Meet Stanford Arts’ 2026-27 Visiting Artists
Stanford Arts is honored to introduce the newest batch of visiting artists on campus, including several new and returning creatives. From painters to poets, the visiting artists at Stanford this school year have come from around the globe to enlighten, educate and collaborate with researchers.
Abigail Browde
Writer | Performer | Director
Denning Visiting Artist, 2026-27
Abigail Browde joins Stanford as the 2026-27 Denning Visiting Artist hosted by the first-year residential program ITALIC: Immersion in the Arts and Theater and Performance Studies, with support from the Stanford Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning.
An award-winning theater artist, Browde’s work has been translated into seven languages and has toured across the United States and internationally. At Stanford she will be working to devise and conduct audience-engaged performances about “shifting baseline syndrome,” the gradual lowering of our expectations and accepted norms for the environment, based on Stanford archival material.
Browde is an Artistic Advisor at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and has taught at New York University, Colorado College, and other institutions.
Alia Farid
Visual artist
VPA Visiting Artist, 2026-27
Alia Farid returns to the Farm after being commissioned by Stanford for her flagship art installation Amulets, which is part of Stanford’s public art initiative, the Plinth Project, located at Meyer Green.
An interdisciplinary artist who has worked with sculpture, textiles, and film among other mediums, Farid’s residency is hosted by the Stanford Humanities Center and the Office of the Vice President for the Arts. While here she will continue exploring the relationship of industrial practices and hand-made objects as a method of critical inquiry in the midst of global precarity.
Farid lives and works in Puerto Rico and Kuwait, and has recently exhibited in Germany, Italy, Denmark, and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries.
Douglas McMaster
Chef | Sustainability Leader
Chef in Residence, at the Hill-Maini Lab/ Bioengineering 2026-27
Douglas McMaster joins Stanford as the Chef in Residence for the 2026-27 school year, hosted by the Hill-Maini Lab and made possible by generous support and collaboration from the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford Residential Dining & Enterprises, Stanford Department of Bioengineering, Stanford Arts, and San-J.
After early working years shaped by French fine dining, in 2014, McMaster returned home to the United Kingdom and opened Silo: the world’s first zero-waste restaurant. With produce delivered package-free, everything made from scratch, and food scraps transformed through fermentation, Silo became an international reference point for circular gastronomy.
In addition to his work as a chef and climate leader, Douglas also shares his ideas on food systems, waste, creativity and regeneration through talks, interviews and on international stages.
Jenny Tinghui Zhang
Writer
Stein Visiting Writer, 2026-27
Jenny Tinghui Zhang is the Stein Visiting Writer, hosted by the Creative Writing Program.
Zhang is the nationally bestselling author of the Superfan novel, and her book Four Treasures of the Sky, was named an Idaho Book of the Year. She was also long-listed for several awards, including the Dublin Literary Award, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
While at Stanford, Zhang will teach Reading for Writers: Obsession as Muse, a course that identifies and nurtures obsessions to deepen creative practices.
Jussi Ängeslevä
Designer | Artist | Educator
Stanford Robotics Center Visiting Scholar, 2026-27
After a summer spent working with students and researchers at the Stanford Robotics Center, Jussi Ängeslevä will continue his work as an ongoing Visiting Scholar.
Based in Palo Alto, California, much of his work centers on combining understanding of visual, physical and interaction design with algorithmic, electronic and mechatronic knowledge to create innovative and elegant experiences.
In his role as visiting artist, Ängeslevä will continue 20 years of work choreographing machines with emotional intent, asking how a robot carries meaning rather than just performing a function, alongside the Robotics Center’s research.
Robin Coste Lewis
Poet | Artist | Writer
Mohr Visiting Poet, 2026-27
Robin Coste Lewis’s residency at Stanford is hosted by the Creative Writing Program as part of the Mohr Visiting Poet program.
Lewis won the 2015 National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry, making her the first woman to win the award for a debut since 1974. Her latest book, Archive of Desire, was named by the NYPublic Library as one of the best poetry collections of the year.
Her writing has appeared in various journals including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Transition.
She is currently a professor of poetry and poetics at University of Southern California’s PhD Program in Creative Writing.
Ryan Anthony Martinez
Muralist | Live painter
Stanford Medicine Artist in Residence, 2026-27
Ryan Anthony Martinez is Stanford Medicine’s inaugural Artist in Residence, hosted by Medical Humanities and the Arts, Chemical and Systems Biology, Department of Pediatrics, and Biochemistry at the Stanford School of Medicine.
Based in Oakland, California, Martinez trained in computer arts and illustration, and much of his work is inspired by electronic music and hip-hop culture. His work often unfolds through live, collaborative painting with musicians.
Grounded in themes of connection, equity, and healing, his recent murals and community-centered projects reflect a belief in art’s capacity to foster inclusion and well-being.
Saif Azzuz
Interdisciplinary artist
Doerr Visiting Artist, 2026-27
Saif Azzuz is a Libyan and Yurok artist based in Pacifica, California, who uses his work to facilitate larger conversations about the interconnectedness of all living beings.
His residency is hosted by the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (‘Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma), O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm, and the Center for Just Environmental Futures, with support from the Doerr School of Sustainability’s Arts and Sustainability Program and the Office of the Vice President for the Arts.
Azzuz’s exhibitions and art installations have been shown widely throughout the United States, with shows in New York, Pennsylvania, and across the Bay Area.
