Biography
Ryan Kough joined the Juniata College faculty in 2014 while instructing a video production course and hosting the first Film Premiere Night on campus in Neff lecture hall. She has taught in departments of Visual Communication Design at Purdue University, the Graphic Design Department within the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State, and currently offers courses across the departments of Information Technology, Studio Arts, and the Integrated Media Arts Program at Juniata College.
Kough has industry experience in multiple design fields ranging from publication design, branding, social media marketing, and pro bono community design initiatives. Most recently, Kough worked with Harper Collins Publishing to create medical illustrations for Dr. Vincent Pedre's Happy Gut. She has won a variety of professional design awards, presented her academic research nationally and internationally, and has published her current research on community-engaged design curriculum and alternative assessment methods including ungrading.
She is a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Graphic Design and an MFA in Visual Communications Design from Purdue University. Her research focused on community-driven social design initiatives and the development of the Well Baby toolkit, a pre and postnatal tool for low-income and low-literacy parents.
With a strong passion for developing sustainable relationships between the Huntingdon community and Juniata College, Ryan works to build real-world experiences in her community-engaged learning courses, emphasizing the core value of an interdisciplinary liberal arts design education. Guiding students through the lens of engaging their imagination to make a difference in the world and their local communities, Ryan connects the disconnected by creating situations for community members and student designers to become connected on a personal level to create sustainable, long-term design solutions. Students have most recently partnered with local organizations including the Huntingdon Community Center, Huntingdon House, Cookies for Caregivers, and Huntingdon House through the Integrated Media Arts Community-Engaged Learning (CEL) designated courses.
Implementing community-engaged learning courses at Juniata is not the only way in which Ryan dedicates much of her time and energy. She is the founder of ReInvision Huntingdon, a local revitalization nonprofit. Additionally, she has served the community by acting as a member of the Huntingdon County Arts Council Board of Directors, Strategic Alliance of Economic Growth Committee (SAEG), and the Huntingdon Landmarks Downtown Opportunities Committee to assist in energizing the local community.
Ryan’s passion for letterpress, experimentation, and design history is currently being fulfilled in her personal research. She is currently working to restore a Vandercook No. 2 Proofing press with the goal of one-day offering letterpress workshops.