Duke Arts Studio offers creative and professional support for undergraduate student projects in the fields of arts, entertainment, and media. This year’s cohort includes ten students developing projects in writing, movement, film, photography, music, and podcasting. Each student is paired with an arts industry professional—some are Duke alums, some are Durham-based, some are both—who supports them as a mentor. Learn more about the students, their mentors, and the projects below.
Mentee:
Mentor:
Claire Barry (she/her) is Mechanical Engineering Major with a Minor in Physics expected to graduate in May 2025.
A Music Project
This project involves publishing songs throughout the year to increase my published body of work and explore different sounds, themes, and genres.
About the Mentor: Andy Stack
Andy Stack is a multi-instrumental musician and producer. As one of the founding members of the indie-rock duo Wye Oak, he has received accolades from the New York Times and NPR. He is a solo artist under his own name as well as the moniker Joyero, and is a composer and producer for film and commercial music. He has also recorded and toured as a member of Helado Negro, EL VY, and Lambchop, and has toured and performed on five continents and in 35 countries. As a commercial composer, Stack has been commissioned for work by IBM, Stub Hub, Ad Council, and the Environmental Defense Fund, to name a few. He lives with his wife and child in Durham, NC.
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Erin Lee (she/her) is an English Major expected to graduate in May 2026.
A Novel Project
Birth of Venus is a neo-Victorian speculative novel about the relationship between artist and art at the tender juncture of technological overhaul. Inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and the present rise of AI, the project centers around an institution in the 19th century operating under the facade of a boarding school, elements serving primarily as allegories for AI training models and the impact of social media on young women and girls.
About the Mentor: Maria Kuznetsova (‘08)
Maria Kuznetsova was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and moved the United States as a child. She is the author of the novels Oksana, Behave! and Something Unbelievable. She is also an assistant professor at Auburn University, where she is also the fiction editor of the Southern Humanities Review.
Website | Instagram | X/Twitter
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Hanrui Huang (he/him) is an International Comparative Studies Major with a Creative Writing Minor expected to graduate in May 2025.
A Novel Project
My manuscript Paper Man follows the experience of a young Asian-American narrator as he processes the disappearance of his best friend and the death of his father.
About the Mentor: Kaitie Howie (‘21)
Kaitie grew up in a small town in Florida, and is an avid reader. She holds degrees in Psychology, Russian, and Education. While attending Duke University, she served on the summer reading selection committee for incoming first-year students for several years. Her debut novel, Broken Like Me, was published in 2021. In addition to being an author, she is a middle school teacher and educational content writer.
Website
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JR Cassidy (he/him) is an English major with a Music Minor and expected to graduate in May 2026.
A Screenplay Project
Let the Waters Rush is a coming-of-age Western about fathers, sons and resurrection of natural life.
About the Mentor: Chaz Hawkins (‘17)
Chaz Hawkins is a Multi-Hyphenate Artist and Writer-Producer on Amazon Prime’s FALLOUT.
I escaped horror by writing horror. I grew up in Tennessee where the KKK lynches the unlucky, where the Daughters of the Confederacy corrupt every student’s education, where slavery lives on as conscripted prison labor, where monuments to human rights atrocities tuck themselves beneath the growing skyline. Opioid addiction runs rampant. Took my Dad from dealer to daisies in record time. My stories are a product of that environment.
IMBd | Instagram
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Kayla Lihardo (she/her) is a Program II (titled Being Moved: Perception of Motion and Emotion in Neuroaesthetics) and is expected to graduate in May 2025.
A Movement Project
This is Not to Say questions the relationships between movement, text, and music in a performance rooted in ballet and contemporary dance.
About the Mentor: Courtney Liu (’13, 21) (MFA)
Courtney Liu (MFA & BA, Duke University) is a Director, Choreographer, and Assistant Professor of Music Theatre at Elon University. Courtney’s music theatre and concert dance choreography has been commissioned by Forestburgh Theatre, Playmakers Theatre, Duke University, the Ciompi Quartet, Thistle Dance, Barriskill Dance Theatre School, and the American Dance Festival in collaboration with the Nasher Museum. Courtney has served as Assistant Dance Captain at the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and as Assistant Director for Norwegian Cruise Lines. She is currently directing Legally Blonde at Elon.
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Kulsoom Rizavi (she/her) is a Major in Computer Science and Political Science with a Minor in Cinematic Arts and is expected to graduate in December 2025.
A Documentary Short Project
As an aspiring documentary filmmaker, Kulsoom is fascinated by human ingenuity. Her short documentary ‘The Putnam’ will focus on a group of students preparing for the Putnam Competition, acclaimed as one of the world’s hardest math exams.
About the Mentor: John Laww
John has a passion for visually helping artists’, organizations’ and companies’ tell stories that focus on bettering their communities and providing a voice to marginalized people. He collaborates with regional and national production houses, filming a variety of projects that tackle issues related to environmental justice, criminal justice reform, student debt relief, and public transit. In 2018 Laww picked up a camera to help a friend film at Duke Performing Arts at Duke University where he discovered he had a knack for visually helping artists’ tell their story.
Website | IMBd | YouTube | Instagram
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Lauren Valle (she/her) is a Major in Biology with Certificates in Health Policy and Documentary Studies and is expected to graduate in May 2025.
A Photography Project
Unseen Histories: Latinidad in Focus is an extension of my commitment to documentation, using photography to preserve collective memory in spaces of cultural organizing and activism on campus. Because minority histories are often overlooked, it becomes essential to actively document and preserve them. Through this project, I aim to memorialize the Latino/a/x students who continue to shape Duke’s story.
About the Mentor: Lauren Vied Allen
Lauren Vied Allen is a Durham-based Mexican-American photographer, motion director, and stylist focused on food and travel as a means of understanding cultural identities and enriching her community. She documents culinary traditions, food, people and the crossroads where they collide. Additionally, she collaborates alongside the food media industry leads to champion women’s stories through photography.
Website | Instagram
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Mauro Mastrapasqua (he/him) is a Major in Math and Physics and is expected to graduate in May 2025.
A Music Project
In my project, I want to finish writing at least eight pieces and arrange them for a large ensemble of my peers. The pieces will be mainly jazz compositions, and they will be showcased at a final performance in the spring semester.
About the Mentor: Brittany Green (PhD ‘25)
Brittany J. Green (she/her) is a North Carolina-based composer, performer, and educator. Her music facilitates intimate musical spaces that ignite visceral responses at the intersection of sound, video, movement, and text. Her artistic practice includes spoken and electronic performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, experiential projects, and chamber and large ensemble works. Brittany’s music has been performed worldwide and featured at the World Saxophone Congress, TIME:SPANS, and NYC Electronic Music Festival.
Website | Instagram
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Sonia Green (she/her) is a Major in African & African American Studies with a Minor in Cinematic Arts and History and is expected to graduate in May 2025.
A Screenplay Project
“I’m Grown Now” tells the coming-of-age story of a brother and sister as their family prepares for a big move. It explores what growing up looks like for African American youth and how that process differs for boys and girls.
About the Mentor: Ritza Bloom (‘13)
Ritza Bloom was born to loving, yet loud, Haitian immigrants, and just barely survived the many oddities from her Floridian childhood. She attended Duke University, where she studied Sociology & Theatre when she wasn’t starting a secret society or throwing inappropriately-themed parties. Since moving to L.A. in 2013, she’s worked in digital, creating a web-series (Lalaland the Webseries), and writing/producing content for Issa Rae Production’s Facebook platform, The Peak. She was selected as a participant in the prestigious 2018 Disney/ABC Writing Fellowship, which led her to get staffed on Grown-ish where she got her first script. She’s since staffed on series with Disney+, AppleTV+, FreeVee, and has sold development pilots to HBOMax, Amazon, and Nickelodeon.
Instagram
Mentee:
Mentor:
Valentina Garbelotto (she/her) is a Political Science (American Politics concentration) and a Journalism & Media Minor and is expected to graduate in May 2026.
A Podcast Project
Join Valentina, an Argentine-American, on Cultural Canvas as she delves into the intricacies of culture, identity, and belonging. Through personal stories & conversations, she explores the threads that connect us across diverse cultures and histories. After all, we’re all blank canvases, discovering what home, language, heritage, and everything in between mean to us.
About the Mentor: Anita Rao
Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist and the host and creator of “Embodied,” a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health on North Carolina Public Radio WUNC. Anita is passionate about exploring identity, connection and power through storytelling. She grew up in an immigrant, mixed-race family in the Midwest, and this constant straddling of multiple worlds fueled her curiosity. She studied Women’s Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill; worked for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department; spent almost seven years working for WUNC’s flagship state-wide daily talk show “The State of Things;” created and co-hosted a podcast about millennial feminism in the South; and edited the narrative-driven podcast “The Double Shift” which aimed to challenge the status quo of motherhood in America.
Embodied | Instagram | Website