Jen Thomas is multi-disciplinary program director, educator, librarian, artist, and designer based 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 completed her MLIS with a specialization in Academic Librarianship at Indiana University-Indianapolis. She is a 2025-2026 recipient of the M.C. Lang Fellowship in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources awarded by University of Virginia’s Rare Book School.

Jen has taught subjects that span book arts, book history, letterpress, comics, zines, graphic design, illustration, information literacy, 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. 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 and sees alternative book forms as creative containers for scholarship.

From 2012–2016 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.

If you would like to leverage Jen’s deep experience in arts program development and primary source instruction, reach out! She is available for workshops, visiting artist lectures, and and book arts studio development consultations.