Adjunct Faculty

Savannah Knoop is a NY-based artist, and writer. From 2009-2016 Knoop co-hosted the monthly queer audio-visual party WOAHMONE. They received their BA at CunyBa under the mentorship of Vito Acconci, and their MFA at Virginia CommonWealth University in Sculpture+Extended Media. They have shown and performed at the Whitney, MoMA, the ICA Philadelphia, the Leslie Lohman Museum, David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, Nina Johnson Gallery in Miami, and Nicelle Beauchene in New York. 

In 2007, they published their memoir Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy (Seven Stories Press) and adapted it into a screenplay, co-producing the resulting feature-length film JT Leroy (Universal Pictures, 2019) directed by Justin Kelly, and starring Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern. Alongside Brontez Purnell, Knoop is working to adapt his novel, Since I Laid My Burden Down, into a feature length film of the same title. Knoop has written essays for the LA Review of Books, 032C, Dazed, BOMB, Critical Correspondence, and Cultured Magazine. 

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Sofia Mercado is an architectural designer from Toronto, Canada with a Bachelor of Architecture from The Cooper Union's Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. She has worked at James Corner Field Operations on projects including the revitalization of Fifth Avenue, the Willets Point redevelopment, and other large-scale urban proposals. She now works at A83, assisting with printmaking, exhibition design, and teaching printmaking workshops.

Mercado's CV is available here. 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.