JoAnn Purcell is the current and founding Program Co-ordinator of the Illustration program at Seneca Polytechnic. She was instrumental in creating the award-winning Animation Arts Centre. Ms. Purcell held the interim position of Chair of the School of Creative Arts and Animation in 2019. As faculty, she teaches drawing, painting, colour theory, art and illustration history.
A lifelong learner, she holds a PhD in critical disability studies from York University. She also has an MA in art history from York University, a BScN from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art. Recent publications include “Disability Daily Drawn: A Comics Collaboration” in Graphic Medicine (U Hawaii Press, 2022), “Comics, Caregiving and Crip Time” in Comics Picturing Girlhood (Leuven U Press, 2022). Her dissertation will be published by Wilfrid Laurier U Press. She has years of hands-on experience as a visual artist, animator and visual effects artist and previously, psychiatric nursing.