Jen Thomas is multi-disciplinary educator, librarian, artist, and designer and is currently the Book Arts Program Director within Book Arts, Archives & Rare Books at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. She earned her BFA in Communication Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University; studied printmaking at Plymouth University, Exeter, England; earned her MFA in Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago; and recently completed her MLIS with a specialization in Academic Librarianship at IUPUI.

Jen has taught subjects that span book arts, book history, letterpress, comics, design, illustration, and more at the University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University, DePaul University, the American Academy of Art, Columbia College Chicago, and the Illinois Institute of Art, in addition to The Chicago High School for the Arts. In her current role at the University of Richmond, she uses primary source materials spanning incunabula to recently published artists’ multiples to connect undergraduate students and researchers with the rich history of the book.

From 2012–2015 Jen was founding director of werkspace, a gallery and community arts space dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging artists, while also offering community arts workshops with a focus on book arts and printmaking. Jen’s sculptural board games, artist’s books, prints, and drawings have been exhibited nationally and have won several awards. She has also completed studio fellowships at Women’s Studio Workshop and the Ragdale Foundation and has been a visiting artist at Ohio State University, Longwood University, and Columbia College Chicago, among others. She loves exploring the intersection between historic print and book production methods and emerging technologies through experiments with 3D printing, CNC milling, and laser engraving in her book arts classroom. Long live the book in its many, ever changing forms!