The CSSSA Animation faculty includes a number of leading artists in the animation industry and independent film world. Lori Damiano, the Department Chairperson, is an independent animator and illustrator whose industry experience includes animation work for director Spike Jonze, and with Nickelodeon's Yo Gabba Gabba, The-N.com, MTV, Nike, Microsoft, and Palm Pictures. Her films and artwork have been exhibited and published internationally.

John Mahoney, Leif Goldberg, Melissa Bouwman, Steven Brown and Jon Gomez serve as Animation and Life Drawing Instructors at CSSSA.

John Mahoney studied at Pratt Institute as an Illustration major. Since graduating, he's worked on ten Disney films as an animation designer and several other live action and theater design projects. Including Visual Development on a CG feature in Taiwan. He has written and directed several award winning short films and teaches film design and sculpture at Cal Arts, Gnomon, and Lucasfilm.

Leif Goldberg is a graphic and performing artist whose work is primarily manifested through self-printed and released publications. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design's Film/Animation/Video program in 1997. His film work was exhibited in the 2002 Whitney Biennial and at the RISD Museum. His performance works include a shadow puppet theater called Near Earth Object and a recent tour with Trutheater Theater. Leif's drawings and prints have been published in numerous anthologies including Kramer's Ergot and Hospital Brut.

Melissa Bouwman is an animator, video producer, and educator.  Her interests lie in traditional and digital cut-out animation, experimental narrative, installation and stereoscopy. In 2009, Melissa completed her MFA studies at USC. She is currently working in Los Angeles as a freelance animator and teaching animation to underserved youth at Inner City Arts.

Steven Brown is an instructor at the California Institute of the Arts, in the Character Animation Department. He also teaches at Santa Monica College Academy of Entertainment Technology, and the master's degree program in animation at the Tainan National University of Art in Taiwan. He has taught workshops at Disney Feature Animation, Nickelodeon Studio, and at Lioligongfang Studio in Shanghai, China.

Jon Gomez, also an instructor in the California Institute of the Arts Character Animation Department, has worked in feature film as a conceptual artist. He has presented projects to Pixar, Disney Imagineering, and ABC and he is a founding member of A Everything Entertainment LLC, a creatively armed company rethinking the possibilities of all mediums of entertainment. Jon is an alumnus of CalArts who for seven years has taught young artists (age 10-18) through the CalArts Community Arts Partnership Program.