The Thought Leadership Series at Lesley University

Catriona Baker, associate professor and co-chair of animation and VFX at Lesley University's College of Art and Design, is a fine art experimental animator, book artist, and painter. Her work focuses on issues of social justice such as sexual assault, domestic violence, trauma, immigration, women empowerment, and factory farming. Her work explores the visual juxtaposition between traditional mediums and digital processes. Her Animations range in mediums from 3D, 2D digital to hand drawn/painted frame by frame animation.

Catriona holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College in Studio Art: printmaking, a BFA from Maine College of Art in painting and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in animation and painting. Her works have been shown nationally and internationally in screenings, galleries, and corporate collections. Her animations have been internationally recognized with an International Platinum Pixie and two International CINDY (Cinema in Industry) awards.

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Ball Lightning: Educating through the Production of an Animated Film

Ball Lightning is a nearly 12 minute experimental fine art, frame-by-frame 2D animation exploring a child's love for a surrogate parent and that parent's love in return. This event will discuss the experience of creating the film, how the production process provided a practical learning experience that affected the professional growth for all members of the team, and how the animation medium and pipeline builds community and collaboration.

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Dr. Ellen Winner is Professor Emerita of Psychology at Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. She received her B.A. in English Literature from Radcliffe College and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard. Her research focuses on the psychology of the arts and on arts education. She has written over 200 articles and is author of five books -- Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts (1982); The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor and Irony (1988); Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (1996); How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration (2018); An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse: Arts Education from Colonial Times to a Promising Future (2022), and co-author of Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2007), Studio Thinking 2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2013); and Studio Thinking from the Start: The K-8 Art Educator's Handbook (2018). She served as President of APA's Division 10, Psychology and the Arts in 1995-1996. She received the Rudolf Arnheim Award for Outstanding Research by a Senior Scholar in Psychology and the Arts from Division 10 in 2000. She is a fellow of APA Division 10 and the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics. A 2020 special issue of Empirical Studies in the Arts honored her work.

Jerry Craft, multi-award-winning author-illustrator, is Lesley University’s 2025 Evelyn M. Finnegan '48 Lecturer. 

Previous Finnegan lecturers have included award-winning authors and illustrators such as Jasmine Warga, Carole Lindstrom, Ekua Holmes, Candice Iloh, Tracey Baptiste, Jack Gantos, Joel Christian Gill, Steve Jenkins, Renee Kurilla, and E.B. Lewis & Susan Goodman. 

The Evelyn M. Finnegan ’48 Lecture brings to the Lesley community renowned authors and artists recognized for excellence in children’s literature. Mrs. Finnegan was a graduate of Lesley’s esteemed Early Childhood Education Program. She began her career teaching first grade and, after starting her own nursery school in her home, commenced writing the first of six popular children’s books. 

In 2010, in recognition of a generous gift to the University from the Finnegan family, Lesley established this lecture series and named its children’s literature collection one of the largest and finest in the country, the Evelyn M. Finnegan ‘48 Children’s Literature Collection. 

Jerry Craft is the author-illustrator of #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel New Kid and its companion book, Class Act. New Kid was the first book in history to win the Newbery Medal, The Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. In his latest book, School Trip, Jerry hopes to share his love of travel to inspire kids and their families to see the world and embrace new cultures. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and now lives in Florida.

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Embracing My Own Boldness (In a world that demands that I be humble)

How does a reluctant reader who was told that Comics would rot his brain grow up to create the graphic novel that won the Newbery medal? Jerry Craft takes you on his journey.