Professor Wenhai Ma graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Scene & Costume Design from Carnegie Mellon University, USA and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Scene Design from the Central Academy of Drama, China.
He is a long-time Chinese-American Professor of Scene and Costume Design, primarily teaching in the USA over the past 30 years. Before joining NAFA in 2011, he served as Chair of Scene Design, Senior Designer, and Master Teacher in the Department of Theatre at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA, where he was granted tenure Professorship. He also served as Head of Theatre Design at Duke University, USA for 11 years. His other teaching posts include at Purdue University, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in USA, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and the Central Academy of Drama, China.
He has designed a great number of productions in the USA and Asia. He is the author of textbook: Scene Design: Rendering and Media (Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co., USA, 2012). He has also illustrated numerous picture books published in the USA, the UK, and Canada. His research in theatre design education and art was recognized through inclusion in Who’s Who among Asian Americans in 1995. His upcoming textbook Designing the Scene is proposed for publishing in the USA in 2015.