Mickey Stellavato, PhD, joined the CMU faculty in 2020. Her scholarly focus has been on oral history and digital storytelling, particularly within communities often overlooked by mainstream outlets, such as trauma survivors of all ages, practitioners within the body modification community and elders.
She is a trained facilitator with Story Center (previously known as the Center for Digital Storytelling) and worked at the Trauma Healing Project in Eugene, Oregon, incorporating digital storytelling into healing processes with trauma survivors. Stellavato led numerous workshops with incarcerated youth, adults with disabilities, immigrant Latino youth, survivors of violence and homeless individuals.
In another, pre-academic life, Stellavato worked for Mother Earth News, Ms. and American Health magazines as an editor, photo editor, researcher and proofreader. She has traveled extensively through Europe, the U.S., Egypt and Britain with her camera in tow.
With a focus on portraiture, Stellavato has been taking photos professionally since 1992. She became the documentary photographer and media specialist for the Division of Equity and Inclusion at the University of Oregon in 2012. She has had multiple photos published and multimedia packages published in magazines and online outlets. Stellavato has been teaching photojournalism, media literacy and media history since 2009, and digital storytelling since 2011.
Stellavato is a practitioner of Paulo Freire’s framework for promoting critical consciousness as applied to educational praxis. She sees community-based connections and mentorship as avenues for opening a genuine dialogue that places university activism and insights into a contextual framework that might benefit those a university serves. Her instruction grows from this belief that the individual voice, and its many expressions, is an irreducible part of what it means to be human; the facilitation of individual stories is part of her life’s work.
In addition to teaching photojournalism, Stellavato introduces CMU students to media literacy in Mass Media 110, which is a survey of the wide field of mass communication. Documentary photography and portraiture are Stellavato’s first loves and, in the great hope of kindling the same flame in others, she started and continues to advise the CMU Photo Club.
Mickey Stellavato's Curriculum Vitae
Mickey Stellavato's Photography Work
Published Work
Voices Seen: Portraits of Diversity on Campus, April 2022, Colorado Mesa University
Visit Grand Junction, November 2021, “Old Spanish Trail”
Women in Journalism Magazine, July 31, 2020, Header photo and others
“This New Community of Black Women Photographers Wants to Help the Industry Fix Its Diversity Problem.” Multiple photos in Petapixel, July 24, 2020
Black and White: 2018 exhibition at Black Box Online Annex and Catalogue
The Tab, 2017, Header photo
“Sekhmet: Transformation in the Belly of the Goddess.” © 2017 Bear & Company: Photographs
“Our Communities: Diversity at the UO.” Numerous Portraits and first-person narratives. Oregon Quarterly Autumn 2017
Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards Luncheon. Portraits of all nominees. DEI Website, Around the O
BE Campaign. Photographs of local individuals for Equity and Community Consortium
“Tales of Healing: A Narrative Analysis of the Digital Storytelling Workshop Experience,” 2013 ProQuest/UMI Dissertation
Portraits and events: Admissions Department (new recruitment campaigns 2005-2020, website, print, and full-page ads), College of Arts and Sciences, Robert D. Clark Honor’s College, Oregon Humanities Center, Division of Equity and Inclusion, Oregon Quarterly Magazine, Cascade Magazine: University of Oregon, 2006 to 2020, in print and on website
UO TESTIFY. A survivor-centered photo essay, inspired by Project Unbreakable
Eugene Weekly, “Tango on Wheels at TEDx UOregon,” April 24, 2014
TEDxUoregon 2014. Photographs
“Drinking Her Tears: The Life and Times of Rhonda Kalista,” feature-length oral history film
Diversity Career Symposium. A documentary on the campus-wide Diversity Coalition
“Hiring Faculty for the Future.” Video series produced for the Center on Diversity and
Community (CoDaC), educating faculty search committees in best practices for
diversity awareness
TEDxUO 2013. Photographs
“Many Faces, Many Voices: One Oregon.” Portraits of Diversity for Division of Equity and Inclusion University of Oregon, exhibition at Eugene Airport and various UO campus locations
The Monthly Review. Photo of John Bellamy Foster 2011
“Fact and Fiction: Body Image in the Time of Photoshop.” Three public presentations for 4J Public School System (Eugene, OR) and one at Looking Glass Counseling
“Runaway Days: A Week in the Life of Laurie McCallister” selected for the Cottage Grove
Film Festival, 2008
“Synchrony,” an independent film directed by Jeff Rowles. Cinematography by Mickey
Stellavato, presented at The DIVA, Eugene, OR, November 2007
“Vodka & Popcorn: The Life and Times of Lisa Blue,” feature-length documentary
testimonial narrative, Eugene, OR, June 2006 and August 2007
Last Friday Art Walk: “Portraits,” black & white photography at Wandering Goat Coffee
Co., February 2007
“Like Our Ancestors: The Choice of Homebirth in a Modern World,” 15-minute digital film
Western States Folklore Society annual conference, Eugene, OR, April 2005
“Portraits,” one-person showing of portrait photography, School of Journalism and
Communication, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, January through March 2005
Numerous photos published in various magazines, including Oregon Quarterly, Around the O, Eugene Magazine, Eugene Weekly, Hip Mama, Midwifery Today, The Monomyth, and The Register-Guard, 1993-2017