Valerie Sofranko-Banks

Valerie a professional Fine Artist of 35 years and a Special Effects Technician for 16+ of those years worked as a Sculptor, Painter, Fabricator, Puppeteer, Model Maker and FX Makeup Artist in the Film Industry on major feature films such as "Return of the Jedi", "Gremlins", "Enemy Mine", "Arachnophobia", "The Fly", "Naked Lunch", "Ghostbusters II", "Back to the Future II", "Hook", "Nightmare Before Christmas" along with a few other films and TV commercials. She has exhibited her Fine Art in Fine Art shows and Galleries in United States and is an adjunct faculty member of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the Entertainment and Industrial Design Department. In 2008 Valerie worked for and received a Master of Entertainment Technology degree from Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, where she worked in teams with other grad students building Virtual Worlds for games, Edutainment and Location Based Entertainment. She is now employed by CMU's Entertainment Technology Center as their staff Artist, working and assisting graduate students with their projects and giving workshops in Makeup FX, Props making and Sculpting.

Educational History

B.A. Fine Arts Indiana University of Pennsylvania