DED Instructors

I am a working artist who works and teaches in, watercolor, oils, acrylics, pastels, and mixed media. I teach watercolor and drawing classes in the Continuing Education program at UTA in Arlington. I teach an oil, or acrylic on canvas class at Trinity Art Guild’s Gallery in Bedford. I also teach a watercolor class every two months at the Up Stairs Gallery in Arlington.

I am very proud of my B.F.A., Magnum Cum Laude in painting and drawing with an English minor from the U.N.T. in Denton. I pursued this dream of mine later in life, after I had traveled and lived in Europe for many years. Being a little older and having traveled and lived extensively overseas, I came to the University with a different perspective on life. I continue my studies by taking workshops from other artists and have spent two summers painting on location at the La Romita School of Art in Italy.

I belong to many art organizations----locally and nationally and am a signature member of the Southwestern Watercolor Society in Dallas, Society of Watercolor Artists in Fort Worth and Texas Neighbors in Irving. I have served as President for the Southwestern Watercolor Society of Dallas for the 2004-05 year. My work has received numerous awards in local, regional, and national shows over the years and continues to do so.

My subject matter comes from personal photo’s from my travels and objects I collect. The travel I have done and continue to do introduces me to history, cultures, and philosophies that have a major impact on my work. Turkey, for example, opened my eyes and thoughts to the eastern philosophy. From this I began to see the connection between their views and the philosophy of the American Indians in our Southwest. New thoughts lead to new connections and interests. My work involves the interconnecting strings that hold time and place together. I like to experiment and find new ways to use materials, design principals, and color to help get my idea or concept across in my paintings. Ultimately I strive for a balanced, yet exciting painting that can be enjoyed on many levels.

Marti has over thirty years experience in the health care industry that includes billing, coding, reimbursement, education and management. She has had the opportunity of working in different positions and many specialties in the medical field earning her CMA, CM, and CPC certifications. As one of the nation's first certified coders, she was named a member of the American Academy of Professional Coders National Advisory Board and proctored the Certification exams from 1995 to 2000. She was awarded Associate Instructor of the Year at PMI's National Conference in June and, consequently, was asked to serve on the Practice Management Institute (PMI) 2007-2008 National Advisory Board. She has worked for the UT System over thirteen years and due to her love of teaching and the need for certified coders she has taught evening courses at two major universities for the last seven years.

Marti has been very active as Founder and President of three AAPC Chapters throughout Texas and named networker of the year twice through the AAPC's Dallas Medical Center Chapter. She is on the Editorial Advisory Board of "The Coding Institute" for ten of their specialty newsletters. As one can see she stays busy. but she says, "It is an ever changing field that never gets boring".

Xiaoya Fielder taught the Chinese language at Elementary and High School levels in China for 12 years. For the past 8 years she has been teaching Mandarin Chinese in the Continuing Education program at The University of Texas at Arlington. The classes she teaches include Beginning Chinese, Intermediate Chinese, Advanced Mandarin Chinese, Business Chinese, Travel Chinese, and Chinese for youth.

She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Arts from The Teachers College in China. Ms. Fielder also have received certificates from the Startalk Chinese Teacher Professional Training Program, The University of Texas at Dallas Chinese Language Teacher Program, and Peking University of China Training Program on Chinese Language.

Many of her students from both China and America have furthered their careers and educations by taking her classes. Learning the Chinese language can make you more marketable in professional and international fields of work, and her classes will leave you with a better knowledge of the Chinese culture and language.

John Seither is one of a few internationally recognized computer forensics authorities. Given the relative newness of the field, his nearly two decades of computer forensics experience help to make him among the most knowledgeable anywhere. In that regard, John was set apart by many of his peers as being an unusually well qualified manager of a major law enforcement agency computer forensics program. His training and experience is not limited to technical investigations. Retiring from federal service in late 1998 with well over a quarter century of law enforcement experience, spanning burglaries to espionage, John is also a decorated officer and air combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Proving a clear exception to the old saying that those who can't do, teach, he has taught at some of America's best known accredited universities and colleges, with police officers traveling from as far away as Australia and India to attend his courses.

John received a Bachelors degree from the University of Maryland, a Masters degree from Webster University and pursued a PhD at Saint Louis University prior to his transfer with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).

The following are included among his more relevant accomplishments as a field and supervisory special agent, most recently with US Customs and previously with NCIS and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Following many months of technical training at private corporations and the Central Intelligence Agency in the mid-1980s, John became the Navy Department's primary resource in the investigation of high priority and sensitive computer investigations world wide.

His prior mainframe programming experience had earlier facilitated a successful computer matching operation to economically identify fraud within the US Navy's payroll system. Hired by US Customs in 1987 and tasked with keeping a watchful eye on their giant mainframe computer center in northern Virginia, he was promoted and transferred about a year later to the Office of Investigations. While assigned as Customs National Fugitive Coordinator, a program responsible for the establishment of the Ten Most Wanted program and led to the arrest of several previously illusive major felons, he was called upon to design and supervise the building of the computer network for the Treasury Department's newly formed Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and later two large wide area networks for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and serving Customs, FBI, DEA and IRS. Both during his headquarters assignment and afterwards as a senior narcotics agent in Houston, TX, John provided Customs' input to DOJ's Federal Guidelines on Searching and Seizing Computers.

As the Customs' senior computer forensics examiner for Oklahoma and much of Texas, he recognized the need for sharing technical investigative resources between law enforcement agencies. To that end, he formed the Houston Area Technical Support Interagency Group, which ultimately numbered over 800 members in the US and British Commonwealth. It was also during this period that John developed what is widely reputed to be the first automated computer forensics program, a Windows variation of which was commercially marketed in computer stores across the nation. Selected in 1997 to be the first National Computer Forensics Program Manager for Customs' Office of Internal Affairs, John also pioneered the use of data mining to detect criminal activity transacted on Customs vast world-wide computer network.

Retiring in late 1998 at 53 years of age, he created a computer forensics training program for a high tech subsidiary of the giant Litton Corporation and assisted in the design of artificial intelligence computer forensics tools for the Air Force, much of which was accomplished from his home in a rural mountain top community in eastern Tennessee. Since then, John developed multimedia computer forensics laboratory intensive courses that are regularly offered by state and private universities and colleges.

Susie Spartano, SPHR is the Regional Director of Volunteer Services with the American Red Cross North Texas Region with responsibility for overall planning, recruitment and retention strategy for the Red Cross’ volunteer workforce spanning 111 counties across North Texas. She also serves as a Supervisor in the Staff Relations function within the Disaster Service Human Resources system of the American Red Cross.

Previously, she served as the Director of Human Resources and Volunteer Management at the Dallas Area Chapter of the American Red Cross with full responsibility for directing the Human Resource and the Volunteer Management function within the chapter's 12 county jurisdiction.

She holds a BS in Business Administration and is currently pursuing a Masters in Human Resource Development with the University of Texas.

She served 4 years on the Diversity Committee with Dallas HR, the local SHRM affiliate as the Chair of the Publicity and Outreach Committee.

Notable is her 18 years of people management and her 12 years of service to the American Red Cross during which she aided in the relief to victims of 9/11, Katrina, Gustav/Ike and several other disaster relief operations.

Mike has 20+ years in the computing industry, worked as a 1st level tech for Tandy, 2nd and 3rd level tech working for AST, Server team member, moved into AST corporate training, went to Microhard as an A+ instructor, then taught Windows NT certification, achieved and MCSE, A+, and other certs. Lewis worked as an IT Senior instructor for 10 years at ITT Technical Institute (in computer networking, computer security, and network forensics). He got into computer security about 5 years ago and have been fascinated with it ever since. Achieved forensic cert in 2010.

Lewis has been teaching MS Office for TCC since 2009, working at Westwood as an instructor, SME, curriclum designer and Program chair for both CJ and IT since 2011, and has helped design a few networks for businesses. He now specialize in InfoSec and forensics.

Personally, he has been married for 35 years to the same fiery redheaded woman, and still going strong. Hobbies include building wooden things (like desks) and bookshelves, etc.

Technical Skills:

Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, GoLive; Quark XPress; Microsoft Office: Word, PowerPoint, Excel. Support applications: Suitcase Fusion, Fetch, Barcoder, iWeb, Numbers, Keynote, Macintosh OSX and Windows 7.

Lindsey Miller is a Dallas-based photographer and owner of Lindsey Miller Photo. She received her Masters in Digital Photography from the School of Visual Arts in 2009. She practices the art of photography in every type of shoot she is hired for, including weddings, products, and events. She believes that learning photography is half science and half art, one with out the other is incomplete. Lindsey uses her experiences in business and world travels to give a well rounded education to all levels of photographers about the camera, the computer and the design aspects of photography.

Please contact her at lrmiller@uta.edu for questions regarding her specific classes at UT Arlington. And visit www.LindseyMillerPhoto.com to see her portfolio.

Dorean Bryant has a BBA in Business Computers and Information Systems (BCIS) and an MBA in Management. She is a full-time home stager, works part-time as a substitute teacher for Mansfield ISD.

In her personal life Bryant is married with one teenage daughter. A lover of dogs, she currently has a 5 year old Maltese. Travel is also her pastime which she had already visited 26 US states, plus Jamaica.

Some fun trivia is that her favorite season is Autumn, and her favorite color is yellow. Bryant is a die-heart Dallas Cowboys fan. With the exception of Jamaica, although Bryant loves to travel far distances, ironically she has no desire to travel abroad!

Melinda Howser has taught math for 7 years. Her teaching experience began earlier in 1998 with camp counseling, and later included teaching privately as an academic and music tutor. Her test preparation skills include her own successful testing resume as an SAT National Merit Finalist and most recently in May 2012 as an invited member for a multi-state educator advisory panel event in Princeton, NJ. While in Princeton, she met researchers, educators, and professors from across the U.S. at the Chauncey Conference Center to discuss algebraic constructs in student development of math understanding.

In addition to her certifications in Math, Science, Technology Applications, and Supplementary ESL, Mrs. Howser has experience teaching subjects such as Jewelry Making, Wood Burning, Robotics Club, Crafts, Piano and Cello. She lives with her loving husband Michael and enjoys spending time with friends and family.

As a freelance marketer Xavier has developed a broad array of web solutions and client acquisition strategies to generate revenue through social media and build digital presence. Consulting with a variety of companies representing multiple industries from beauty product manufactures to real estate investment firms. As a social media Instructor he has developed, designed and implemented a custom training curriculum which showcases immediately, actionable strategies to connect engage and convert social media users into consumers and loyal advocates for their product or service.

Take a look at his slideshow presentation get a better understanding of the financial benefits of social media!

Web Design Certificate Web Development Certificate

I was born in Colombia, South America. For most of my life I was educated in an all-female boarding school, at a time when the women of the house were not allowed to go to college, because a blend of boys and girls in the same place was not a choice. All throughout my formative years, reading was required first by my mother at home and then at school. While children in my neighborhood where playing with their friends inside or out of their homes, we were compelled to read and discuss the contents of the books. Since my mother's side of the family produced a line of low and high profile politicians and diplomats, our education, both tutorial and in school, emphasized local and world politics as well as global geography and its socio-economic impact.

Later in my life, in the USA, while studying marketing, I worked at Berlitz to earn extra money. But there was another purpose: to learn their very exclusive and distinct method of teaching that has now become a very popular and no doubt the best way to learn a language - Total Immersion. My love for the language and the great satisfaction of watching the results convinced me that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Today, and every day, I know I made the right decision, as a number of my private students can now read literature and understand movies made in Spanish, without the help of translations.