These alumni are driving real impact—all by the time they are 30 years old. Their experience at Temple University prepared them for careers and fields where they are pushing boundaries, empowering entire communities and blazing trails for the next generation of leaders.
Get to know each of our 2026 honorees and see how they are Temple Made.
From the big screen to the stage or concert hall, these visionary musicians, artists and producers are on the cutting-edge of creativity.
Project manager
Damon Liss Design
Opera singer
Self-employed
Saxophonist
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Animator
Temple’s College of Science and Technology
Washington correspondent
Spectrum News
Music therapist
St. Luke’s University Health Network
School/College: School of Theater, Film, and Media Arts
Degree/Year: BA, film and media arts, 2019
Hometown: Exton, Pennsylvania
Current Job Title: Animator
Current Employer: Temple University College of Science and Technology
How do bones and muscles work? What’s a fossil? Why’d the power go out? For anyone with young children, a never-ending parade of such questions will ring all too familiar. Nick Santangelo, TFM ’19, has you covered. As the main animator for the College of Science and Technology’s FunScienceToons series, Nick makes engaging cartoons explaining important and necessary concepts for students in elementary and middle school science.
“Growing up, I had social anxiety and struggled to find people with similar goals and interests, but I knew they had to be out there because I saw the same passion in movies that I wanted to put into my work. It took me 20 years to find that energy, but I did. I found people giving off the same creative energy.”
—Nick Santangelo
Animator
Growing up near Downingtown, Pennsylvania, Nick was a self-described “nerd” who loved Star Wars, Nintendo games and Pixar films and dreamed of one day creating such imaginative worlds himself. After starting higher education at Delaware County Community College, Nick transferred to Temple to pursue animation, attracted by the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts’ Los Angeles Study Away program, which places students right in the heart of Hollywood for a full semester.
Nick found inspiration right away at Temple when Adjunct Professor Christian Strevy allowed his first-year students to explore their creative interests and Nick dug into professional animation software for the first time. Later, former Professor Chaim Bianco, TFM ’93, helped Nick up his game by introducing him to 3D animation. “Sometimes I’d be up all night, rendering interdimensional ships warping through spacetime,” Nick recalls.
Finding acceptance. Nick also credits Temple’s diverse student body and understanding faculty for helping him on a personal journey. Despite a struggle to find belonging in his early years, Nick not only found kindred creative spirits in the film and media arts program but felt supported as he figured out his LGBTQ+ orientation and an autism diagnosis.
Away in LA. Nick made the most of his time in the City of Angels, cold-calling experienced freelance animator and YouTuber Sir Wade Neistadt, who took him under his wing. Nick interned for Neistadt, helping and learning from the Animation Collaborative and Vancouver Film School to make animation education from Pixar, DreamWorks and ILM animators more accessible to the general public.
As a professional animator, Nick now has reached millions of viewers through the FunScienceToons series, which also counts nearly 200,000 subscribers on YouTube, rarified air for the platform. On the side, he continues to take advanced animation courses online while freelance animating and building his portfolio, with an ambition to return to Hollywood professionally.
Photography by Ryan S. Brandenberg
These alumni are either showcasing their craft or using it as a platform to create opportunity for young people and underrepresented audiences.
