Kresge Eminent Artist Awards

Carlos Diaz is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow as well as a Professor Emeritus and former chairman of the Photography Department (1995-2000) at the College for Creative Studies, where he taught for 37 years. He also taught at the University of Michigan, Stamps School of Art and Design and Bowling Green State University.

Diaz received his BFA from the College for Creative Studies in 1980 and his MFA from the University of Michigan, Stamps School of Art and Design in 1983. Diaz is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts Midwest, the Polaroid Corporation, the Michigan Council for the Arts, the Kresge Foundation, and a 2024 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.

Diaz's work resides in numerous collections public and private including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Ross Museum; the Museum of the City of New York; Wayne State University; the Detroit Institute of Arts; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

Lauren Hood is a pioneering urbanist, professor, and cultural visionary whose work expands the boundaries of design and planning into metaphysical and ancestral realms. As founder and Chief Manifestor of the Institute for AfroUrbanism, she has convened a global constellation of thinkers and doers to uncover the conditions for Black thriving through research, fellowships, and transnational dialogues. A Professor of Practice at the University of Michigan's Taubman College, Hood has developed transformative courses such as Planning as Repair and AfroUrbanism—reframing lived experience, storytelling, and ancestral wisdom as legitimate urban data. Her projects—from the Black Thriving Index to the Dreamstead, a social impact hub in Detroit—demonstrate how culturally specific urbanisms can seed collective flourishing. Recognized for generating frameworks that are as intellectually rigorous as they are spiritually resonant, Hood advances urban transformation technologies that honor agency, abundance, and audacity across the African diaspora.

Suma Karaman Rosen is the Executive Director of InsideOut Literary Arts, Detroit's leading youth literary organization. Since 2017, she has guided InsideOut's growth and impact, ensuring thousands of students across Detroit have access to creative writing programs that build confidence, amplify youth voice, and foster belonging. Under her leadership, InsideOut has built a strong internal infrastructure, grown a committed team, and blossomed its community programming.

Rosen brings 30 years of experience across education, nonprofit, and corporate sectors. She began her career as a classroom teacher in Oakland and Vancouver, where writing was central to her practice and her students' empowerment.

Her leadership reflects a lifelong commitment to education and the transformative power of creative expression. Rosen is a McGregor Fund Miller Fellow and an alum of the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, where she worked with leaders from around the world to reimagine how arts and culture strengthen communities.

Mandisa Smith is an accomplished fiber artist, arts administrator, and entrepreneur who serves as the director of the Artisan Studio at Hope for Flowers by Tracy Reese. She brings extensive experience in arts leadership, entrepreneurship, and community-based program design to her role, advancing community art enrichment and sustainability.

A practicing fiber artist, her work has been exhibited at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Scarab Club, and the Detroit Artists Market, as well as in New York, Chicago, and California. Her contributions to Detroit’s cultural ecosystem have been recognized with the Spirit of Detroit Award and her inclusion in the Detroit Free Press’ “Women to Watch” list in 2020.

As co-founder of the former Detroit Fiber Works, Smith played a vital role in amplifying the visibility of Detroit’s emerging artists. She is also the founder of AKOMA Art House & Dye Garden on Detroit’s North End, an initiative that merges artmaking, ecology, and community engagement.

Through her creative practice and leadership, Smith continues to foster spaces that celebrate artistry, empowerment, and collective growth.

Haleem Stringz is a performing artist, choreographer, educator, and cultural ambassador rooted in Detroit's dance legacy. Founder of the award-winning Hardcore Detroit Dance Crew, he has been a driving force in preserving and innovating the city's signature style, the Jit, while bridging it with global street dance cultures. He is the film director of “The Jitterbugs: Pioneers of the Jit,” the first documentary to chronicle Detroit's homegrown dance tradition, now recognized as a vital contribution to the cultural record.

Stringz has represented Detroit on international stages, leading residencies in China, Africa, Europe, Kurdistan, Indonesia, Italy, and beyond. He has collaborated with institutions such as the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Kennedy Center. A board member of Screen Dance International and NBA dancer with the Detroit Pistons Jit Team, he continues to merge community engagement with world-class performance. Stringz is a 2010 Kresge Artist Fellow and Knight Arts Challenge recipient whose work celebrates dance as both cultural heritage and a catalyst for connection.

Haleem Rasul

Vincent Chandler is a trombonist, educator, composer, band leader, and conductor from Detroit, Michigan. He has shared the stage with Detroit jazz all-stars, such as Kenyn Cox, Donald Walden, Harold McKinney, Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave, Rodney Whitaker, Regina Carter, Robert Hurst, and James Carter. Chandler has performed nationally with Joe Henderson, Geri Allen, Jeff Watts, Ravi Coltrane, JD Allen, and the Ambrose Akinmusire Big Band. Chandler also performed internationally with Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring Wynton Marsalis and the Roy Hargrove Big Band. He was a featured artist at the 2009 Playboy Jazz Festival, where he performed with Marcus Miller and Herbie Hancock. He was a featured soloist on Roy Hargrove's only Big Band CD, "Emergence." Chandler is a 2020 Kresge Artist Fellow and currently serves as an assistant professor of jazz studies at Wayne State University as well as the conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Jazz Orchestra.

Vincent Chandler

With almost thirty years of experience at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as data architect in information and communication technology, Sharon Dow's professional interest and experience has been focused on the information technology field of database management. In 2020, Dow started SD3 Connect Studio LLC focusing on web design. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Japanese language and her Masters of Science in computer science.

Dow is currently serving as commissioner in the Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission, on the Detroit PBS AAPI Advisory Committee, and on the Honor Board of the Detroit Institute of Arts' auxiliary group, Friends of Asian Arts and Cultures.

She has been conducting the AAPI Heritage Month Celebration at Detroit Institute of Arts (with series programs running throughout the month of May) since 2018, and the Asian Night of the Michigan Culture and Diversity Festival since 2021. Besides her active roles in promoting diversity, Dow also started the Wind Dance Chinese Cultural Group in 2012 with an aim to promote Chinese culture.

Dr. Marion Jackson, better known as "Mame," came to Detroit in 1995 as chair of Wayne State University's Department of Art and Art History after teaching art history at The University of Michigan and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Throughout her career, Mame has been drawn to the arts and artists of the Americas who have found inspiration outside the Euro-American artistic mainstream. Specifically, she has worked extensively with Inuit artists in the Canadian Arctic and with Afro-Brazilian artists in the Northeast of Brazil.

Mame has curated numerous exhibitions, written and lectured widely, and is co-founder and co-director of Con/Vida – Popular Arts of the Americas, a platform for cultural exchange in the Americas. Mame is also an enthusiastic advocate for Detroit and Detroit's artists and has served on boards of the Heidelberg Project, Signal Return Press, and the Detroit Children's Museum. Mame is currently a Trustee of the Charles H. Wright Museum.

Ryan Myers-Johnson is a compassionate city-builder whose roots in site-specific performance inform her practice of producing and curating creative spatial justice initiatives. Myers-Johnson is an experienced facilitator, public speaker, and curator of public art and performance. Her passion for community led her to found Sidewalk Detroit in 2012 in order to celebrate Detroit landscape and culture through the lens of creativity while bringing resident perspectives to the forefront of experience design and city planning. As the founder, director, and lead curator at Sidewalk Detroit, she leads program advancement, vision, and strategy.

Myers-Johnson has extensive experience in event planning, arts administration, management, and leadership, stemming from her many years working as a production manager in the film industry, choreographer, and movement educator. She is a board member of the Detroit Parks Coalition, Detroit Greenways Coalition, and the Detroit Puppet Company, and is a participating member of the Community Development Advocates of Detroit. Myers-Johnson is particularly passionate about utilizing the power of site-specific performance and installation to draw closer connections with community and nature and to bring greater awareness to issues of spatial equity, with a particular emphasis on urban greenspace and environmental justice.

David Serio is the curator of education at the Arab American National Museum (AANM). He holds a Master of Arts in Near Eastern studies and Arabic from Wayne State University. Serio joined the AANM in January of 2011. As an educator and public programmer, he conducts educational presentations and workshops both in person and online. Serio also assists in the planning and implementation of youth programs and cultural events, such as the SURA Arts Academy, a youth photography program. Like many people, he wears multiple hats, including volunteer coordinator and curator of the AANM’s Arab Film Festival, in addition to other film programming at the AANM. Serio proudly serves on the board of the Anton Art Center, Macomb County Pride, Friends of the Detroit Film Theatre, and Digital Arts, Film, & Television (DAFT). On a more personal note, Serio identifies as a third-generation Arab American, whose family comes from Lebanon. He dabbles a little in the film industry, is a proud cat dad of two, and is always up for a good political debate.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Gina Ellis is currently the arts coordinator at The Carr Center Arts Academy. She has an extensive background in arts administration, arts education, dance education, and choreography. Having been part of numerous musical productions in the U.S. and abroad, Ellis has collaborated with Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award-winning artists over her 40-year career.

Her 18-year career as a performer includes appearances on commercial and concert stages both internationally and in New York City. Ellis’ commercial credits include the Broadway and National Company production of “The Wiz,'' HBO's “The Josephine Baker Story,” Spike Lee's “Malcolm X,” “Bubbling Brown Sugar,” and “Purlie.” She was the longtime assistant director and choreographer to Tony award-winning choreographer George Faison as well as director/choreographer Mike Malone. Her New York experience concluded as assistant stage manager for the national company production of “Five Guys Named Moe.”

Upon her return to Detroit, Ellis began teaching dance and physical education at Renaissance High School. Locally, she has worked as the assistant choreographer to Otis Sallid for the Super Bowl XL pre-show performance starring Stevie Wonder. She has also appeared in “Aida” at the Michigan Opera House and performed with the legendary Aretha Franklin.

Ellis is the recipient of the Michigan Dance Council's Dance Educator of the Year Award. She is a graduate of Cass Technical High School and received a bachelor of science from Eastern Michigan University. Her graduate work includes master’s degrees from Wayne State University and Concordia University.

Drake Phifer is a multimedia entrepreneur with an affinity for community and cultural advocacy. He has made an impact, both locally and nationally, within the music industry specifically as well as the arts and cultural community in general.

Since 2001, Phifer, a progressive Morehouse college graduate and founder of the company Urban Organic, has mentored many performing and visual artists and helped launch the careers of a number of award winning national acts. Through Urban Organic, he has organized tours and directed publicity campaigns throughout North America. Phifer considers himself a boutique, open source DJ who is always ready to “create the vibe.” He holds a true kinship with the city of Detroit and feels its complete resurgence is tied to its embrace of the arts, which includes Detroit's rich musical legacy. Phifer is a perennial advocate for the underdog.

Dawn McDuffie moved to Detroit in 1968 to teach English at Central High School. Since then, she has written poems that explore the landscape of both Detroit and an inner world of memory, imagination, and dreams. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, The MacGuffin, Third Wednesday, Feminist Studies, and Nerve Cowboy, as well as two anthologies: Mona Poetica, edited by Diane DeCillis and Mary Jo Firth Gillett; and Good Poems–American Places, edited by Garrison Keillor. Between 2006 and 2015, she published “Carmina Detroit,” “Flag Day in Detroit,” “Bulky Pick Up Day,” and “Happenstance and Miracles.” McDuffie is especially pleased that her apocalyptic poem, "Dear Detroit Earthquake," was included in Jim Daniels' and M. L. Liebler's “RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music,” in 2020.

Ozzie Rivera was born in Puerto Rico and has lived in southwest Detroit most of his life. For close to five decades, he has been active in community advocacy and human services.

Rivera currently teaches Afro-Latino history and culture in the U.S. at Wayne State University and courses on community organizing and diversity for the University of Michigan School of Social Work. In his spare time, he writes a column covering oral history topics and current affairs, “Pensamientos y Recuerdos,” for the community newspaper, El Central, located in southwest Detroit.

Rivera is an amateur historian of Latin-Caribbean music, often presenting on Afro-Hispanic music, including as the director of the Afro-Puerto Rican drum and dance troupe, RicanStruction. During his lifetime, he has led a number of performance troupes and bands. Rivera currently leads the salsa/Latin jazz band, La Inspiracion.

Shirley Woodson connected with her creative energy at a young age and is still able to vividly recall the excitement and wonder she encountered in her kindergarten art classroom. The lasting impact of that early creative spark is evident in her extensive educational experiences, including a BFA and MA from Wayne State University and additional graduate studies in painting and art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Known for bold and expressive use of color and brush strokes in large-scale, figurative paintings, Woodson’s paintings have garnered attention from far and wide. In 1966, she received a prestigious MacDowell Fellowship. She used this opportunity to explore new ideas and techniques, including collage, a medium that continues to provide a counterpoint and complement to her paintings. Woodson has been featured in over 30 solo exhibitions, and her paintings are included in more than 20 permanent collections across the United States including, locally, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

Across six decades and parallel to her accomplishments as an artist, Woodson has also been an exceptionally dedicated and influential educator, arts advocate, and institution builder. In 1974, she co-founded the Michigan chapter of the National Conference of Artists (NCA), the longest-running national arts organization dedicated to nurturing, developing, and promoting opportunities for Black visual artists. Woodson’s work with the NCA is ongoing. She is an executive board member with the national organization and is the president of the Michigan chapter. Woodson received the Kresge Eminent Artist award in 2021.

Shirley Woodson

Patricia Terry-Ross

Bill Harris

Marsha Music

Mark Stryker