Our Faculty

Dr. Zeinab Esmaeili has been a faculty member at Thompson Rivers University since 2022, specializing in communication, public relations, international marketing, and management. She teaches a wide range of courses in these areas and has contributed to curriculum development. Dr. Esmaeili has served and continues to serve on numerous university committees, including the TRUFA Equivalent Workload Committee, the Indigenization Working Group, the Sustainability Committee, the Teaching and Learning Committee, and the Research Committee. She is also a Representative to the Executive Board of TRUFA and a member of the Senate International Affairs Committee (SIAC). Additionally, Dr. Esmaeili was a member of the committee that analyzed and authored the Research Collaboration Plan for TRU’s Strategic Research Plan. Zeinab serves as the Vice-Chair of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee. She also holds the position of First Vice-Chair of the Academic Governance Committee at the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC (FPSE), where she plays an integral role in shaping academic policies and promoting inclusive educational practices at TRU.

My main interest is the experiential place between what the mind thinks it sees as reality, the pictures it conjures through various methods – conscious or not – in order to bring sense (or nonsense) to that experience, the effects of embodiment, subjectivity and environment on perception, and the point at which we try to bring perceptual experience to fruition through a concrete proxy (such as drawing or photography). My research background is the phenomenology of imagination and consciousness in its relationship to the process of drawing, the evolution and pathology of drawing, embodiment in relation to perception and the historical development and evolution of pictorial space. Further, my research includes the influence of photographic technologies on perception, contemporary art, and cultural practices. I teach visual culture, drawing, curating, women’s art history, art theory, and the fourth year seminar. I am a TRU Teaching and Learning Scholar investigating the effectiveness of the use of imagery in pedagogy and am principle investigator of the TRU PicWiki for postsecondary educators worldwide to share best practices in the effective use of imagery to facilitate teaching. My interdisciplinary scholarly activities include peer reviewed publications and conference presentations, artistic production and curating of contemporary art.

Darlene Kalynka, an Associate Professor in the Communication and Visual Arts Department at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), was born in Rosthern, Saskatchewan, and is of Ukrainian descent. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and her M.F.A. from Concordia University, Montreal. Darlene has lived in Kamloops and taught at TRU since 1988. Her artistic practice is print-based, specifically in the mediums of etching and screen-printing. In recent years Darlene brought to her artistic practice an interest in book-making. Recent bodies of artwork explore narratives of family history and of discovering her ancestral heritage while travelling to the villages of western Ukraine. Imagery of objects that convey her family’s history, such as a remnant of her grandmother’s wedding dress or the family’s scythes, form a thematic basis for Darlene’s artistic practice. Her most recent exhibitions include Monumental Ideas in Miniature Books II and III that has traveled throughout Europe, USA, and Asia. Her work has been exhibited in the “Trilateral Print Exchange: Re-Identification” in Utrecht, Netherlands, Yokohama, Japan and Vancouver, Canada, as well as in solo shows in other Canadian venues as well as in and numerous group exhibitions throughout Canada and Europe.

At TRU Donald Lawrence teaches Visual Arts courses in a wide range of studio disciplines, including drawing, foundation, photography and sculpture. He has complemented such discipline-specific offerings with Special Topics courses, including Art and Wilderness, Parade Float, and Shelters and the Art of Personal Vehicles. Through gallery and landscape-based projects his own artistic and other related research practice explores the meeting place of urban and wilderness culture. Such projects as Kayak/Camera-Obscura and the Underwater Pinhole Photography Project relate his particular interests in sea kayaking and the ocean environment to a long-standing fascination with pre-photographic optical apparatuses. In addition to his studio and teaching practices Lawrence engages in a range of publication and conference activities and has been the recipient of research grants from the BC Arts Council, the Canada Council and SSHRC. He is the lead researcher of the SSHRC-funded Camera Obscura Project.

Amanda is a University Instructor for the Department of Communication and Visual Arts at TRU, teaching 2D Foundations, Drawing and Printmaking courses. She has has been funded by the Canadian Research Council (SSHRC) to do both national and international research and has exhibited across the globe in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Through the translation of photographic images into photopolymer gravure, woodcuts, silkscreen and digital prints, her body of research examines cycles in wilderness framed to parallel those of human existence.

Clement Yeh has been teaching at TRU since 2017 in drawing, 2D art fundamentals, sculpture, architectural drafting, film studies, and communication writing. Born to Chinese parents in England, he grew up in Calgary on Treaty 7 land. Comics were an early creative influence that inspired him to pursue fine art, leading to a BFA at AuArts and an MFA at Concordia University. He is grateful to be a visitor on the traditional unceded Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Territory (Kamloops, BC), and sits on the Board of the Kamloops Arts Council. His primary medium is figurative drawing, and he is passionate about supporting the role that art plays in personal growth, confronting social issues, and uplifting the quality of life in society.