As Associate Dean of Visual Arts, Kelly Malec-Kosak is part of a strategic leadership team that collaborates to provide a distinct and challenging learning culture for CCAD students. She prioritizes resilient and collaborative programs that put students, faculty and staff at the forefront, and is deeply committed to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive art and design pedagogy.

After leading the jewelry/metalsmithing and CraftSummer programs at Miami University, Malec-Kosak joined CCAD in 2002 as faculty in sculpture where was instrumental in the launch of the Jewelry/Metals concentration in the Fine Arts major. She has served the college in leadership since 2007, as Chair of Dimensional Studies, Chair of Fine Arts, and Chair of MFA. She worked closely with faculty and staff through accreditation reviews, program revisions and development, and student support initiatives. Teaching and the student experience remain at the core of her work, and she was the recipient of the Teaching Excellence Award in 2011. As a member of CCAD’s Presidential Commission on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, she was part of the team that launched the college’s first diversity scholarship in 2021.

With a professional practice grounded in observing, reacting and making, Malec-Kosak’s work approaches these ideas through the lens of craft. Her projects have been featured in Metalsmith magazine, Humor in Craft, On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets, and Gender and Jewelry: A Feminist Analysis. She was named an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award winner in 2011, and received funding from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Department of Neighborhood Services in Cincinnati for various projects. Malec-Kosak juried numerous exhibitions and fairs, including the Columbus Arts Festival, the Winterpark Arts Festival in Florida, and the Governor’s Art Project in Columbus, and has been in artist residencies in Germany and the Netherlands. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn with colleagues Kelly Devore and Lesley Jenike. 

Learn more about CCAD's Amelita Mirolo MFA in Visual Arts program here.