Who’s that Girl?
Its Steph.
Stephanie is an artist, a tinkerer, a free thinker, a collaborator and most of all a Lighting Designer.
Originally from Chicago, IL Stephanie started her journey in Lighting at the age of 13 when she was involved in an ice skating show. While her ice skating career never took off, her fascination for shows and lighting had only just began. Watching how in an instant, an arena could turn from sports madness to a magical spectacle, she was immediately hooked.
Stephanie continued to volunteer and participate in theatrical shows throughout grade school, participating as a stage manager and crew member until the opportunity arrived to assist with the lighting rig, and she never looked back. Theatre and the Performing Arts became her passion, finding that using technology to tell a story, had the most addicting and magical outcome. Never really one to be onstage, but always fascinated by people moving onstage, and how they were perceived in layers of lighting. Physics and the principals of design became her obsession. Continuing into College, Stephanie found a love for lighting in Dance, she focused on Dance lighting for most of her BFA and into her freelance career in Chicago.
In the 2010’s Stephanie spent most of her time devoted to Theatrical Lighting, Cruise Ship Lighting, and Event lighting, based in Chicago and with Royal Caribbean Cruise lines aboard their ships. To say she was a Traveling Nomad is a bit of an understatement!
With March of 2020 came D-Day, the closing of Broadway, and the closing of the Entertainment Industry due to the COVID pandemic.
But this also came with a chance to try something new….
Stephanie took the time to evaluate her skills during the pandemic, and although there were attempts to see how her skillset could fit into other industries, she always came back to technology, the arts, and of course back to lighting. But instead of working in a performing arts center, with the help of colleagues she found lighting in architecture.
By late 2020 she was relearning drafting in architectural software and working in an MEP firm; and by late 2021 she was working in architectural lighting. Finding a way to keep lighting central to her work has always been important but this created the opportunity to help create lighting in a permanent structure, in a positive way. Focusing her studies and work in sustainability, green lighting solutions and human centric designs: her future is limitless.
These days Stephanie primarily works in Architectural Lighting but on occasion will freelance in Theatrical Shows & Events. (an itch that will probably never go away) She is an avid supporter of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) the The American Institute of Architects (AIA), and The Green Building Council (USGBC LEED).
Stephanie is now based in the Tampa-bay Area in Florida, happily living in sunshine (away from the snow) with her family and two cats, Coco and Pinky. Beach clean ups, scuba diving and photography are her favorite past-times.
