Stephanic, b. 1946, a native of Canton, Ohio, after service as a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman 1965-1968, relocated to the Washington, D.C. area. Following a brief career in medical technology, he returned to college and received a B.A. in Fine Arts and an M.F.A. in the field of Photography from The George Washington University where he is presently Associate Professor of Design. After many years as a traditional fine art photographer, Stephanic turned his aesthetic energies towards an exploration of the computer as a fine arts medium. He is a recipient of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington Award of Excellence, the David Lloyd Kreeger Prize in Photography, the Myron Lowe Scholarship, and as co-designer and photographer, he received the 1982 Printing Industry of America Award for the poster Renaissance, 1982, for The George Washington University Department of Fine Art and Art History.

Stephanic has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions of photographic and electronic mediums. He has also been the recipient of research grants and private commissions for his hand-colored and digital photographic works. Design activities include developing an Internet resource, Arts Resource Center on the World Wide Web (1996, no longer active), for the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area and multimedia resources for the National Bonsai Foundation for the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the United States National Arboretum, Washington, DC. His hand-colored and digital prints are included in numerous public and private collections including the Biblioteque Nationale du France and most recently the University of Maryland University College Collection. He has lectured at the National Gallery of Art and conducted workshops on hand-coloring photographs at The Smithsonian Institution as well as serving as juror for local and national art competitions.