Jennifer McQuiston Lott (she/her) is an Associate Professor at USC Kaufman. She teaches contemporary dance, partnering and composition, with a focus on cross-disciplinary collaboration. She is the co-founder of the Traverse City Dance Project, a seasonal company based in Traverse City, MI, now celebrating its 12th season. Lott earned her BFA in Ballet Performance from Indiana University, and her MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine.

Jennifer has danced with Gibney Dance, Groundworks Dancetheater, Armitage Gone! Dance, Inlet Dance Theatre, Collective Body Dance Lab, Eglevsky Ballet, and others. She was a featured performer in the official Son Lux videos Undone(dir. David Terry Fine)and You Don’t Know Me(dir. Nathan Johnson/The Made Shop). As a choreographer, her work circulates around human connection to environment, nature and community. Her choreographic works and award-winning short dance films have been presented across the US and internationally.

Lott has devised and directed to two unique USC Visions and Voices events alongside colleagues from the Kaufman & Thornton Schools; Caught in the Chamber (Spring 2018) and Activated Chambers(Fall 2019). With the onset of the global pandemic in 2020, she developed & curated the Traverse City Dance Project's No-Distance Festival, a 5-month series of virtual collaborations & online events involving and raising funds to support over 35 music, video and dance artists worldwide. She currently directs the Traverse City Dance Project's Compositions Lab, which sponsors the creation of new works by choreographers and composers, with an emphasis on under-represented and Midwest-based artists. She is an avid nature and animal lover, and increasingly seeks to center her practice around strengthening the creative and regenerative relationships between people and the natural world.

Marisa Mandler is a multidisciplinary artist working across the mediums of drawing, printmaking, sculptural installation, sound, writing and performance. Through mark making, transcription and recording, everyday events and actions become documented gestures which speak to a larger narrative about the impossible human desire for control and perfection. Culling from a multitude of imagery and reference material, Mandler finds associative meaning and draws comparisons between the personal quotidian and a larger collective experience. Repetitive processes of investigation reveal the peripheral, conceptual and emotional underpinnings of Mandler’s subject matter. It is through these revelations that the significance of this “negative space” becomes apparent.

Mandler was born is Los Angeles, CA. and is currently living and working in Los Angeles. She received a Bachelor of Science in painting from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts from University of Southern California. She has exhibited numerously in both Europe and North America and participated in various residencies, including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Drawing, Kunsttraject in Amsterdam, Netherlands and most recently at the Judson Studios in Pasadena, CA. Mandler was awarded with the Willard Grant in Berlin, Germany in both 2009 and 2010 and in 2014 and 2016, she did residencies at the Druckwerkstatt im Kulterwerk at the BBK in Berlin, Germany. Her work can be seen in various public collections, including the Kupferstichkabinett at the Nationgalerie, Berlin, Germany.

Currently, Mandler is a full-time professor in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design.

Skyler (she/her) is a senior at USC studying communication & philosophy, politics and economics. As a Peaks and Professors trip lead, she spends much of her time outdoors and is passionate about protecting our natural spaces.

When she's not studying, hiking or exploring national parks, you can find Skyler cooking and spending time with her loved ones.

Chris (he/him) is a second year at USC studying Dance at the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. He enjoys being outside and taking walks, preferably with his dog. Chris is drawn to this program because of his interest in the intersection between art and science, and he is super excited to be in process with all these amazing other artists!

Mia grew up in San Francisco. Artistically she is inclined towards Dance, music, and all things culinary. Amidst endless research, she wants to tell and receive stories through creative mediums. 

"The erotic weaves throughout our lives, and integrity is a basic condition that we aspire to. If we do not have the lessons of our journeys toward that condition, then we have nothing. From that life vision, one is free to examine varying paths of behavior. But integrity has to be a basis for the journey" - Audre Lorde Sister Outsider

Honesty is a practice that can constantly be applied to living; in one's role as a citizen, an offspring, and a partner to this planet. The more time she spends here, she only further unfurls the vastness of her reach to me. Striving to be present and approaching lessons with focus as they are presented to you is only natural. 

Ellery Donlon is from Chandler, Arizona and currently attends school in Los Angeles where she is a full time dance BFA student at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance. Fun fact about Ellery: She absolutely loves the rain and believes it to be a sign of extra good luck!

Maddie (she/her) is a junior studying music composition with minors in business law and music industry. Nothing excites her quite like interdisciplinary art collaborations, so the opportunity to make real change with some brilliant artists in this think tank is a tremendous privilege to her. When she's not writing music, you can find her organizing performing arts events, music directing a show, or designing escape rooms.

Ash Stevens (they/them) is a senior majoring in dance and minoring in communications. Fun fact: they have free formed locs. 

Jaden (he/him) is a junior at USC studying popular music performance with a minor in environmental studies.  His interest in the connection between the arts and climate action began in 2021 after an unsuccessful attempt to organize a beach cleanup (only three people showed up) in his hometown of Lake Worth, FL.  The next time he planned a cleanup, he and his band performed a concert on the beach using battery powered amps and PAs; dozens of people came for the music, but left with a new sense of environmental stewardship.  This experience inspired him to join the think tank, and he is excited to learn from his peers about the ways they can all use their gifts to help heal the beautiful planet!

A human, creator, and dancer. Always feeling inseparable with nature; deeply rooted in the mist of mountains, the flow of water, and the greenness of trees. Spiritually connected to the moon. Has a maine coon cat named Cinnamon.