National Advisory Committee (NAC)
TAG’s work is guided in part by our National Advisory Committee, representing the depth and breadth of the teaching artists field across the US. The National Advisory Committee exists to provide input, guidance, and strategy towards our mission and vision; to connect TAG to other organizations, leaders in the field, and individual teaching artists locally and nationally. These members serve two year, renewable terms.
Meet the NAC Members
Alex Chadwell (KY)
Alex Chadwell (he/him) is a musician/teaching artist/student/administrator/writer originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and currently based in Lexington, Kentucky.
He has designed and facilitated programs, residencies, and workshops with Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Council, Center for Arts Education, Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras, Fayette County Public Schools, Highbridge Voices, Lexington Philharmonic, the New School’s College of Performing Arts, the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program, St. Nicks Alliance, and the Southeastern Theatre Conference.
In his current position as the Learning and Partnership Programs Manager at the Lexington Philharmonic, he is developing and implementing programming that is centered around the belief that all people should have opportunities to be invited and supported in individually and collaboratively creating art that examines and/or reflects their experiences, values and perspectives. Prior to joining the Lexington Philharmonic, he coordinated and supported the development of an MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship and a graduate minor in Creative Community Development at The New School (TNS) in Manhattan.
In the summer of 2021, he was selected to participate in the Arts Education Partnership’s Arts and Literacy Thinkers Meeting Series and currently participates on their Equity Working Group.
Chadwell has a BM in Composition from Mannes College of Music (The New School) and is currently pursuing an MA in Literacy Education at the University of Kentucky where his focus is in exploring the concepts of literacies and artmaking as both sense-making and meaning-making processes that overlap, intersect, and commingle.
Aliza Sarian (Canada)
Aliza Sarian taught theatre arts in the New York City public schools for 14 years before relocating to Calgary, Alberta in 2020. In addition to middle school instruction, she’s worked with the NYC Department of Education–developing assessments, designing curricula, and facilitating professional development–Disney Theatrical Group and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Since arriving in Calgary, Aliza has collaborated with the Calgary Board of Education, Calgary Separate School District, Storybook Theatre, Theatre Calgary, and more. Aliza’s students have gone on to study acting and playwriting at prestigious performing arts high schools and universities, performing in and producing work on and off-Broadway, as well as working professionally in film and television. She has been a faculty member at New York University and Hunter and Manhattanville Colleges. She holds a B.S. in Teaching Theatre Arts from Appalachian State University, an M.A. in Educational Theatre from NYU, and a certificate in Drama in Education from Trinity College, Dublin.
Andrea Rehani (Co-Chair, Communications) (IL)
Andrea Rehani is a first-generation Assyrian-Syriac Iraqi-American prose and poet-writer and teaching artist. Her writing has been published in Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, MAKE: A Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She writes book reviews for Orion Magazine. For the last seven years, Andrea has taught English, writing composition, and ESL to multilingual students in higher education in virtual and non-virtual spaces. Currently, she is working toward her Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies at DePaul University. As a co-facilitator for DePaul University’s doctoral writing group, Andrea leads writing workshops for doctoral students in education. Andrea also serves as the President of the Education Doctoral Student Association (EDSA) at DePaul University. Andrea has served as a writing judge for the 2017 and 2018 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for New York high school students whose submissions were poetry, criticism, and nonfiction. Additionally, she has been a reader for the 2019 and 2020 CLMP Firecracker Awards for Independently Published Literature in creative nonfiction and poetry. As a co-captain for Poems While You Wait, Andrea leads this poetry group when hired for weddings, street festivals, and literary events in Chicago. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction Prose from The New School and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Northeastern Illinois University. Andrea lives in Chicago.
Anthony Pound (TX)
Anthony D. Pound is the Program Director at Junior Players providing quality arts education to underserved communities across North Texas and beyond. A recent transplant to Dallas, Texas, Anthony was previously in New York City at the New 42/New Victory Theater as the Associate Director of Education, leading the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award winning New 42 Youth Corps for 14 years. Serving on local and national steering committees he has taught at conventions on Mentoring, Creative Youth Development, and Social Emotional Learning across the country. A theater artist and freelance director, Anthony has directed over 75 professional theatrical productions in NYC and regionally. He has studied Mentor Programs with Fordham University and Big Brothers Big Sisters, College Counseling with the Options Institute of New York, and Theatrical Performance at the University of Memphis.
Anu Annam (NY)
Anu Annam, is an acclaimed artist, educator, curator, and administrator. In their 30-year artistic practice, they explore psychology through watercolor, acrylic, oil, and collage by weaving realistic and abstract images of figures and faces to create a final impact of honest emotion. Their passion for comics, sci-fi, satire, and Indian mythology drives their digital and ink work and informs the engaging tone and content of their classes and social justice practice. They collaborate with and are faculty at numerous institutions such as the Long Island Museum, Teatro Yerbabruja, and Community-Word Project and have won multiple arts, teaching, and community grants from New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation of the Arts, and Suffolk County. They have received Proclamations from the Town of Huntington andTown of Patchogue for their tireless dedication to supporting the arts. Anu Annam has recently been named the 2023 recipient of the NYSCA Interdisciplinary Artist Award with fiscal Sponsorship from Patchogue Arts Council •Museum of Contemporary Arts of Long Island.
Annam has curated one-day to season-long exhibitions at institutions such as the Queens Museum of Art, Cinema Arts Centre, Islip Art Museum, Farmingdale State College, and Museum of Contemporary Arts of Long Island. They exhibit their paintings globally: (select solos) Le Salon d’ Art, NYC, Shrishti Art Gallery, India, Islip Art Museum, NY. Their events, exhibitions, and classes are featured in Newsday, Fios 1, Canvas Magazine, The Hindu, and The Week Magazine. Annam earned their BA from Tufts University and Boston Museum School. Annam is on multiple arts, arts education, and advocacy advisory boards and committees such as for New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, New York State Brain Injury Association on New York State, the Patchogue Arts Council•MOCA of LI, the PEACE Project, and most recently, Teaching Artist’s Guild’s National Advisory Committee & Drag Story Hour.
Annam is the founder/director of the arts-based support and advocacy organization, SEA of Visibility, which provides robust, multi-disciplinary arts events and education programs that center queer/BIPOC folx with invisible disabilities aiding in the integration of the disabled community into the cultural landscape of New York. They believe that through kindness, community, arts programs, and advocacy, individuals can thrive as Annam has, through multiple marginalized experiences, to lead a meaningful life full of contribution and joy.
Ari Albright (SD)
Ariadne (Ari) Albright, an artist and educator, holds a B.F.A. in Printmaking from the University of Washington and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of South Dakota. Her work centers on the convergence of art, service, and community.
Since 2013, Ariadne has been the Arts in Health Consultant at Sanford Vermillion Medical Center (SVMC), witnessing the transformative power of art in healthcare, strengthening her belief in creativity for personal and communal well-being.
Ari directs Creative Care, L.L.C., dedicated to providing art projects for healthcare clients of all ages and abilities. They offer staff arts training and fair compensation for student art facilitators. In 2016, she introduced courses at the University of South Dakota, guiding students through an Arts in Health certificate program.
Since 2007, Ariadne has been a teaching artist with the South Dakota Arts Council’s Artists in the Schools and Communities Program (SDAC), empowering diverse individuals to express creativity through visual arts, writing, and art history, adapting to various abilities and learning styles.
Ariadne’s contributions earned accolades like the Teaching Artist Guild Distinguished Service Award in 2023. She played a crucial role in shaping the NOAH Core Curriculum for Arts in Health Professionals in 2022 and authored “Creative Care: An Artist in Healthcare and Projects” in 2020. Her 2022 solo painting exhibition, “Signal Graces,” at the Dahl Arts Center underscores her creative expression.
Ariadne Albright’s journey reflects her commitment to using art for community service, fostering connections, and creating inclusive spaces where art catalyzes healing and growth.
Ashlee McKinnon (MD)
Ashlee McKinnon serves as the Director of Education Programs at the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative in Washington DC. Ashlee has been committed to her passion for arts enrichment and education as a K-12 Dance Educator, and a champion for equitable youth development and enriching arts programming while working with prominent arts organizations in the DC area, such as Dance Place, Story Tapestries, and Imagination Stage.. Ashlee is an alumnus of the University of Maryland at College Park and Princeton Theological Seminary, where she earned a Bachelors of Arts in Dance and a Master of Divinity degree respectively. Her membership in the Arts Administrators of Color Network and as an ambassador with Arts Education in Maryland Schools shape her perspective on equitable and diverse arts and humanities programming for our future generations. At her core, Ashlee is a teacher who believes in the uplifting and transformative power of the Arts in all stages of life. Through her personal endeavor, The Rehearsal Room, she hopes to provide a space to identify, cultivate, and sustain the creative nature inside each of us. Still a performer at heart, Ashlee has been blessed to dance at The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, be featured on CBS This Morning as a teacher, and be published in the Spring/Summer 2021 edition of Black Dance Magazine for her article HerSpeak: Black Female Choreographers Leading the Pivot in Dance, as an arts advocate.
B.J. Buckley (Co-Chair, Advocacy) (MT)
B.J. Buckley is a Montana poet and writer who has worked in Arts-in-Schools and Communities programs throughout the West and Midwest for over 45 years. Her residencies have included museums, libraries, senior and dementia care centers, homeless shelters, and healthcare facilities. She was for several years the Writer-in-Residence at Sanford Cancer center in Sioux Falls, SD.
Her work appears or is forthcoming in About Place Journal, Grub Street, Dogwood, Calyx, Hole in the Head Review, Oakwood, Willow Springs, and many other print and online magazines.
B .J.’s prizes and awards include a Wyoming Arts Council Literature Fellowship; The Cumberland Poetry Review’s Robert Penn Warren Narrative Poetry Prize; Poets & Writers “Writers Exchange Award” in Poetry; the Rita Dove Poetry Prize from the Center for Women Writers at Salem College, Winston-Salem, NC; Joy Harjo Prize from CutThroat: A Journal of Arts and Literature; the Comstock Review Poetry Prize; and Honorable Mention in Southern Humanities Review’s Witness Prize. She has been awarded residencies at The Ucross Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Colrain Manuscript Conference.
Her books include Artifacts, Willow Bee Press 1987; Moon Horses and the Red Bull, ProngHorn Press 2004, with co-author Dawn Senior-Trask; and Corvidae: Poems of Ravens, Crows, and Magpies, Lummox Press 2014. Her chapbook manuscript, In January, the Geese, won the Comstock Review’s 35th Anniversary 2021 Poetry Chapbook Prize. Flyover Country, Pine Row Publishing, and Night Music, Finishing Line Press, are forthcoming in 2024.
Briana Linden (OR)
Briana Linden has been a leader in arts/culture/education non-profits since 1998 including the Portland Art Museum, Oregon Zoo, Artists Repertory Theatre and as director of Blue Sky/Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts; prior to that she was a preschool teacher. In 2008, while at Blue Sky, she was recruited to help vision, launch and implement The Right Brain Initiative– a program aimed at restoring arts learning to Portland area classrooms where she oversaw a cadre of nearly a hundred teaching artists that worked in classrooms before she transitioned to Director of Programs at Young Audiences in 2015. In 2012, she co-founded Teaching Artist Studio, an inquiry-based professional development program designed for and by teaching artists where the creative process is front and center as artists examine and articulate what lives at the heart of how and what they teach.
Briana now helps organizations develop creative programming and leads educator workshops and arts education professional development all around the Pacific Northwest. As a teaching artist, Briana works mainly in visual art forms like drawing and printmaking but uses modalities learned from across the field of teaching artistry to engage with kids and explore ideas.
An artist and a mother, Briana works in social practice, encaustic, printmaking, drawing and photography. In 2016, she co-founded Motherist, a social practice experiment in artmaking between mother/artists and their children in which children’s ideas spur the creative process.
Chelsea Dubick (IL)
Chelsea Dubick is a multimedia artist living, teaching and making in Chicago, Illinois. Her main mediums are ceramics and painting. She grew up in Kentucky and in Charleston, SC and have lived in New York (both upstate and the city) and in Spain. She’s a non-native fluent in Spanish and has also taught the language. She moved to Chicago in large part for the art community and art education opportunities here. Chelsea is very excited to collaborate with this national community of teaching artists and to support any unionizing efforts however she can.
ChelseaDee (DC)
An independent theater-maker and public arts facilitator, ChelseaDee performs, teaches, facilitates, develops curriculum, curates, and produces performing arts events. She is a tenured Teaching Artist with the New Victory Theater and has facilitated community-based arts workshops with The Kennedy Center, the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Carnegie Hall, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City Department of Correction (Rikers Island), New York City’s Alternative School District, Covenant House, and survivors of human trafficking and their families. She is a founding member of the DC-based Canady Foundation for the Arts Repertory Theatre, and an inaugural cohort member of the ARTIVISM Fellowship with the Tony-award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition. Her inspiration is crafting multi-platform public engagement experiences that highlight history, challenge dominant narratives and ensure that art is a tool in the hands of the people.
Dale Novella Anderson-Lee (NY)
Hailing from the South Carolina Lowcountry with a home base in Brooklyn, powerhouse vocalist Dale Novella brings Soul, Hip-Hop, R&b and Rock vibes to everything she creates. After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Media Arts, she became an entrepreneur and radio producer, using her cornucopia of talents to defy conventions and singular definitions. A certified Yogi and Teaching Artist with Community Word Project and Building Beats, and one of the two Co-Directors of the Teaching Artist Project, Dale Novella uses her gifts as a musician, singer/songwriter and yogi to help people find peace, to express their emotions, and to connect with themselves and the world around them. Dale curates live music events (The Poet Will be Televised), Yoga, Health & Wellness workshops and is a youth educator who believes in the power of music and community. A veteran of the NYC Music scene, she debuted her self produced record SANG BXTCH!! in 2020 and has toured the U.S. and Europe extensively. Whether through song, meditation, or movement Dale Novella’s goal is to bring the world together in rhythm, one beat at a time. You can find Dale at dalenovellapresents.com, or laying out in the sun with her cat, Solomon.
Whether through song, meditation, or movement Dale Novella’s goal is to bring the world together in rhythm, one beat at a time. You can find Dale at dalenovellapresents.com, or laying out in the sun with her cat, Solomon.
Dominique Enriquez (CA)
Dominique Enriquez, (she/her) is the Executive Director at the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area – a coalition of arts providers, educators and advocates working to connect and catalyze arts education communities for a more just and creative Bay Area. Working at the intersection of contemporary art practice and education, Dominique is a community worker and visual artist with over twenty years of experience collaborating with learning audiences of all ages. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she returned to the East Bay after living and working in Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Chicago. Before joining the Arts Ed Alliance, she served in roles across all five regions of the Bay Area including the Executive Director at the Junior Center of Art and Science (Oakland, CA) and various leadership roles at the Richmond Art Center (Richmond, CA), Leap Arts in Education (SF, CA) Headlands Center for the Arts (Sausalito, CA), and Palo Alto Art Center (Palo Alto, CA). She studied Drawing and Painting at the California College of the Arts, received her B.A in Studio Art from San Diego State University, and her Master’s degree in Education from the University of California, Santa Cruz. As a first generation Filipinx American, Dominique believes in the intrinsic value of creative practice in the learning process and believes all learners have the right to equitable access to the arts. She loves to explore new ideas through observing, talking about, and making art.
Fariha Tayyab (TX)
Fariha Tayyab is a multidisciplinary artist whose work lies at the intersection of art, journalism, and radical reimagination. Her storytelling work as a writer and photographer explores themes of identity, belonging, and liberation. Fariha’s creative work has been published in various journals and publications, including the Columbus anthology, Matter News, Brown Girl magazine, Not your Mother’s Breast Milk journal, the Eater, Rumors Secrets and Lies anthology, Columbus Alive, and Matter magazine. She has performed her poetry and facilitated workshops with the Netroots Nation, Radical Communications, Muslim Counterpublics lab, Writers in the school, Columbus Museum of Art, YWCA, Literary Cleveland, Girl Scouts National Conference, Making Midwest festival, Poetry Out Loud, Lincoln Theatre, Streetlight Guild, Healing Broken circles, Gathering All Muslim Artists, U.Iowa’s International writing program, and others. Her public art has been displayed in Zora’s house, OPAWL – Building feminist leadership in Ohio, in the Art of Abortion exhibition. NPR Cleveland, Wild Goose creative, and the Magic Sessions have interviewed her. Fariha is listed on the Ohio Art Council teaching artist roster and has been awarded her two creative aging teaching artist residencies by the council.
Heleya de Barros (WA)
Heleya de Barros is an actor, teaching artist, and arts education advocate whose work focuses on how to use theatre skills across disciplines and subject areas. An adjunct professor in the Youth Development program at Highline College, Heleya was previously the Director of Arts Education at Arts Corps where she oversaw arts programming for 3,000+ students each year with partners across King County. She has worked in arts education and youth development in California, New York, and Washington with such organizations as The New School College for Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, The Center for Arts Education, The Geffen Playhouse, The Los Angeles Music Center, and 24th Street Theatre. Heleya sits on the Advisory Councils for Classical KING FM Arts Education and Highline College Applied Bachelors Committee, and is a board member of the Franklin High School Alumni Association & Foundation and the Teaching Artists Guild.
Hilda Abla (NY)
Lebanese-Armenian multidisciplinary artist and body image activist Hildos, was born Hilda Abla in Beirut and lived during the 15 years of war that Lebanon went through. She started her artistic venture when she was 5 at the children art program at Lebanese American University, through which she pursued her Art studies & graduated in 1996. Since ‘96, she has worked in diverse design fields and participated in the Milton Glaser (Designer if I ❤️ NY) Summer program in 2011 at the School of Visual Arts. She finished her Master degree in Marketing & Communications in 2009. Hildos gained her sense of art from all the life struggles she led and dedicated her passion to express those issues. She is driven by making a difference in people’s lives and considers that Art comes with a responsibility and believes that every artwork should have significance. Her primary goal is to address social issues, through her artwork and in the classroom. Her latest commitment is directed to changing the way people view their bodies and themselves. A challenge she faced most of her life. With her sense of humor, she artistically tackles taboos to illustrate the beauty of the human body, ‘seeing beauty in imperfection’ away from the stereotypes clichéd by the media. She conveyed her idea through her TEDTALK in September 2013. She moved to New York City; the city she considers her muse in 2013, and works as an Artist, illustrator, photographer and teaching artist in Brooklyn, NY.
Indi McCasey (Co-Chair, Programs) (CA/NY)
Indi McCasey (they/them) uses their super power as a creative connector to co-construct liberatory futures. Indi is a white, San Francisco Bay Area born and raised, gender non-conforming, queer creative who has spent the past 20 years working at the intersection of arts, education, and community health with non-profit organizations and school districts in Boston, Chicago, Juneau, Santa Fe, Seattle, and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Indi is currently the Executive Director of the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area (AEABA), connecting and catalyzing local arts education coalitions for a more just and creative San Francisco Bay Area. They facilitate professional learning communities of local, national, and international educators, thought leaders, and organizations in partnership with institutions such as the former Alameda County Office of Education’s Integrated Learning Department and Harvard’s Project Zero. Indi’s social practice is rooted in their experience as a teaching artist, performer, producer, program administrator, and arts advocate. They serve on the Funding Advisory Committee of the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program and are co-chair of the American Youth Circus Organization’s Social Circus Committee. Their creative work has been funded by the California Arts Council, Horizons Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, and Zellerbach Family Foundation among others. Along with India Davis, Indi co-founded Topsy-Turvy Queer Circus, an annual event at the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco that highlights queer and trans* performing artists of color. In 2016, they co-launched the White Advocates for Racial Equity Network within the National Guild for Community Arts Education, supporting conversations that address power, privilege, and culture in community arts nonprofits. As a member of the Creative Youth Development (CYD) National Partnership, Indi continues to collaboratively develop a shared practice framework based in the CYD values of youth leadership, racial justice, and collective action. Indi holds a self-designed BA from Fairhaven College at Western Washington University and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Jean E. Taylor (NY)
Jean E. Taylor (she/her) is a teaching artist for Lincoln Center Education, working extensively in their local programs and international consultancies. She received Lincoln Center’s Directors Emeriti Award in 2012. Jean teaches Theatrical Clown for The New School for Drama’s BFA and MFA programs and most recently taught Clown for the World Economic Forum Global Leadership program at Columbia University. She presented at the International Teaching Artist Conferences in Oslo, Norway in 2012 and Brisbane, Australia in 2014. Her most recent performance work with director Eric Nightengale, True Hazards of Childhood, premiered at The Barrow Group in 2013. A trilogy of her theatre work is scheduled for January 2016. Additional performing work includes The Reclamation with Hilary Easton + Company and Snatches, a play begun at the 78th Street Theatre Lab, performed at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London’s New End Theatre, and presented on BBC Radio 4. Jean studied clown/movement with Philippe Gaulier, Ronlin Foreman, David Shiner and Merry Conway, among others. Her approach to theatrical clown has been published in Movement for Actors, Allworth Press. She is a member of The Teaching Artist Journal’s editorial board and a board member of The Maxine Greene Center for Aesthetic Education and Social Imagination.
Jeff Mather (GA)
Jeff is a community-based public artist and teaching artist in Georgia (and SC and MA and UT), working in these overlapping fields for over 30 years. He is the STEAM artist-in-residence at Drew Charter School 45 days each semester and has presented on his partnership work there at national and international conferences. He was a delegate and presenter at the 1st International Teaching Artist Conference in Olso in 2012 and at the ITAC3 in Edinburgh and at ITAC6 in Oslo. He is an ITAC Innovator, leading Think Tank webinars. He has been on the Georgia Council for the Arts registry of visiting artists since 1992. He has a BA degree in Proxemics from Hobart College. He served as president of the Atlanta Partnership for Arts in Learning, an arts infusion non-profit that he helped to co-found in 2001. He toured a program for nine years with a choreographer and a storytelling program with a master storyteller. Jeff has facilitated Learning Exchanges for teaching artists for Alternate ROOTS and for the Community Built Association. Jeff is also the lead artist for the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Access Program in northern Utah and runs interdisciplinary residencies there twice a year. He directed several experimental theater productions at the Center for Puppetry Arts and served as artist-in-residence for the Atlanta Symphony and the High Museum. He is best known for coaching large scale environmental sculpture projects, but as a STEAM Artist-in-Residence he’s co-taught robotics, geometry, math, science, engineering, music, dance, and digital media.
Jess Corsentino (RI)
Jess Corsentino is a Teaching Artist, Education Manager, and Equity Stage Manager for The Gamm Theatre. She has been sharing her passions for community engagement, empowerment, and love of the theater arts with her students for over 13 years. After her first theater camp at the age of 12, Jess knew what she wanted to be when she grew up, a person who made and taught theater. Throughout her highschool years she taught dance classes for youth, volunteered at preschools, and explored every theatrical opportunity offered. In college she majored in Theater and Psychology, which led her to the discovery of her love of Stage Management. In the years following Jess worked for Brown University’s MFA program, Courthouse Center for the Arts, and taught theater to elementary aged students in various locations before finding a home at The Gamm. In the eight years since starting at The Gamm she has worked in schools that are underserved bringing theater and heart to youth who need it the most. One of her goals in her new position as Education Manager for the theater is to create a more diverse, dedicated, and appreciated Teaching Artist staff, in hopes of elevating the people who make a huge impact on the youth in our community.
Kai Fierle-Hedrick (Co-Chair, Finance) (NY)
Kai Fierle-Hedrick (she/her) is currently Founder and Facilitator at Create Knowledge (www.createknowledge.org) and has spent the last two decades working at the intersection of learning, evaluation, systems change, and anti-oppression work. As a consultant, Kai has facilitated local, statewide, regional, and national learning and change work with community and youth organizers, nonprofits, foundations, coalitions, and capacity-builders — focused on issue areas including: racial justice, the arts, educational equity, social and emotional learning, food justice, people-friendly streets, criminal-legal reform, the relationship between health and housing justice, and peer-led mental health and substance use recovery. Prior to consulting, she spent nine years working in asset-based youth development and community arts at the nonprofit Free Arts NYC, lastly as Chief Program Officer. And her facilitation skills were first honed via 6 years of collaborating with young people and adults as a poet and teaching artist in the UK and the US (www.orium.org).
Laura Epperson (IA)
Laura Epperson is a theatre artist, educator, youth worker, and researcher. She has over fifteen years of experience working in schools and communities in the U.S. and internationally. Laura’s work explores how healing-centered engagement and rigorous aesthetic practice supports people in identifying, dismantling, and reimagining unjust systems. She believes collaborative arts allow us to connect with and support ourselves and one another. Laura is passionate about working in and with communities that value storytelling, embodiment, and youth leadership as acts of healing-justice. Laura has a BS in theatre performance from the University of Evansville and an MFA in drama and theatre for youth and communities from the University of Texas at Austin. www.lauramwepperson.com
Laura Sáenz (Co-Chair, Knowledge) (IL)
Born and raised in Mexico City, México – Laura is a teaching artist, cultural researcher and facilitator. She came to the U.S. to pursue a degree in Visual Communication and Dance/Choreography at USC and Mills College in California. After college she moved back to Mexico to teach and choreograph for her ballet school and got a job in advertising to sustain herself. She moved to Chicago in 1998 and became an Artist in Residence for CAPE (Chicago Arts Partnership in Education) at Telpochcalli school as well as a cultural researcher for Latin-American communities in the U.S. In 2005 she left the country for a decade to live in Istanbul, Turkey where she gave birth to her two sons, designed a physical wellness and yoga course at Istanbul Technical University and received a grant to research motherhood, female spaces and post-partum health in Turkey. Returning to Chicago in 2015, she renewed her work as a teaching artist with CAPE in schools, taught yoga in the community and became a bilingual facilitator for StoryCorps – a national oral history non-profit organization which records and archives stories all over the country. She most recently joined Opportunities for All as a teaching artist and consultant for their SPARK program which creates arts integrated professional development for teachers and workshops for parents. Her art making and teaching focus on using the human body as a tool for self-expression, creation, storytelling and play – incorporating movement and digital film to bring performance into the everyday, to inspire and provoke.
Nacida y criada en México, Laura es una artista docente, investigadora cultural y facilitadora. Vino a los Estados Unidos para obtener una licenciatura en Comunicación Visual y Danza/Coreografía en California. Después de mudarse a Chicago, se convirtió en artista docente para CAPE (Chicago Arts Partnership in Education) en la escuela Telpochcalli y haciendo estudios culturales para la comunidad latinoamericana en EU. Salió del país por una década para vivir en Estambul, Turquía, donde dio a luz a sus dos hijos, enseñó yoga en ITÜ – la universidad pública de tecnología de Istanbul y recibió una beca para investigar la maternidad, los espacios femeninos y la salud pos-parto. Al regresar a Chicago en 2015, renovó su trabajo como artista docente con CAPE en las escuelas, enseñó yoga en la comunidad y se convirtió en facilitadora bilingüe de StoryCorps, una organización que graba y registra las historias de individuos y organizaciones por todo el país. Recientemente se incorporó a la organización Opportunities for All como artista docente y consultora para su programa SPARK, que crea programas de desarrollo profesional para maestros usando la integración de las artes en la enseñanza. También desarrolla talleres para apoyar a padres/madres de estudiantes. Su arte y enseñanza se enfocan en usar el cuerpo como una herramienta para crear, contar historias, expresarse y jugar, usando el movimiento humano y la tecnología de video para presentarlo en espacios públicos, inspirar y provocar.
Lauren Jost (OR)
Lauren Jost (she/her) creates, designs and teaches theatre-based workshops and classes for students of all ages for various arts companies and community organizations. An arts education and theatre professional, she has worked for some of the country’s most renowned theatres for young audiences. Lauren is the Founding Artistic Director of Spellbound Theatre, an innovative New York theatre company creating original, multi-disciplinary performance for very young children and families. Lauren is currently Executive Director of Young Audiences of Oregon & SW Washington.
Lindsey Buller Maliekel (NY/NJ)
Lindsey Buller Maliekel (she/her) is the Vice President of Education & Public Engagement for the New Victory Theater/New 42 (American for the Arts Education Award, recipient, 2008) and oversees all programs and content for family audiences, the theater’s youth development programs, and the groundbreaking Impact research with WolfBrown. She supports a roster of 50+ teaching artists and 50+ youth participants working across the organization. Lindsey has been a teaching artist, director, consultant, and content creator for such organizations as Creative Arts Team, NYC Summer Theatre Institute, Girls Leadership Institute, TheatreWorks: Silicon Valley, and StageWrite. She is also a Thesis Advisor for the first American Masters program in Applied Theatre at City University of New York and has given keynotes across the country and internationally focusing on the impact of engagement in the arts. In 2014, under her oversight, the New Victory Usher Corps program won the National Arts and Humanities award, given by Michelle Obama for outstanding programs in creative youth development. She received her Masters degree from the Gallatin School at New York University.
Maria Schaedler-Luera (FL)
Maria is a Brazilian-born educator and artist with extensive work experience and knowledge in theater, music, arts and literacy, and cross-cultural engagement. Maria is an Arts Integration Consultant for National Leader in Arts Integration Focus 5 Inc. and a Drama and Mindfulness Teaching Artist for the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall and the Sarasota Performing Arts Center Foundation where she designs and pilots teaching models and workshops for county schools and nonprofits, focusing on culturally relevant teaching, bilingual programs, and mental health. She studied with theater director Augusto Boal and taught classes and workshops that focus on Theatre of the Oppressed techniques for the American Repertory Theater, Harvard Extension School, Lesley University, and several other non-profits in Boston, MA and Sarasota, FL. She worked at the Harvard Art Museums developing, coordinating, and teaching gallery classes to immigrants in English, Portuguese and Spanish and at the Community Art Center in Cambridge, MA leading the Community Programs and Public Art Initiatives. Maria has served as the Manager for Arts Integration for Any Given Child Sarasota at Sarasota County Schools. She is a seasoned Pre-Texts facilitator, a teacher-training program by Cultural Agents at Harvard University that uses art making to develop literacy and citizenship. She is one of the recipients of the 2019 Arts Leadership Award from The Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, and the winner of the 2022 Appleton Arts Integration Award from the Sarasota Performing Arts Center Foundation. She studied at The American Musical Dramatic Academy in NYC and has a Masters in Intercultural Relations and Arts for Social Change from Lesley University.
Marianela Torres (NY)
Marianela, a pianist native of Panama, has given numerous solo and chamber music performances in different venues around New York City, such as Steinway Hall, The University Club, Aaron Davis Hall at International House, and Hunter East Harlem Gallery, among others. She received the Performing Arts Fellowship from International House New York in 2014 and has participated as a soloist and collaborative performer in festivals such as the International Piano Festival in Torrelodones by Solomon Mikowsky, and the International Keyboard Institute & Festival at The Mannes School in New York City as a scholarship recipient. Marianela received her BA in Music from the University of Panama, and both her Masters in Piano Performance and Music Education from CUNY. She is committed to researching and performing Latin American music, as well as teaching teaching in a reduced capacity at her private studio. She is currently the HR Manager at Bloomingdale School of Music and the Bookkeeper at TAG. In these positions, she is honing her admin skills by implementing processes and procedures to allow nonprofit organizations’ missions to grow.
Marissa Ontiveros (Co-Chair, Programs) (NY)
Marissa Ontiveros is a Chicanx, Brooklyn-based teaching artist and arts administrator committed to dismantling barriers of access within NYC school systems and centering, amplifying, and celebrating the voices of BIPOC youth. She has proudly served as a teaching artist for multidisciplinary performance with humans of (almost) every age, size, and ability in partnership with Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Acting Lab, Learning Extended Arts Programs (LEAP), St. Nick’s Alliance Brooklyn Art Exchange, and CO/LAB Theater Group, where CO/LAB Theater Group which aims to give individuals with developmental disabilities a creative and social outlet through theater arts. She specializes in centering students’ identities and celebrating creative choice through movement, storytelling, puppetry, and play.
A powerful experiences for her was being a PERFORMING ARTS LEGACY (PAL) fellow and part of creating an online platform to document and represent the careers of older performing arts professionals created by the Research Center for Arts and Culture (RCAC) at The Actors Fund (AF). As well as recently completing a 6 week trauma-informed teaching praxis through peer exchange and support, facilitated by Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation and joining the Ars in Educations Teaching Arstis Advocacy Subcommittee in 2021.
She received her BFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, receiving her theatre training from Stella Adler Studio of Acting and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Find out more at www.marissaontiveros.com
Michael Morales (NY)
Michael Morales is a native New Yorker and Drummer since the age of 3. A product of the public school system who benefited greatly from art education in the classroom. As a student at The City College of New York, he conceived of the idea for Rhythm Workshop, a series of musical courses that would later influences his work as a teaching artist. Michael taught for Marquis Studios and LEAP working directly with thousands of students annually and focusing on providing educational programs that promote access and equity in the arts. He also served as a mentor, leading training and administrative support to enhance artistic rigor and community relationships in this organizations. Currently, as the School Programs Administrator for Bloomingdale School of Music, Michael oversees partnerships with public, charter, and private schools in Manhattan and the Bronx. He plays a pivotal role in teacher placement and ongoing training and development, further contributing to the advancement of arts education in his community
Miko Lee (CA)
Miko Lee is an activist, storyteller and educator. She believes in the power of story to amplify voices. Miko is lead producer of APEX Express on KPFA Radio focused around AAPI activists and artists. She is Director of Programs for Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality and on the National Advisory Committee of Teaching Artists Guild. Miko’s career has been rooted in the nonprofit world, first as a theatre actor, director and writer and then as an artistic director and as an arts education leader. Miko was executive director of Youth in Arts for over a decade and prior to that was Director of Arts and Public Education at East Bay Center for the Performing Arts. Miko is an artsEquity BIPOC leader and serves on California’s Special Education + Arts Working Group and the Public Will Committee of CREATE CA. Miko’s extensive background in theatre includes working on shows at Berkeley, Seattle and South Coast Rep, Public Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and many others.
Nicole Taylor (CA)
Master Teaching Artist and operatic soprano, Nicole Taylor, is founder of Creativity Through Music, a cultural consulting agency that serves corporations, community organizations, government agencies, and schools through:
1. Cultural Diplomacy & Arts Advocacy
2. Creativity Consulting & Arts-based team building for healthy company cultures
3. Music Education & Community Outreach
4. Concerts & Cultural Events
A senior Arts Envoy of the U.S. Department of State since 2010, Nicole Taylor has traveled across the globe offering concerts, masterclasses & educational outreach programs for promoting understanding, compassionate communication, & building intercultural bridges. She has taught 150+ music education outreach programs in 15+ countries across the Middle East, North Africa & Europe.
Ms. Taylor holds a Masters degree from The Juilliard School in NY & has 25+ years of personal practice & training. She has taught masterclasses at Franz Liszt Academy & Kodaly Institute in Hungary, Royal Danish Academy of Music in Denmark, Dar Al Kalima University in Palestine, & Franco American Institute in France. She is a Partner Artist for NY-based NPO Sing For Hope, the largest recurring Public Arts project in the USA, known for dedication to Art for All, civic engagement, & cultural diplomacy. In 2021 she was featured in the Visiting American Professionals Program, sponsored by US Embassy Iraq in Baghdad & IREX, an NPO for global development & education.
After a Carnegie Hall debut in 2006, soprano Nicole Taylor was soloist in Zemlinsky’s Psalm 83 at Ring Festival LA with James Conlon. World-premiere ensembles include: Suite for Peace by Kenny Burrell; Tribute concert with DeeDee Bridgewater, Lalo Schifrin, B.B. King, & Stevie Wonder; Sir Paul McCartney’s oratorio Ecce Cor Meum with Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall; Eliott Goldenthal & Julie Taymor’s opera Grendel for Lincoln Center Festival; Olan Jones’ The Woman in the Wall at Overtone Industries LA. Solo recitals: Le Panthéon UNESCO Journée International du Jazz Paris with Thelonius Monk Institute LA; UNESCO World Heritage Site Pannonhalma Monastery Hungary; Sugrįžimai Festivalis Lithuania. Opera Ensembles: San Francisco Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Sarasota Opera, Lincoln Center Festival & Mostly Mozart Festival (NYC), NY Harlem Productions “Porgy & Bess”.
Nicole Taylor is the new Artistic & Program Director of the “Arts in Schools” pilot program, in collaboration with the Oxnard Performing Arts Center, and funded by the California Arts Council. This program will make a 360 degree view of visual arts careers available to 17,000+ students in the Oxnard Union Highschool District in 2023/24.
In 2023, Nicole founded Music at Portside, a classical concert series, to share her love of chamber music and to increase opportunities to listen to live classical music in Ventura County.
To learn more about Nicole Taylor:
Website: www.CreativityThroughMusic.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/
Follow Creativity Through Music on IG: @creativity.throughmusic
Pamela O'Loughlin (OH)
Pamela O’Loughlin is a gifted creative, avid learner, and passionate teacher.
She is an innovative, thoughtful, and skilled educator; from budgeting supplies for activities to last-minute changes that tend to come up when dealing with multiple groups, classes, and organizations, Pamela handles any adverse situation seamlessly.
Pamela is passionate about brainstorming with teachers, students, and administrators. Believing that if she understands what needs to be taught, a creative activity can be developed. Grounded in her early efforts centered around social emotional work that pairs well with Ohio’s Social Emotional Learning Standards, she believes she can teach to any standard of which she has a clear understanding.
Pamela has expanded her teaching interests the past few years and has taught and developed curriculum for diversity, equity and inclusion, intergenerational groups, and has done work that supports her faith as a Christian. Her Camp Emoji classes and workshops address numerous Social Emotional Learning Standards, and she is currently developing the curriculum for teaching history (and especially local history). This curriculum will focus on student-led research, reading, and writing projects that correlate with Ohio’s Content Learning Standards across multiple subjects. Pamela sees this pairing well with Black History Month but contends that it can be implemented any time of the year.
Pamela adapts work to any age group and learning ability including students with physical and/or learning differences (i.e., persons diagnosed with autism, ADHD, etc.). She is currently contracted as an atelier at a preschool, an expressive arts therapist at an adult day center for senior citizens and works with teens in an after school program.
Rebecca Crenshaw (LA)
Rebecca Crenshaw is a New Orleans based educator/musician. Her goal as a teaching artist is to explore and merge the worlds of performance and education, using experiences from each to inform the other. With over 13 years of experience, she has built two elementary strings programs, started a private violin studio, and written an arts integrated curriculum with the LPO. She has served as the Music for Life Consultant and Education/Engagement Manager for the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, coordinating after school and Saturday youth programming. Most recently, Rebecca was Executive Director of Birdfoot Festival, a rule-bending chamber music festival that was based in New Orleans. Rebecca has extensive work/travel experience, having performed in Berlin and Greece with Flock Dance Company, taught violin in Sweden, and worked as a youth leader in Fiji. She performs with multiple ensembles spanning many genres, from Ever More Nest, Samantha Fish to Judith Owen. She writes and performs music for the dance company Flock, led by local choreographer Meryl Muram, and has recorded on albums with Arcade Fire and Alex Ebert.
Sato Yamamoto (NY)
Sato Yamamoto is a Japanese bilingual artist inspired by culture and diversity. Born in Meguro, Tokyo – currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Her unique style of art includes advanced ambidextrous and Ukiyo-e printmaking skills that she uses in her artistic practice. She facilitates workshops with Teachers and Writers Collaborative, New York Public Library, Manhattan Graphics Center, Poster House, and Japan Society. As a visual artist, she received grants from Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, NYFA, NYC Cultural Affairs, and Japan Women’s University. Sato’s art has been presented by IFPDA Print Fair, SGCI Conference in 2016, the Fashion Institute of Technology, the School of Visual Arts, LIC-Artists, and Speedball Art Products.
Shayla James (CA)
Shayla James (she/her) resides in San Diego on Kumeyaay Land. She balances her time as an arts administrator, researcher, and teaching artist in the arts and culture sector. Her work is rooted in community and collaboration with others across disciplines. She is currently the Director of the San Diego Creative Youth Development Network, overseeing network operations, programming and strategic planning. Ms. James is also a Research Associate at RISE Research & Evaluation, where she provides support in evaluation design, data analysis and communication. Her research focuses on arts assessment and evaluation, racial and cultural equity in the arts, cultural policy, and social emotional learning. She is also a multi-instrumentalist with over 15 years of experience in the performing arts as a performer and educator. She is the owner of Sempre Music Studio, a creativity focused studio that offers a flexible, responsive and trauma informed music curriculum. Also, she is the creator and co-lead of Teaching Artist Circle, a community space that centers Teaching Artist voices of San Diego County. Additionally, she has been a teaching artist with Villa Musica, Blindspot Collective, Arts Education Connection San Diego (formerly Arts for Learning San Diego), and the San Diego Opera. Ms. James is currently a San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition (SDRACC) board member. She is Chair Emeritus of Rising Arts Leaders San Diego. She is also a committee member of the Arts, Culture, and Design Committee for the Port of San Diego and the Arts Empower Advisory Committee.
Sonia Baez-Hernandez (FL)
Sonia Baez-Hernandez is an interdisciplinary artist who inspires healing practices through the arts. She employs her experience with breast cancer to interrogate health disparities, gender crisis, and the culture of illness with a series titled Carcinoma le deuil impossible, including installations, drawings, three performance art, poetry, and published an academic article “Breast Cancer: A New Aesthetics of the Subject,” and two curatorial projects: The Body as Poetic Space, and Embodiment and Gaze the Medical. The documentary Territories of the Breast features the experience of five women, African American and Latina. The arts were invocated as a practice for healing and advocacy to denounce human rights violations. According to Cheryl McLean,
“Territories of the Breast courageously ventures into challenging territory exploring difficult questions about human rights and healthcare, a film by an artist, filmmaker, and healthcare reform champion that could open the way for transformative change.
Her work envisions an interplay between art and social, feminism, humanitarian practices, and environmental transformation. Her installations, sculptures, and performances use fibers with poetic imagination. She has been honored with artistic-in-residency with Project Art Miami (2019-2020), Visiting Fellow at the Arcus Center for Social Justice and Leadership (2013), and with the Pollock Krasner Foundation (2003-2004). In addition to having her artwork receive national recognition, she is also a published poet.
She earned an M.F.A from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico. This training allows her to navigate between changing voices and vestiges of time in a planetary crisis. With a nomadic imagination, Baez-Hernandez’s artworks invite the audience to re-configure our humanity and relations.
Tahnee Freda (CA)
Tahnee Freda is a writer, Teaching Artist and arts administrator whose passion for the arts and their impact on society and self has been a driving force since childhood. Tahnee is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Music and Art School (LAMusArt), a nonprofit arts education organization serving East Los Angeles with equitable and affordable access to multidisciplinary arts programming and performance opportunities. Prior to becoming Executive Director at LAMusArt, Tahnee was a development professional and instructor for the organization who raised over a million dollars in foundation, corporate and government support for the institution, and taught over 200 young East LA students in drama, playwriting and dance. She started in the non profit sector at the 52nd Street Project in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, a non profit dedicated to uplifting underserved youngsters through original dramatic works, as a Development and Management Associate and managed both development duties and day to day office operations. Tahnee is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s School of Dramatic Arts and holds a BA in Visual and Performing Arts Studies with a concentration in Playwriting. Tahnee continues to write plays, fiction and non fiction and has been published in places like Compound Butter and Motherwell Mag, and seen at the Five Angels Theater and the Village Gate Theater. She currently holds a certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Center for Nonprofit Management and sits on the National Advisory Committee of the Teaching Artists Guild.
Tamara Anderson (PA)
Tamara Anderson (she/her) is a multi-talented producer, activist, singer, actor, writer, and director. Her production and direction credits include a film short, Dating Chronicles. Check out the new artists at her production company, The Gumbo Lab. She is a member of the Racial Justice Organizing Committee, Black Lives Matter at School, and the Melanated Educators Collective, and the curator of the BIPOC Database and Resource Guide. Coming to a theatre soon is her newest solo show with music, Black Bitch Cape – 2022 Tamara was Critics Choice Award Nominee for Best Supporting Actress and 2012 Best Supporting Actress- Zoren Award. She can be seen as Marian Stamps on The Blacklist on NBC, Deborah (Seasons 1 and 2) in the Netflix Original series, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt , on HBO in Show me a Hero, on Starz in Sweetbitter, and Showtime on Nurse Jackie! She has been featured in Nunsense, Matilda, Saturday Night Fever, Don’t Bother Me I can’t Cope, Ain’t Misbehavin, Winter’s Tale, Yellowman Violet, as well as numerous plays and musicals in various regional theaters across the country.
Tricia Patrick (VA)
Tricia Patrick is an arts administrator who believes in the arts as a catalyst for conversation and change. Her pursuit of a performance career took her across the country and beyond, eventually landing in Berlin, Germany. There, she discovered her love for theater for young audiences, developing her skills as an educator and workshop facilitator. With a desire to invest in her growing role as an arts administrator, she returned to academia. In 2019 she attained a Masters in Arts Administration and Entrepreneurship from the New School. She has worked as the Director of Community Engagement for Working Theater and the Director of Education and Public Engagement at MCC Theater in New York City. Tricia was a member of the inaugural 2020 BIPOC Leadership Circle and in the spring of 2022, she completed the Theater Producers of Color, Producing 101 certificate program. Her current role as Director of Education at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. means that she now gets to call the nation’s capital her home. She is the daughter of an incredible mother, and the mother of an incredible daughter.
Emeritus Committee Members
Adriana Guzmán (NY)
Adriana Guzmán (she/her) is a first-generation American and Queens NY native. This foundation of multiculturalism instilled a spirit of global citizenship at a very young age, which has carried through in her work as a Visual Artist and Educator. Adriana received her BFA in Graphic Design and Art Education from Pratt Institute, and an MFA in Intercultural Service, Leadership and Management from The School of International Training. Since, she has honed her artistic and training skills in a variety of roles locally and internationally. Additionally, Adriana is one of the Co- Developers of the GIVE Guide (Growing Inclusivity for Vibrant Engagement: a free resource for Teaching Artists working in Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT) classrooms, a partnership between Community-Word Project, ArtsConnection, and New Victory Theater). Now back in New York City, she is redefining her contributions, re-rooting and branching out – graduating from the Arts Activism Academy, practicing as a certified yoga instructor, facilitating Social Emotional Learning workshops, gathering art makers and pursuing children’s book writing and illustration primarily portraying children of color from around the world.
Annette Ramos (NY)
Annette Ramos (she/her) Originally from New York City by way of Los Angeles, Annette Ramos works with the Monroe County Parks Department to enhance Park offerings as a Rochester-based arts professional, community advocate and Cultural curator. Her work as a master storyteller has been presented across the USA, and in multiple school districts, conferences and festivals. Annette serves as cofounder, producer, director & playwright for dozens of Latinx productions in the role of Executive Director for the Rochester Latino Theatre Company founded in 2011. Annette continues to lead through her civic engagement serving on the nationals boards of the Association of Teaching Artists and the Latinx Theatre Commons Advisory Board. Locally, Annette continues to serve on the Greater Rochester Arts and Cultural Council and the Latino Leadership Committee, and she still finds time to advocate on issues impacting WOC, pay equity, youth empowerment and community-driven initiatives.
Ashley Zaragoza (NY)
Ashley Zaragoza (she/her) is a Latina actress, comedy writer, and teaching artist born and based in New York City. Ashley has been working in the arts education field for nearly 10 years. She believes in the power the arts have to create transformative change. Her creative work has deeply impacted her own life and she hopes to share that with others in search of a creative outlet. Ashley can be found regularly participating in shows with AfterWork Theater and/or working on her own original comedic material.
Bailey Clemmons (NC)
Bailey Clemmons is a passionate and motivated instructor who loves working with students and sharing her love of music. She teaches viola, violin, and piano to students of all ages.
From her middle school years, through her time as an undergraduate student at North Carolina Central University, Bailey has remained an active performer as well as a student of music. She is a credentialed Suzuki teacher & actively serves as a summer camp instructor with the Durham Arts Council. In addition to her many performances in a school setting, she has played for weddings, talent shows, and other events. She currently plays as 1st chair violist with the Meredith College Philharmonic Orchestra in Raleigh, NC.
Christina Farrell (IA)
Christina Farrell (she/her) is a teaching artist, performer and consultant who has returned to her Midwest roots after two decades of working in Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. She is the Founding Director of Opera Ignite, a nonprofit which has served as an educational collaborator with organizations including Toledo Opera, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Pittsburgh Festival Opera. As a Master Teaching Artist with Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts, she has led classroom residencies, professional development and teaching artist training across the U.S., as well as Singapore and India. Christina supported curriculum design and program structure for Pittsburgh BUZZWORD, an collaborative initiative of six arts and sciences organizations which provide interactive learning experiences for families with young children. In 2018, the Iowa Arts Council contracted Christina to conduct an environmental survey of teaching artistry throughout the state with the goal of providing recommendations for teaching artist training and sustainable practices for the field. She has been invited to serve on the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Education Advisory Committee, Opera America Teaching Artist Network Leadership Committee and the Gallagher-Bluedorn Education Advisory Council.
David K Freeman (NJ)
David K Freeman (he/him) is a musician/producer/teaching artist based in New York. He has traveled extensively to study music, including in the Dominican Republic and India. His work is infused with a passion for Jazz, Latin, and Folk music traditions. David is celebrating his latest album Overview Effect and remains an active member of the Outer Bridge Ensemble, The Biryani Boys, Sha’ar and collaborates on projects in the visual arts, dance, and film, including the composition and performance of original music for PBS’ The Mind of a Chef and The Love Guru motion picture soundtrack. David has worked with notable artists such as Mike Myers (SNL), Chris Hajian, Douglas Keeve, Alan Cumming, Annie Lanzillotto Jimmy Buffett, Billy Martin (MMW), James Zollar, Mark Gross, Gwen Laster, Daniel Carter, Fast Forward, Brent Green, Paul Rucker, Stephen Chopek, Nadine LaFond, Alicia Jo Rabins, Daniel Saks, Wyndham Boylan-Garnett, Lilah Larson, Lou Guarneri among many others.David is a current faculty member at Pace University’s Media Communications and Visual Arts Dept. where he teaches Jazz Music History, The Entertainment Industry, Writing for Print Media and Public Speaking. David is the Education Director for Brooklyn Raga Massive and serves as a board member for the Teaching Artist Guild.
Eric Booth (NY)
Eric Booth (he/him) As an actor, Eric Booth performed in many plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway and around the U.S. As a businessman, he started a small company, Alert Publishing, that in seven years became the largest of its kind in the U.S. analyzing research on trends in American lifestyles. As an author, he has had five books published. The Everyday Work of Art was a Book of the Month Club selection, and The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible, was published by Oxford University Press. He has written dozens of magazine articles, and was the Founding Editor of the quarterly Teaching Artist Journal. In arts learning, he has been on the faculty of Juilliard (13 years), and has taught at Stanford University, NYU, Tanglewood and Lincoln Center Institute (for 26 years), and he has given classes for every level from kindergarten through graduate school; he has given workshops at over 30 universities, and 60 cultural institutions. He has designed and led over twenty research projects, and seven online courses and workshops. He serves as a consultant for many organizations, cities and states and businesses around the U.S., which has included seven of the ten largest U.S. orchestras, five national service organizations, Carnegie Hall and The Kennedy Center. Formerly the Founding Director of the Teacher Center of the Leonard Bernstein Center (now on the Board of Directors), he is a frequent keynote speaker on the arts and teaching artistry to groups of all kinds. He is the Senior Advisor to the El Sistema movement in the U.S. He gave the closing keynote address to UNESCO’s first ever worldwide arts education conference (Lisbon 2006), the opening keynote to UNESCO’s 2014 World Conference. He led the First and Second International Teaching Artist Conferences (Oslo 2012, Brisbane 2014).
Guillermina Zabala (TX)
Born in Argentina, Guillermina Zabala is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and researcher whose art examines the intersection between the individual and their social-political-cultural environment. Her works have been exhibited in museums and art galleries in Los Angeles, New York, Texas, Miami, and San Francisco; and internationally in Germany, Latin America and Spain. Her photographs are part of the UTSA Art Collection and have been published in books and publications. Her films have been exhibited in numerous film festivals, including Telluride, Chicago Latino, New York, Beverly Hills, San Sebastián, Torino, Monterrey, and the Showtime Latino Showcase, among others. Recently, her feature documentary Juanito’s lab was selected to be the opening film at the 42nd CineFestival in San Antonio.
She graduated from Columbia College (Los Angeles) with a BA in Cinema, and from The New School (New York) with a MA in Media Studies.. She’s the first recipient of the Bishwanath and Sandhya Sinha Memorial Fellowship in Media Studies at The New School, where she has been addressing the topics of media, migration, and creativity under the supervision of professor Sumita Chakravarty. Additionally, she has been selected to be the Research Assistant in the Emerging Media Department working alongside professor Fabiola Hanna.
Because of her recurrent use of text on her artworks, she was invited to be a Guest Artist at the talk Language is a Virus at SA’s McNay Art Museum where Guillermina had a solo exhibit at the McNay in the Octagon Gallery with her video I, Me, Light.
She’s the Director of the Media Arts program at SAY Sí and the recipient of the Rick Liberto Visual Arts Award from the Luminaria Foundation, the UTSA’s 25Veinticinco Award, the SA Artist Foundation Award and the NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant. She was selected to be a mentor at the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Arts program in 2018 and 2019. She was a member of the 2018 Luminaria Artistic Advisory Committee, served as Curator for numerous film festivals, including the 9th LA Freewaves; and she is an alumna of the 2017 Community Arts Education Leadership Institute and the 2008 Creative Capital Artist Retreat.
Jean Johnstone (CA)
Jean Johnstone (she/they) holds a Masters in Public Affairs from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, and both her BA and a Post-Graduate degree in Theater Arts from University of California, Santa Cruz. She earned certificates for training from the Moscow Art Theater (acting/directing) and the Presencing Institute at MIT (social and organizational change). Jean specializes in Arts & Cultural Policy, and on education and workforce development issues, international comparative cultural policy and cultural economics. She is a researcher on the California 100 project, developing forward thinking policies for the State of CA for the next generation. She recently consulted with the Cultural Affairs Department for the City of Oakland, and assisted on graduate level policy courses at The Goldman School. Prior to this work, Jean spent 7 years as the Executive Director of Teaching Artists Guild, a national organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for artists working in participatory settings. She worked in partnership with County Offices of Education, the Dept. of Education, philanthropies, and statewide on national policy councils for arts, education and labor issues. Jean was a school board member and chair of the education committee at Francophone School of Oakland. Jean founded the Applied Theater Action Institute, which offered community arts and media programs internationally, and spent several years teaching drama and applied theater in Hong Kong, China. She directed productions in San Francisco serving people transitioning out of homelessness, was the theatrical director for a modern dance company, an artistic director of an award-winning political comedy theater, and a founding member of the Million Fishes Art Collective in San Francisco. She studied Russian, Spanish, and French. She lives in Oakland CA with her two kids and doggy.
Julio Montalvo Valentin (Canada/NY)
Julio Montalvo Valentin makes time to serve an ever-changing community through trauma-informed, re/generative workshops. Julio is a member of the Latino/a/x arts collective called Los Artistas del Barrio Buffalo (LAdB), the Spark Filmmakers Collective Board, and the planning committee for the Lit Youngstown 2022 Literary Festival. After completing the TimeSlips: WNY Tele-Stories Project, Julio is also returning as the Lead Poetry Teaching Artist for the Buffalo Public Schools “Woke Words” program. Aside from the inaugural Teaching Artist Mentorship Program with the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, you can always find Julio ready for the next writing opportunity through his next project, ProcessPoetry.com
Maura O’Malley (NY)
Maura O’Malley (she/her) is the Co-founder and CEO of Lifetime Arts. Maura is an arts specialist with over 30 years experience in program design and implementation, arts education policy and funding, non-profit arts management and community cultural work. She has worked with the New York State Council on the Arts, Westchester Arts Council, New York City Department of Education, and Studio in a School Association, Young Audiences of New York and many other premiere arts, educational and community organizations. Maura graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and earned a Master of Public Administration in arts policy and planning from New York University.
Melissa Parke (NY)
Melissa Parke (she/her) is an Afro-conceptualist artist and is the founder of Black Teaching Artist Lab (BTAL), Pan-African Cultural Exchange (PACE), and Zora’s Legacy’s. Melissa also created and trademarked the Afrocentric Social-Emotional Learning framework. Melissa recently joined the Teaching Artist Project (TAP) spring cohort, a division of the Community Word Project in order to better understand the teacher training process and to become a stronger facilitator herself.
Nicole Ripley (CA)
Nicole Ripley (she/her) is the Director of Education at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL where she overseas community partnerships, on-site programs, in-classroom residencies, and touring productions that reach 10,000 Chicago students each year. She has worked extensively as a teaching artist with communities and youth in the U.S. and in Asia. Her teaching artist work has included collaborations with Steppenwolf Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Redmoon and Gabfai Community Theatre in Thailand, among others. Her focus is on applied theatre and using theatre for dialogue to address issues of social justice in classrooms and community-based settings. Ripley is a member of the steering committee to address the national state of the field of teaching artistry in collaboration with Eric Booth, Teaching Artist Guild, ATA, New Victory Theater and FreeArts NYC. She is co-creator of Ag47, an arts mentorship non-profit collective and co-creator and facilitator of Teens at the Table, a participatory program using arts as civic practice to address youth violence in Chicago. An alumna of Northwestern University, Ripley has presented at national conferences, was a 2006 Luce Scholars Fellow in Thailand, Fulbright recipient, the 2013 Communities In Schools of Chicago Al Ward Spirit of Giving awardee, and a 2013 nominee for a 3Arts award in teaching arts.
Summayya Diop (WA)
Summayya Diop (she/her) is a teaching artist, dancer, choreographer, actor, and administrator specializing in Folkloric performance dance culture, of the African Diaspora, and whose artistic goals and aspirations are rooted in the love of dance theatre. Sumayya has created and presented works in both traditional and contemporary African dance styles. Sumayya is currently Teaching Artist Coordinator with Arts Corps, as well as partnering with The Creative Advantage, and Youth Arts through the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture. She is a co-founder of Griot Girlz, which works closely with Seattle Public Schools students in developing creative capacities and academic mindsets through arts integrated instruction. Other responsibilities include performances, community building and special projects. Sumayya has contributed to the field of dance, music and theatre through performance, instruction, and program development. Sumayya is passionate about sharing dance, song and music of the African Diaspora and bringing youth, young adults, and adults to the stage using performance as a vehicle for increased self-confidence, esteem awareness, a rooted sense of belonging, and the preservation of cultural legacy. Sumayya attended Cornish College of the Arts, majoring in dance, and was most recently selected to participate in a 7-week International Conference and Professional Development workshop in Choreography of Traditional and Contemporary African Dance in Senegal, West Africa.
Tina LaPadula (WA)
Tina LaPadula is a Seattle based creative with a background in theatre. Her work focuses on the intersection of art and social justice as exemplified through Arts Corps, the award-winning nonprofit she helped found, and The Creative Advantage a city-wide effort for arts education equity that she currently oversees as the Arts Education Project Manager at Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Tina has taught performance and devised storytelling at Centrum Arts, Seattle Children’s Theatre, and The University of Washington, and she has combined forces with The Frye Museum, The Museum of History and Industry, Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival, and NW Folklife to curate exhibitions and events that elevate the art and perspectives of young people. Tina serves as faculty member for the WA State Teaching Artist Training Lab and a national advisor for the Teaching Artist Guild. Her writing and experience has been featured by the Teaching Artistry and DoubleXposure podcasts, The Guild for Community Arts Education and American’s for the Arts.
Thomas Cabaniss (NY)
Thomas Cabaniss (he/him) was born in Charleston, SC in 1962. He writes for opera, theater, dance, film, and the concert stage. He lives in New York City, where he teaches at The Juilliard School and leads arts education projects through the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. He was Director of Education for the New York Philharmonic for Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel and served as Music Animateur for the Philadelphia Orchestra and Christoph Eschenbach. He is a member of ASCAP and an Associate Artist with Target Margin Theater, David Herskovits, Artistic Director.
Victor Sawyer (TN)
Victor Sawyer is a freelance trombonist and bandleader of the Lucky 7 Brass Band based in Memphis, TN. As a performer he has recorded at legendary studios such as Sun, Royal, and Ardent. Sawyer has also performed with Memphis legends such as 8Ball and MJG, Valerie June, Steve Cropper, and many more
As a Teaching Artist, Sawyer serves as a Fellowship Coach for the Memphis Music Initiative, supporting a team of 10-12 professional music Teaching Artists who support and enhance music programming in Memphis area middle and high schools.
Victor Sawyer attended the Manhattan School of Music for a Masters Degree in Jazz Performance.
William Estrada (IL)
William Estrada (he/him) grew up in California, Mexico, and Chicago. His teaching and art making practice focus on addressing inequity, migration, historical passivity and cultural recognition in historically marginalized communities. He documents and engages experiences in public spaces to transform, question, and make connections to established and organic systems through discussion, creation, and amplification of stories through creativity already present. He is currently a visual art teacher at Telpochcalli Elementary and faculty at the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has worked as an educator and artist with Chicago Arts Partnership in Education, Hyde Park Art Center, SkyArt, Marwen Foundation, Urban Gateways, DePaul University’s College Connect Program, Graffiti Institute, Vermont College of Art and Design, Prison + Neighborhood Art Project, and the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. William’s art and teaching is a collaborative discourse of existing images, text, and politics that appoints the audience to critically re-examine public and private spaces. As a teacher, artist, and cultural worker he reports, records, reveals, and amplifies experiences you find in academic books, school halls, teacher lounges, kitchen tables, barrios, college campuses, and in the conversations of close friends to engage in radical imagination. William is currently engaging in collaborative work with the Mobilize Creative Collaborative, Chicago ACT Collective, and Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative. His current research is focused on developing community based and culturally relevant projects that center power structures of race, economy, and cultural access in contested spaces to collectively imagine just futures.
Committee Alumni
Ami Molinelli (CA)
Ami Molinelli (she/her) is a professional percussionist and educator who received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in World Music with an emphasis in percussion and performance. Currently, Ami works as a music integration specialist at Music In Schools Today and has created an early education music and literacy program, Music FIRST!, in collaboration with Head Start sites in San Mateo County. With MUST, she also worked with San Francisco Unified and their SLANT (science, arts and learning integration) department to create music and science curriculum. In addition, she also works as a curriculum specialist for the San Francisco Jazz Festival and Living Jazz. She has been a teaching artist for over 15 years and has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic both as a teaching-artist of percussion and in curriculum development. She collaborated in publishing percussion curriculum for a “Jazz and the Orchestra” series in 2010 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and was part of their team that received and “award of excellence” in orchestra education from the Bank of America Foundation. She has worked as an “artist-in-residence” for the Los Angeles Music Center, SOTA/School of the Arts High School in San Francisco, San Francisco’s El Sistema Music Program, and Healdsburg School district to name a few. She still regularly gives percussion and music workshops with Living Jazz at Jazz Camp West and at the Berkeley Jazz School and performs with her Brazilian ragtime ensemble, Falso Baiano.
Amy Rasmussen (IL)
Amy Rasmussen (she/her) has served as Executive Director of Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education since 2007. CAPE inspires students to be passionate about their educations by weaving visual and performing arts into their classroom lessons. To bring their academic subjects to life through art, we partner teaching artists with Chicago Public School teachers to develop original, creative approaches to teaching and learning. This instruction integrates music, dance, drama, digital art, video and photography into classrooms; and, also expands learning beyond school walls into community sites like art studios, performance halls and exhibit spaces. CAPE’s unique approach to art-based education better engages students, improves their understanding of class material, and boosts their grades. CAPE commissions long-term research to show that integrating art into education continually improves students’ critical thinking, self-esteem and confidence. In July 2011, Amy was named a White House Champion of Change for Arts Education by President Barack Obama for her work. Amy is committed to improving the policy environment for arts education. She was on the writing team for the development of the Chicago Public Schools Arts Education Plan and continues to serve on the Ingenuity Incorporated Advisory Panel as well as the Marian Catholic High School Metro Chicago Alumni Association. Amy holds an M. A. in Arts Entertainment and Media Management from Columbia College and a B. A. in Music from DePaul University.
Ebonique Boyd (OK)
Glenna Avila (CA)
Glenna Avila (she/her) is an artist, educator, and arts administrator, dedicated to the arts, young people, and communities. She is currently the Artistic Director and the Wallis Annenberg Director of the California Institute of the Arts Community Arts Partnership (CAP) program and has served in this position since 1991. The CAP program is a co-curricular program of the college and encompasses 55 distinct youth arts education programs located in 60 diverse neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles County in partnership with 45 public schools, community-based organizations and social service agencies; employing 60 CalArts faculty artists, 50 CalArts alumni artists, and 300 CalArts student artists as instructors; and creating innovative, in-depth arts education programs for 10,000 youth ages 6-18 annually. In 2004, the CAP program received the Coming Up Taller Award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the highest national honor for exemplary youth arts education programs. Before coming to CalArts, she held a variety of positions with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, including Director of the Los Angeles Murals Program, Director of the McGroarty Art Center, and Director of the Los Angeles Photography Center. For thirteen years she was a Supervisor in the Summer Youth Employment Program through the U.S. Department of Labor, teaching and providing hundreds of jobs in the arts for low-income youth ages 14-21. She has painted over 75 community murals throughout Los Angeles, the majority of which are collaborations with youth and their communities. As an arts educator, she has taught the visual arts to K-12 students throughout Los Angeles County. She has worked as a teaching artist in public schools, in after-school mental health programs, and with incarcerated youth in juvenile detention centers and probation camps. Glenna Avila has exhibited her work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Armand Hammer Museum, Laguna Art Museum, among others. She was one of 10 artists commissioned by the Olympic Organizing Committee to paint a mural on the freeway in downtown Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival—entitled “L.A. Freeway Kids,” a tribute to the youth of her native Los Angeles.
Jamie Mayer (NJ)
Jamie Mayer (she/her) is an arts education administrator most recently serving as Director of Curriculum and Professional Development at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark, NJ. In her role at NJPAC Jamie oversaw teaching artist training and recruitment, professional development programming for teachers and school administrators, and the development and implementation of curriculum in all arts education programs. In addition to her work at NJPAC, Jamie has taught, performed, and directed with various organizations and schools throughout New York City and San Diego. She is a firm believer that giving youth access to a quality arts education plays a significant role in developing their limitless potential to be the leaders and innovators of tomorrow.
Jessica Mele (CA)
Jessica Mele (she/her) is a Program Officer in the Performing Arts Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In this role, she manages a diverse portfolio of grants, with a particular focus on arts education advocacy and policy. Prior to joining the Hewlett Foundation, Jessica was executive director at Performing Arts Workshop, an arts education organization in San Francisco. During that time, she was also an active arts education advocate, serving on the executive committee of the Arts Provider’s Alliance of San Francisco, the steering committee of the Alameda Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, and the national advisory council of Teaching Artist’s Guild. In addition, Jessica advocated with community-based organizations outside of the arts sector as part of the steering committee of the Family Budget Coalition in San Francisco, which was active in drafting legislation and re-authorizing the city’s Children’s Fund and Public Education Enrichment Fund in 2014. From 2002-2005, Jessica managed the research projects of Marshall Ganz at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and served as an organizer for the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (AFSCME, AFL-CIO). Jessica holds a B.A. in Anthropology and French Studies from Smith College, and an Ed. M. in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In her spare time, Jessica writes, directs and produces sketch comedy as part of Chardonnay, one of two in-house sketch groups at San Francisco’s Pianofight Theater Company.
Jon Hinojosa (TX)
Jon Hinojosa (he/him) serves as the Artistic | Executive Director of SAY Sí, a national award winning, creative youth development program for urban students. The tuition-free program encompasses 6 distinct multidisciplinary arts programs, including visual, performing, film, and game design. SAY Sí is situated in a 26,000 square foot warehouse in San Antonio’s Cultural Arts District. Jon is also a producing and exhibiting visual artist and is active in professional – local, regional and national arts education initiatives, including currently serving as a national trustee for the National Guild for Community Arts Education. The Wallace Foundation recently highlighted SAY Sí as an exemplary national arts learning model that needs to be replicated across the country. Jon has presented and facilitated learning at numerous conferences and symposia on the value, tangible evidence, and the transformative power the arts have on urban youth, these include Grant Makers for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, and The National Guild for Community Arts Education. Jon is also an Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders – Arts Fellow, A joint program of National Arts Strategies and the Stanford Graduate School of Business and was recently presented with a national award for his work in arts education by the Americans for the Arts. He hopes his legacy will be inspiring and educating the next generation of our nation’s creative leaders.
Lara Davis (GA)
Lara Davis (she/her) has been active in youth development and community arts education for more than a decade. She has served as a Seattle arts commissioner and as program director for Arts Corps, an award winning Seattle-based youth arts organization. As arts education manager for the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Lara manages the Creative Advantage, a public/private partnership to ensure equitable access to high quality arts learning for all Seattle students. Lara also facilitates equity and racial justice trainings for teaching artists, educators and organizations, and presents locally and at national conferences. As a person of color, Lara understands the value of cross-cultural, multi-sector efforts to dismantle racism and other oppressions, and to promote justice. As an artist and arts administrator, she knows firsthand the power of creativity necessary to build access, foster engagement, transform communities, and inspire systemic change.
Louise Music (CA)
Louise Music (she/her) is the Executive Director of the Department of Integrated Learning at the Alameda County Office of Education. A visionary leader and bold advocate for equity in education, Music has developed innovative models for supporting professional practice and tapping creative capacities of educators for deepening and continuously improving teaching and learning. As Director for the Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, Music is charged with implementing its strategic plan: “Mapping the Next 10 Years” for the 18 school districts in Alameda County. Recent publications include “Arts Learning as Equitable and Meaningful Education,” in Artful Teaching (Teacher’s College Press, June 2010), and the Foreward to the second edition of Studio Thinking2 (Teacher’s College Press, September 2012).
Lynn Johnson (NM)
Lynn Johnson (she/her), is a social entrepreneur, theater teaching artist, girl advocate, and the Co-Founder & CEO of Glitter & Razz Productions LLC based in Oakland, CA. The mission of Glitter & Razz is to ignite a compassion revolution by putting girls center stage. They do this through their highly popular Go Girls! Camp, a summer camp for elementary school age girls to learn and practice essential social/emotional skills through the creation and performance of their very own plays Go Girls! has received international recognition from Ashoka Changemakers as a quality social innovation to activate empathy in schools and has been featured as a model program in social/emotional learning by the George Lucas Educational Foundation on the Edutopia.org website. For over 20 years, Lynn has designed, directed, and taught hundreds of community-based arts learning programs for folks of all ages in Chicago, North Carolina and the Bay Area. Lynn regularly works as a facilitator, speaker, workshop leader, and organizational development consultant. As the founding Membership Director of TAG, Lynn has served as a judge for the Teaching Artist Award sponsored by 3Arts Chicago (2014) and has been involved with TAG (and its preceding incarnations) in multiple capacities since the beginning.
Nas Khan (Canada)
Nas Khan (she/her) is a media artist, musician,
arts educator, and an arts administrator at the Ontario Arts Council.
In this role, she manages arts education granting programs that connect
arts communities and learners of all age, partnerships with school
boards connecting artists to teachers and students, and partnerships
with arts organizations to develop artists’ pedagogical skills across
the province of Ontario. She has worked both in and outside of the
education system as an arts educator. She has also worked for arts
organizations like the Art Gallery of Ontario, Inside Out Toronto
Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, and Images Festival. Nas is
committed to equity and access in arts education recognizing its vital
importance to building a healthy arts ecology. Born and raised in
Toronto, Nas is a second generation immigrant and of mixed parentage
(Indian and Welsh).
Nick Rabkin (IL)
Nick Rabkin (he/him) Nick Rabkin is the managing partner of reMaking Culture, a research and consulting firm for the cultural sector and philanthropy that is focused on revitalizing the arts and culture and reimagining the roles they play in building communities, making our democracy more robust, our lives richer, and leveraging learning. He has studied and advocated for the arts’ and artists’ roles in making our communities, schools, and our democracy stronger for three decades. He has been the executive director of a nonprofit theater, Chicago’s deputy commissioner of Cultural Affairs, the senior program officer for the arts and culture at the MacArthur Foundation, and directed the Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College. He was a senior research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago, where he did a major study of teaching artists who work in communities and schools across the country. As deputy commissioner, he was part of the team that developed Chicago’s first cultural plan, and he was a consultant on its second in 2012. reMaking Culture is working now on a cultural plan for the Village of Oak Park, research research on the public benefits of the arts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a community music project in Chicago’s infamous Back of the Yards neighborhood, and evaluations for two Chicago theater companies. Nick is the author of Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing education in the 21st Century (2005); an NEA monograph, Arts Participation and Arts Education in America: What Declines Mean for Participation (2011); and Teaching Artists and the Future of Education: The Teaching Artist Research Project (2011). He writes about the arts on occasion about the arts for Huffington Post.
Sandy Seufert (CA)
Sandy Seufert (she/her) has over ten years of experience in teaching artist training, curriculum development, program management, teaching artistry, and professional development. She currently works as a consultant for non-profits and individuals for teaching artist training and curriculum development. Most recently she served as the Implementation Director for Turnaround Arts: California which is part of a national program from the President’s Committee of the Arts and the Humanities. Sandy’s other work in arts education has been with The Armory Center for the Arts, The Music Center Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Opera, and The Da Camera Society. Just prior to her work in arts administration, she worked as a teaching artist in a middle school with young cellists and violinists, where she got to see just how fun teaching the arts could be. Sandy also worked in special education with Los Angeles Unified School District for over ten years, which ended up being a formative experience for her work as both a teaching artist and an arts administrator. Sandy also currently doubles as a professional cellist and folk fiddler, specializing in classical, jazz, and Scandinavian folk music, holding the value that it is important to keep her artistic practice alive. Lastly, Sandy serves the field by serving on the Regional Advisory Council for the Teaching Artist Support Collaborative of California, the Board for the Association of Teaching Artists, the National Advisory Committee for the Teaching Artist Guild, and the Board of the Culver City Symphony Orchestra.
Yael Silk (PA)
Yael Silk, Ed.M. (she/her) is an arts and education specialist providing consulting services to school districts, cultural organizations, and foundations. She recently evaluated the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ Turnaround Arts Initiative. Additional project work includes evaluating the STEAM grants in Allegheny County funded by the Benedum and Grable Foundations and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts’ indepth teaching artist residency programs. Past clients include Americans for the Arts, the RAND Corporation, Gateway to the Arts, The Pittsburgh Promise, Marin Community Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission (Arts for All), Pasadena Unified School District, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Ms.Silk is a Barnard College graduate with a degree in music composition. She earned a master’s degree in arts education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
In Memoriam
Betsy Mullins
Betsy Mullins (she/her) was the Artist Services Director for Arts for Learning/Miami. Ms. Mullins studied for a Master’s degree in art history at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Before joining Arts for Learning, she taught at ArtCenter/South Florida and at several high schools in Japan. Ms. Mullins had an extensive background working with visual and performing artists from all over the world through her work with the JET Program, and volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity and Go M.A.D. She worked in the capacity of After-School Program Manager with Arts for Learning for more than two years, effectively running after-school and summer camp programs at more than 25 sites before becoming the Out-of-School Director and then launching Arts for Learning’s Artist Services Department. Through this department, she brought best Teaching Artist practices to Miami by presenting workshops led by local and national experts (including individuals from The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center, and the Guggenheim Museum) and by developing and facilitating more than 60 artist professional development modules with topics ranging from student assessment and classroom management to costume design. She guest lectured at Florida International University’s Community Arts Class, presented workshops for HistoryMiami, and regularly spoke to college students about careers in the arts. In 2008, she worked with the University of Miami and the Greater Miami Youth Symphony to start the Frost MusicReach Program. Through this program, Ms. Mullins coached UM music students on how to be an effective mentor while providing quality music instruction. She passed in 2018, and her warmth and intelligence are sorely missed.