Kelly Kirshtner

Kelly Kirshtner is an Associate Professor and member of the Film Graduate Faculty in the Film, Video, Animation & New Genres Department at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), where she also serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in Visual Studies from the University of California, Irvine, an MFA in Art & Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Certificate in Critical Theory from UC Irvine.

Her interdisciplinary practice focuses on speculative storytelling through sound, moving image, and intermedia, addressing themes of embodiment, synchronization, and perception. Recent works include the durational satellite-writing project In the Shoulder Season (2020) and live soundscape performances Falling, in Terms of Silent (2015–2020). She has exhibited internationally at film festivals and performance spaces.

Teaching emphasizes cinema studies, genre theory, sound production/post-production, and audiovisual aesthetics. Graduate courses include Participatory Ecologies, Site & Community, and Sound as Method, Art & Material. Her research essays explore early cinema recording techniques, horror genre studies, and sonic ecologies.

No academic awards are explicitly mentioned in the text, though her creative works and scholarly outputs reflect sustained engagement with critical discourses in contemporary art and media. Advising and grant details are not documented here.