Hi5 congratulates… 

— Art and Media Design professor Michelle McAuliffe, ’02, who received a Catalyst Award last month from the NoMa Business Improvement District (BID). McAuliffe was recognized for bringing a new BID-commissioned mural to the neighborhood during the summer of 2022. The mural, on the M Street underpass next to the NoMA-Gallaudet Metro station, depicts American Sign Language to identify NoMa as a place that incorporates and welcomes the Deaf community.   

McAuliffe is one of five individuals, businesses, and organizations who received awards for notable contributions which have improved the NoMa neighborhood and strengthened the community.    
  

The last two years have been extraordinarily busy ones for McAuliffe, as her work has been shown locally, nationally, and internationally. In addition to the NoMa mural last year, she was involved with the new mural at the entrance to the Hanson Plaza garage this spring. She created a mural in the Wynwood Art District in Miami, Florida in late November 2022, and participated in the annual Aqua Art Miami art fair immediately afterward. Last year, she displayed her art in Venice and Tuscany, Italy, and from today through July 1, in Berlin, Germany.  

McAuliffe’s work is not limited to physical art. In April 2022, she served as an American Sign Language specialist for The Simpsons, Season 33, Episode 13, “The Sound of Bleeding Gums”. According to the Internet Movie Database, “Lisa meets the son of the late Bleeding Gums Murphy and tries to improve his life.”  
 

— Yiqiao Wang, ’09, a creative designer and senior artist with the Motion Light Lab, for having her work featured in American Illustration 42 (AI42). The jury selected 392 illustrations by a majority vote of better to appear in the annual hardcover award book. Her work, pictured below, was one of  487 images that received four or more votes, and that were included in the online winners collection. 
 

The jury for this competition consisted of art and design experts, including Emily Crawford, Vanity Fair; Lixia Guo, Money.com; Ted Halbur, Target; Anton Ioukhnovets, 30 Point; Matthew James-Wilson, Heavy Manners Library; Annie Jen, The New York Times Magazine; Katie Kalupson, TIME; Esther Sarah Kim, Tor Books; George McCalman, McCalman Co; Angela Panichi, Air Mail; Steven Wardlaw, Blue Q, and Sam Yates Meier, The University of Kansas/Hallmark. 
 
All winning entries can be found at https://www.ai-ap.com/slideshow/AI/42/. 
 
Originally from Beijing, China, Wang earned her bachelor’s degree at Gallaudet and her master’s degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She describes herself and her work on her Instagram platform thusly: “ I am an illustrator who works with various approaches to explore my illustrative visions both using hand drawing and digital techniques. The style is driven by vibrant colors and represents my personal interpretation based on what I have seen from my experiences and perspectives.” She is well-known for her work, including full-wall murals at the Signing Starbucks on H Street NE and another Starbucks in Austin, Texas; the four-wall scrim in the Maguire Welcome Center on campus; a mural on the side of Periscope corporate headquarters in Minneapolis; and the VL2 Storybook apps.  
 

Sam Atkinson, associate athletic director for communications, on receiving the Warren Berg Award of the College Sports Communicators. This award is presented annually to a College Sports Communicators College Division member “who has made outstanding contributions to the field of college athletics communications, and who by his or her activities has brought dignity and prestige to the profession.” It is voted on by the CSC Special Awards Committee.  

The CSC College Division includes NCAA Divisions II and III, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, two-year colleges, and Canadian institutions. Warren Berg was a long-time sports information director at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and was the first SID from a College Division school to serve as CoSIDA president, in 1963-1964. (CoSIDA stood for College Sports Information Directors of America; the organization was founded in 1957 and renamed last year.) 
 

Atkinson is a 14-year employee of Gallaudet. He is a long-time member of CSC, and served as its president in 2020-2021. In 2020, he received the CSC Mary Jo Haverbeck Trailblazer Award “for an individual who is a pioneer in the field of sports information, and who has mentored and helped improve the level of ethnic and gender diversity within the organization.” In addition to his duties at Gallaudet, he has served as chair of the NCAA Division III men’s basketball committee, and is currently a member and incoming chair of the women’s volleyball committee. 
 

For more information about Atkinson and his award, visit the College Sports Communicators website.