Spelman College Partners with Black Women Film Network to Host Fireside Chat with Ironheart Director, Editor and Actress

CI&A Hosts Cross-Disciplinary Event for Students Interested in STEM and Film 

Recently, Spelman College partnered with Black Women Film Network to host a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) Fireside Chat featuring the editor, director and lead actress of Marvel’s newest series Ironheart. The event took place in the new Mary Schmidt Campbell Center for Innovation and the Arts (CI&A), a facility designed to expand opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration between STEM and the arts.

We here at the Center for Innovation and the Arts make sure that there’s space to put that ‘A’ in STEM to make it STEAM. And that’s why we’re here today.” said Barbara Chirinos, inaugural artistic director of the CI&A during her welcoming remarks. “The arts have been our foundation for so many things…For telling stories, for communicating, for soothing, for exciting, for creating and moving us forward, and this building is a perfect example of that.

During the fireside chat, Editor and Clark Atlanta University alumna Deanna Nowell and Director Angela Barnes shared behind-the-scenes insights, career journeys and the power of storytelling in celebration of a series powered by Black women both behind the camera and on screen.

“It was such an incredible experience. I pinched myself a lot when I was working at Marvel. It was definitely a dope experience,” said Nowell.

Nowell and Barnes, who both shared the difficulties in getting hired in mainstream entertainment as Black women, said they are now working on successful, fulfilling projects following their work on Ironheart.

“Now it’s not just me knowing I can do it, but other people know I can do it, too,” said Barnes. “I’m getting meetings for stuff that’s much higher level now that people have seen what I’ve done on Ironheart.”

Following the fireside chat with Nowell and Barnes, lead actress Dominique Thorne surprised the audience and spoke about the significance of her role as Riri Williams and the impact her character will have on Black girls and women in the future.

"I strongly believe that I only have this opportunity because of other women who look like me who stepped on screen, behind camera, when they weren’t expected to succeed,” said Thorne. “Not only did they succeed, but they raised the standard of what should be expected…Me playing this character really just feels like a continuation of that same work."

The audience was filled with local community members, creatives, industry professionals and students from various disciplines in STEM and the arts, including a group of students from the Black Beauty STEMinist Lab Intensive event hosted nearby on campus.

“Seeing a young Black woman in STEM who is confident, brilliant and owns every room she walks into is powerful. Riri felt like the first Marvel character I could relate to,” said Makayla Moore, C’2026, a biochemistry major and mathematics minor at Spelman who was recently accepted into her first medical school through an early commitment program.

Moore works in the Arthur M. Blank Innovation Lab in the CI&A where she develops creative projects at the intersection of fashion, technology, robotics and art. “Watching her made me want to go even harder in my STEM degree and let my imagination be my only limit in my art.”