Milton Santiago

Milton Santiago is an assistant professor of visual communications at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, director of the Advanced Military Visual Journalism program and an active working cinematographer. His work brings together professional production, cinematography education and a curiosity about how emerging technologies are changing the ways visual stories are conceived, created and taught.

At Newhouse, Santiago teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in cinematography, nonfiction video storytelling and creative applications of artificial intelligence. Since joining the faculty in 2021, he has helped build the school’s cinematography curriculum across the Visual Communications and Television, Radio and Film programs, developing new courses and learning experiences in cinematic lighting, advanced cinematography, virtual production and generative AI. His teaching is grounded in learning by doing, creative experimentation and a belief that students should develop their own visual voices while building the craft and confidence to express them. Student work produced under his instruction and mentorship has earned sustained national recognition across leading collegiate journalism, film and media competitions. His teaching has been recognized with the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Teaching Recognition Award from Syracuse University, the University Film and Video Association Teaching Excellence Award for Junior Faculty, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Innovations in Teaching Award and the Broadcast Education Association Innovation in Teaching Award.

As director of the Advanced Military Visual Journalism program, Santiago leads one of Newhouse’s longest-standing educational partnerships, a collaboration with the U.S. military that has prepared generations of military visual communicators in photography, design and multimedia storytelling for more than six decades.

Santiago’s research and creative scholarship examine how emerging technologies can expand the practice and pedagogy of cinematography. He has pioneered new approaches to teaching with augmented and interactive imaging, developed Syracuse University’s first curriculum in virtual production and created learning experiences that place students alongside him as collaborators in professional and experimental production. His collaboration with Canon U.S.A. introduced the company’s AMLOS interactive imaging platform into the cinematography classroom and later expanded into a cross-cultural documentary collaboration between students at Newhouse and the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico. He is also co-founder of the Newhouse AI Creative Summit, which brings students, educators and industry partners together to explore the creative and ethical possibilities of generative AI.

Alongside his academic work, Santiago maintains an active professional practice as a cinematographer, an important connection that keeps his classroom closely tied to the realities of contemporary production. He has photographed narrative films, documentaries, episodic projects, commercials and branded content, and frequently brings students into that professional practice, creating opportunities for them to work alongside him and experience the collaborative, technical and creative demands of a working set. His work has screened at festivals including the Tribeca Film Festival, South by Southwest EDU, Dances with Films and the Copenhagen International Film Festival, and he has created commercial and branded content for companies including Disney, Reebok, Levi’s and Dockers. Before coming to Syracuse, he spent 16 years working as a freelance cinematographer in Los Angeles.

Santiago is a former Academy of Television Arts and Sciences cinematography apprentice, was selected for the American Society of Cinematographers Vision Program and is a member of the Society of Camera Operators. He earned a B.A. in communication studies and English from Canisius College and an M.F.A. in motion picture production from the University of Miami.