For the 2025-2026 academic year, the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division is welcoming two new faculty members who bring fresh energy, ideas, and expertise that will enrich our academic and creative community. They expand opportunities for students through innovative teaching, mentorship, and research, while also strengthening the Division’s ability to challenge norms, spark dialogue, and advance artistic practice.
“With their arrival, the Arts Division’s outstanding faculty continues to strengthen our commitment to innovation, diversity, and artistic excellence,” said Interim Dean of the Arts Lawrence Andrews. “We look forward to the inspiration and impact they will contribute as we work together to shape the future of the arts.”
Clementine Bordeaux, Assistant Professor
History of Art and Visual Culture (HAVC)
Clementine Bordeaux is an enrolled member of the Sičáŋǧu Lakóta Nation (Rosebud Sioux Tribe) and grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation (South Dakota). Bordeaux received a bachelor’s degree in Theatre/Communication from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a master’s degree in communication from the University of Washington, Seattle, from the Native Voice Indigenous Documentary Film Program. She received her Ph.D. in Culture and Performance from the World Arts and Cultures/Dance Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. She chose an interdisciplinary doctoral program that employed theories of culture and performance, providing analytical lenses to understand how communities represent, perform, and communicate culture. As a doctoral student in Culture and Performance, she strived to develop mixed media-based projects with and for Indigenous communities by interweaving ethnography, new media, and regional understandings of Lakota ontology.
Prior to starting her doctoral work, Bordeaux worked for six years as the Academic Coordinator for the American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program at UCLA. As staff at UCLA, she informally supported numerous student support programs and created a Native American staff association. As a graduate student representative, she served as a student rep for various departmental committees.
Bordeaux currently works across multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with artists, cultural bearers, and community activists. Her main collaborations are grounded at Racing Magpie (Rapid City, SD) and with other Oceti Sakowin artists. More about Bordeaux’s work can be found at: clementinebordeaux.com.
Jonaya Kemper, Assistant Professor
Performance, Play & Design and Creative Technologies
Jonaya Kemper is a Nebula award winning transdisciplinary artist, activist, educator, designer, writer, and games scholar who looks at play as a means of liberation for people of marginalized identities. Their work often involves the themes of intersectionality, storytelling, and autoethnography to create more inclusive futures and explore a more diverse past.
A graduate of New York University’s Gallatin Graduate School, Kemper was awarded the prestigious e. Frances White Award for her thesis work, which contributed the term Emancipatory Bleed to the gaming lexicon. They also hold a BA in Fine Arts from Williams College.
As the former Lead Game Designer on the Carnegie Mellon University P3G project, Kemper worked with youth to develop co-robotic games which increased STEM programming in OST (out of school time) settings. In addition to those duties, Jonaya created the first Indie TTRPG Game Design class at CMU, Little Games, Big Stories. More about Kemper’s work can be found at: jonayakemper.com.
For more information about the UC Santa Cruz Arts Division, please visit arts.ucsc.edu.