The team at Hussian College LA Campus is made up of innovators, influencers and entrepreneurs that include Oscar-winning studio leaders, industry experts and distinguished educators from across the country. They embrace the digital revolution and technologies of the Information Age. They prepare our students to approach work as art, and art as life. The leadership and faculty at Hussian College LA Campus prepare our students to be entrepreneurs and thought-leaders for life.
JEREMY KENT JACKSON | Associate Dean of Performing and Entertainment Arts + Acting Program Chair
Jeremy Kent Jackson, originally from Colorado, graduated with a BFA in Acting from the University of Oklahoma School of Drama and completed a six level improvisation program at Minneapolis’ Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop where he then performed as an improviser in over one hundred shows. He has also performed professionally in over sixty plays in six states and has Guest Starred and Recurred on Network Television Shows including Netflix's You, ER, CSI, Las Vegas, CSI:Miami, American Dreams, Happy Family, Drake and Josh, Without a Trace, and Friends With Benefits. For three seasons he regularly recurred as Douglas Davenport on Disney XD’s Lab Rats and continued the character for another year in the spinoff series, Lab Rats: Elite Force. In addition to his stage and television credits, Jackson has been seen in nearly fifty national commercials including major campaigns for Pizza Hut and Burger King, served a two year term as Best Buy’s in-house spokesperson, performed in several feature films including one with master-director, David Lynch, and lent his voice to dozens of video games, most notably as the lead character, Joker, in the motion capture project Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Alongside his career as a professional actor, Mr. Jackson has made a consistent commitment to the classroom. He has taught acting, improvisation, voice & speech, stage-combat, stage-movement, playwriting, audition technique, and acting for the camera for arts organizations in Oklahoma, Ohio, Minnesota, and California. Additionally, Mr. Jackson has helped to develop theatre education curriculum for Silva’s Fine Arts, The Columbus Junior Theatre, Homeward Bound Theatre, Stages Theatre, and The Glendale Center Theatre. In 2006 Mr. Jackson co-founded DiscoveryOnstage, an arts education consulting company now in long-term residency at Providence High School in Burbank. He continues to serve as DiscoveryOnstage’s Co-Creator/Creative Director helping to create, develop, promote, and maintain unique arts education programming on behalf of schools, business, and communities area wide.
Elric Kane | Film + Digital Content Program Chair
Elric Kane is an award-winning filmmaker who over the last decade has directed films in both New Zealand and USA. His independent feature films Kissy Kissy and Murmurs have screened at several international film festivals.
Elric is also a successful film podcaster hosting the 'COLORS OF THE DARK' podcast for Fangoria Magazine as well as the ‘PURE CINEMA’ podcast for the New Beverly Cinema featuring filmmaking guests such as Edgar Wright, Rian Johnson and Quentin Tarantino. . Additionally, Kane is also a passionate film curator who hosts screenings around LA and managed the popular indie film venue ‘Jumpcut café’ and created the HOLLYWOOD UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL.
He has taught film production and aesthetics at Columbia College in Chicago and Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.
MFA, Savannah College of Art and Design
BA, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
Kristin Deiss | Commercial Dance Program Chair
Kristin Deiss, a dancer, choreographer, and educator, grew up in Philadelphia, PA where she first received her dance training at the Rock School of the Pennsylvania Ballet before attending both the School of American Ballet as well as the Miami City Ballet School. After a year-long struggle with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, Kristin left the ballet barre behind to pursue another path, but ultimately returned to the world she loved. Kristin holds a BA in History from Drew University, an MA in History from UNC Chapel Hill, and an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She has performed with companies such as Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, the LA Philharmonic, and Jessica Kondrath | The Movement, as well as presented choreographic work in festivals throughout the country. Kristin is also a certified yoga teacher through the Mind Body Dancer program, a Reiki Master, and an Integrated Energy Practitioner. She is currently the Chair of the Commercial Dance Department at Hussian College Los Angeles.
Master of Fine Arts, Dance Performance and Choreography, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University
deissenergywork.com
Brian Walker | Dean of Academic affairs
Brian Walker is a member of the Hussian College leadership team focusing on
academic affairs and graduate programming. His career has spanned corporate marketing and higher education leadership roles. Originally from Michigan, he has lived and worked in both Houston and Chicago before coming to Los Angeles.
Brian has worked at Rice University, Lewis University, and Roosevelt University. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College, a Master’s in Business Administration degree from Keller Graduate School of Management, and a Doctorate in Education from the American College of Education.
Will Linn | General Education Program Chair
Will Linn holds a Ph.D. in mythological studies with an emphasis in depth psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, CA; a BA in philosophy from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN; and a CORe credential from Harvard Business School. His dissertation focuses on Classical, Abrahamic, and scientific origin stories of knowledge and is entitled, Western Myths of Knowledge: Particles of Stone and Waves of Elixir. He currently co-hosts a radio show that he created for the Santa Barbara News Press called Mythosophia, in which he interviews leading story artists and scholars from such territories as myth and religion, sci-fi and fantasy, visions and dreams, rituals, novels, films, comics and other storytelling formats and mediums. He is in his fifth year as founder and host of the Joseph Campbell Foundation Mythological RoundTable® group of Ojai, CA, which meets beneath the historic Teaching Tree at The Ojai Foundation. He also writes the newsletter for the global grass roots network of Mythological RoundTable® groups (60+ on 6 continents). In the last five years he has been a leader and participant on research tours through England, Prague, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and the Vatican. These tours were oriented around his mythological interests in Arthurian legend and the Holy Grail, the Golem and alchemy, Abrahamic religion and Classical mythology. He is the oldest of five closely knit-brothers and has had the good fortune of having lived in Birmingham, AL; Findlay, OH; Detroit, MI; Sewanee, TN; Myrtle Beach, SC; Orlando & New Smyrna, FL; Ojai and Los Angeles, CA.