August 4, 2025

Cristian Amigo is a Latinx composer, sound artist/designer, guitarist, producer, and educator. Amigo’s current research interests include the electric and acoustic guitar in improvised music, soundscape design, jazz music theory and arranging, theatrical sound design and pedagogy, legacy and immersive mixing, soul, jazz, rock, Afro-Latin music, symbolic notation, and the history and performance of Jamaican dub mixing. He works to make music/sound/composition accessible to composers, musicians, designers, visual artists and other non-traditional sound students.

His awards include a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (music composition) and a Senior Fulbright Scholar/Artist Fellowship (Bolivia). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Oxford Press) contains an entry on his early works. Amigo earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

In Fall 2025, Amigo will be teaching Introduction to Audio and Sound Design, Draw/Read/Write Sound I, and Advanced Projects in Immersion.

Audrey Devost is a Black feminist scholar. Her expertise in qualitative research methodologies is driven by critical social theories to examine racial identity development as a psychological process. Her research has expanded collective intellectual understandings of Black consciousness, and pushes us to interrogate how a multitude of systems and power structures shapes Blackness and Black identity in America. 

Through her work, Devost is committed to advancing diverse narratives that nuance the monolithic framing of Black experiences to bring visibility to Black stories that are not often told. Her current project: “Black Women Finding Homeplace: Intrasectional Analysis of Racial Identity Development on the HBCU Campus” is a Black feminist qualitative inquiry into the racial identity process for Black women college students attending a historically Black college. Devost earned her undergraduate degree from Howard University, and her M.A. as well as her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

In Fall 2025, Devost will be teaching Introduction to Psychology and Qualitative Research and Design.

Marios Falaris is a socio-cultural anthropologist whose work considers the effects of militarization in everyday life, focusing on intimacy, gender, mood, and sound, in Indian-occupied Kashmir and in Baltimore, Maryland. Falaris earned their PhD in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University in 2024.

Falaris’s book project, Vulnerable Intimacies: Securing the Everyday in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, traces the effects of military occupation in the lives of unemployed young men in Kashmir, focusing on kinship, friendship, and the kinds of suspicions generated by state-led development initiatives. 

In Fall 2025, Falaris will be teaching Love in the Time of War and Podcasts and Ethnography. 

Abe Koogler is an Obie Award-winning playwright whose work has premiered at Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Clubbed Thumb/the Public Theater. He writes symphonic, surprising, and darkly comedic plays about ordinary people whose lives are shaped by larger political, economic, and environmental forces. 

Koogler’s plays include Deep Blue Sound (Clubbed Thumb/The Public Theater, Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Play), Staff Meal (Playwrights Horizons), Fulfillment Center (Manhattan Theatre Club), Kill Floor (Lincoln Center Theater), Aspen Ideas (Studio Theatre), Lisa, My Friend (Kitchen Dog), and Blue Skies Process (Goodman Theatre). He has won an Obie Award in Playwriting, the Weissberger Award, the Dramatists Guild’s Lanford Wilson Award, and Theater Master’s Visionary Playwright Award, among other honors.

In Fall 2025, Koogler will be teaching Offstage and Ghost Stories.

What excites you the most about teaching at Bennington?

Amigo: I am excited about teaching art and music at Bennington, where technique and aesthetic practice are held in equal value. I believe this is the best way for students to become whole human beings and artist-citizens, and for arts educators to transmit knowledge. It is also more fun–a critical factor!

Devost: When I first visited Bennington College in the spring, I had the honor of meeting students who are very passionate and excited about their knowledge projects that they are developing during their time in college. In beginning my role as faculty in fall 2025, I am really excited to meet more Bennington students and support them in their endeavors!  

Falaris: I look forward to teaching in a community where scholarship and praxis are deeply entwined. As an anthropologist, I absolutely love that this value is enshrined as an annual Field Work Term at Bennington!  

Koogler: I'm absolutely thrilled to join the Bennington faculty. Sherry Kramer, my predecessor in the role, is an important model for me of what a teacher can be: deeply passionate and innovative in their approach to the form. My aim is to do the same, while also creating my own model of what a playwriting teacher can be. When I was a visiting faculty member at Bennington in 2021, I found Bennington students to be curious, engaged, and experimental. I feel lucky to be able to work with them, and I can't wait for what the fall will bring. 

What is your favorite place on the campus or your favorite local attraction?

Amigo: I love the bird preserve on the hill in front of Jennings. I look forward to hiking and exploring Vermont, making lots of music, and buying my first parka. I am used to semi-desert hiking in Southern California. 

Devost: I am currently in the process of relocating to the Bennington area, so I haven't had too much of a chance to explore the town, but when I first visited the campus I really enjoyed the views from the Jennings building area of campus! If anyone has any local recommendations, feel free to send me an email to say hello! 

Falaris: I am excited to explore the many opportunities to play in the dirt, most especially at the Purple Carrot Farm! 

Koogler: In 2021, we were mostly online, so I didn't get a chance to explore the campus much. I'm looking forward to doing so. I love Crossett Library and am looking forward to exploring more of the campus buildings and grounds.