mannens is a technical director and visual effects designer who has been a principal artist on close to a dozen Hollywood blockbusters. His credits include Transformers: Age of Extinction, Captain America:The Winter Soldier, Pacific Rim, The Amazing Spiderman, G-Force, The Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, and more. A visual storyteller first and foremost, Kevin is fluent across various media from 3D animation and VFX to Live action and virtual reality. Kevin is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker. His social impact and wildlife documentaries (Malpelo: Mountain of Sharks, Marsh Clouds, The Taking of Harris Neck, Doormat Harvest, Mud Harvest, and more) have won hundreds of awards in international film festivals; and were screened all over the world. Kevin teaches several classes in our MDes program, and he is also a faculty Advisor.
Nino Navarra
An exceptionally creative, self-motivated and versatile artist, Nino is an energetic visual development artist with two decades of industry experience in studios such as Electronic Arts, Nickelodeon TV, Gazillion Entertainment and Ubisoft. He is a designer with strong skills in environment character and prop design, whose strong problem solving approach and collaborative skills help to bring out the best in others.
Katie Reihman
A seasoned artist and lead with over 17 years of experience in animation and VFX roles with a passion for creating beautiful images and bringing creative solutions to a team. Katie has strong knowledge of Maya, Nuke and multiple render systems. She is an awesome collaborative team player with strong attention to detail and a proven ability to easily adapt to new pipelines and proprietary tools. Katie has worked at Nickelodeon, Walt Disney, and Rhythm & Hues studios, and her work included lighting, rendering, and compositing complex 3D scenes to high degree of artistic refining, as well leadership positions supporting the in-house lighting team and providing clear artistic and technical direction to achieve project goals.
Christian Roman
Christian Roman has worked for over 30 years in all facets of animation, from layout, timing, character and background design, voice acting, scriptwriting, storyboarding, animating, directing, and executive producing. All of it in service of telling a great story. The main career highlights include seven seasons on The Simpsons as a storyboard artist and supervisor, developing and directing Disney's Fillmore! and American Dragon: Jake Long for Disney Television Animation, and 17 years as a Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios on feature films such as Toy Story 3 & 4, Cars 3, Luca, Onward, and Elemental. Christian is also an avid Improv Comedy performer, and incorporates Improv into his storytelling and teaching.
Daniel Wilkes
An experienced real-time 3D artist and San José State alumni, Daniel has spent the last 10 years developing video games across two generations of consoles. Robust experience with Unreal engine enables him to contribute and advise across the full suite of tools, from models and materials to VFX, animation logic, and gameplay.
He is currently working at Unknown Worlds Entertainment on Subnautica 2, and was previously a technical artist and systems designer for Playstation Studios. Daniel's other interests include modular synthesizers, strange videos of dogs, and Formula One.
Michael Wu
A passionate artist with 10+ years of experience in building immersive environments & assets, ensuring high engagement & player immersion. Experienced in modeling, texturing, lighting, and composition of stylized & realistic scenes. Demonstrated success in elevating the efficiency & performance of internal & external art teams through training & mentoring, documentation, asset review & feedback, and developing pipelines. Committed to continuous improvement and impacting team success. Michael has worked for several years at Storm8, Google Robotics, and several other studios.
Matt Zogaric
San José native Matt Zogaric is a creative director and producer whose film career began as a trailer editor in Los Angeles, working with films and campaigns of every genre including animated features Hercules, Mulan, A Bug's Life, Tarzan, The Iron Giant, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, WALL-E, and Coraline. He later joined Lucasfilm in San Francisco where he produced content across the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. At Dolby, he collaborated with film studios while supporting the global launch of Vision, Atmos, and Dolby Cinema. In his spare time, he enjoys tinkering with synthesizers, vintage VWs, traveling to strange lands, and getting outdoors (ideally by the water); far, far away from timelines and screens. He joined SJSU to teach the MDes program’s first Sound Landscapes course.
