Power Play Summit

MELANIE A. ADAMS

MELANIE A. ADAMS, PhD, currently serves as the Director of the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. In this role she provides leadership and vision for this groundbreaking museum as it builds upon its strong foundation of community focused programs and exhibits. 
Before joining the Smithsonian, Melanie served as the Deputy Director for Learning Initiatives at the Minnesota Historical Society overseeing the state’s 26 historic sites.  Prior to Minnesota, Melanie spent twelve years at the Missouri Historical Society as the Managing Director for Community Education and Events.  She is an active member of the museum community serving on the board of the American Association for State and Local History and former president of the Association of Midwest Museum 

EVELYN ASWAD

Evelyn Aswad is the Herman G. Kaiser Chair in International Law and the Director of the Center for International Business & Human Rights at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Prior to becoming a law school professor, she served for about 14 years as an attorney in the Legal Bureau at the U.S. Department of State, most recently as the director of the Office of Human Rights & Refugees. At the State Department, she advised on a variety of matters including Internet freedom, issues at the intersection of business and human rights, and multilateral diplomacy at the United Nations, Organization of American States, and Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. Before joining the State Department, she worked as an attorney at Arnold & Porter and served as a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. She has spoken about her research at Stanford University, the United Nations in Geneva, and at the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) in London. She is currently focused on researching the application of international human rights frameworks to social media policies and business models, particularly with regard to freedom of expression issues.

BOB BANGHART

BOB BANGHART has been performing throughout Alaska, Canada and the Pacific Northwest since the mid-70s. He co-founded the Alaska Folk Festival and Juneau Jazz and Classics, which are annual weeklong festivals in their 43rd and 30th years, respectively. He began composition work with the 1991 Perseverance Theatre production The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, directed by Molly Smith, and has since scored over a dozen theater productions, an opera and numerous independent TV shows and films. Recent works include: The Little Prince directed by Katie Jensen, Metamorphoses directed by Dave Hunsaker and the opera Hansel and Gretel directed by Henning Hegland. Bob lives in Juneau, Alaska with his wife, Laura Lucas, and dog, Jasmine. Bob wrote the music for Arena's 2018 production of Snow Child with fellow commissioned artist Georgia Stitt. 

AERICA SHIMIZU BANKS

AERICA SHIMIZU BANKS leads federal public policy at Pinterest, where she is a Public Policy & Social Impact Manager. Previously, she worked on patent strategy at Google and integrated diversity and equity initiatives into its legal department. She was named a 2017 Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine and joined the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurs. She is a cofounder of BEACON: The DC Women Founders Initiative. She has also served as a political appointee in the Obama Administration, worked in government relations for The Pew Charitable Trusts, and advanced environmental justice policies in Washington state. She holds a MSc in Environmental Policy from Oxford University, where she was a Weidenfeld Scholar, and a BA in Environmental Studies and Public Affairs from Seattle University. 

KRIS BROWN

KRIS BROWN as president of Brady,combines a lifelong background in policy, law and grassroots activism with considerable strategic management expertise to help forge the direction of the organization’s programs and ensure the successful impact of its national and field assets. A veteran of gun violence prevention work, Ms. Brown started her career on Capitol Hill working for Rep. Jim Moran, advocating for the bill that would eventually become the groundbreaking Brady Act requiring background checks on federally licensed gun sales. At Brady she has helped shape the conversation on gun violence as a national healthcare crisis, launched the organization’s groundbreaking safe storage campaign to End Family Fire and formed Brady’s “Team Enough” youth initiative after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, FL. A noted speaker and media commentator, Ms. Brown was featured in the November 2018 TIME Magazine cover article, “Guns in America,” in which she noted that Brady is working to move the discussion of gun violence beyond the polarizing politics in American life. “There’s a huge amount of common ground on this issue in this country and I hope we’re finally at a tipping point where we can move forward with legislation and [programs] that actually protect people and are entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.” Ms. Brown has also served as the chief legal officer to a publicly-traded company based in Switzerland and as a lawyer practicing at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her two teenage daughters. 

CAMILLE BUSETTE

CAMILLE BUSETTE is director of the Brookings Institution Race, Prosperity and Inclusion Initiative. Prior to Brookings, Camille has held executive positions at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, EARN, PayPal and Intuit. Camille holds a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.

SORAYA CHEMALY

SOROYA CHEMALY is an award-winning writer and media critic whose writing appears regularly in media including The Atlantic, Verge, TIME, Salon and The Guardian. She writes about and speaks frequently on topics related to inclusivity, free speech, sexualized violence, data and technology. She is also co-founder and director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project, dedicated to expanding women’s civic and political participation. She also currently serves on the national boards of the Women's Media Center and Women, Action and the Media, as well as on the advisory councils of the Center for Democracy and Technology, VIDA and Common Sense Media, and DC Volunteer Lawyers Project. As an activist, Ms. Chemaly has spear-headed multiple successful campaigns challenging corporations to address online harassment and abuse, restrictive content moderation and algorithmic bias. Her recent book, Rage Becomes Her: Women and Anger, was named a best book of 2018 by Fast Company, Psychology Today, Book Riot, Autostraddle and The Washington Post.

JOCELYN CLARKE

JOCELYN CLARKE is currently Theatre Adviser to the Arts Council of Ireland and Dramaturg at American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He has taught dramaturgy at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Columbia University and Trinity College Dublin. He was the Commissioning and Literary Manager of the Abbey Theatre for four years, and lead theater critic with The Sunday Tribune for nine years. He is an associate artist with The Civilians and Theatre Mitu in New York. He has written six plays for Anne Bogart and the SITI Company — Bob, Alice’s Adventures Underground, Room, Score, Antigone, Trojan Women (After Euripides), and Chess Game No. 5.  As a dramaturg, he has worked with writers such as Katori Hall, Lydia Diamond, Ayad Akhtar, Lynn Nottage, Taylor Mac, Lisa Kron, Kenneth Lin, Sarah Gancher, Amahl Khouri, Carl Hancock Rux, Aaron Posner, Abhishek Majumdar, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Craig Lucas, Rachel Chavkin, Qui Nguyen, Craig Lucas, Jacqueline Lawton, Samuel D. Hunter, Tanya Saracho, Karen Zacarias, and Marcus Gardley.   He has just finished  working on The Young Offenders television series for the BBC, and with Katori Hall on P-Valley, her new TV series for Starz. 

KIA CORTHRON

KIA CORTHRON was the 2017 resident playwright at Chicago’s Eclipse Theatre, which produced three of her plays. In the summer of 2018, she co-produced and contributed to Imagine: Yemen, an evening of short plays addressing the crisis in Yemen. Awards for her body of work include: the Windham Campbell Prize for Drama, the USArtists Jane Addams Fellowship, the Simon Great Plains Playwright Award, the McKnight National Residency, the Otto Award for Political Theatre and the League of Professional Theatre Women’s Lee Reynolds Award. Her plays have been produced in New York by Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Brooklyn Academy of Music; regionally by ATL Humana, Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, NY Stage and Film, Baltimore's Center Stage, Yale Rep and Hartford Stage; and in London by the Royal Court Theatre and Donmar Warehouse. TV credits include: “The Jury” and “The Wire”. Her debut novel The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter was the winner of the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She serves on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, is a New Dramatists alumnus and is a member of the Authors Guild.

NATHAN ALAN DAVIS

NATHAN ALAN DAVIS’s play Nat Turner in Jerusalem received its world premiere at NYTW in the fall of 2016 and was a New York Magazine Critic’s Pick. In 2015, his play Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea received a Steinberg/ATCA New Play Citation and was produced in five cities in a NNPN Rolling World Premiere. His play The Wind and the Breeze received the 2016 Blue Ink Playwriting Award and was selected for Cygnet Theatre’s inaugural Finish Line Commission. Nathan is a theater lecturer at Princeton University, a Usual Suspect at NYTW and a 2016 graduate of Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. He received his M.F.A. from Indiana University and his B.F.A. from the University of Illinois.

IDRIS GOODWIN

IDRIS GOODWIN is a playwright, director, break beat poet and educator. He is the producing artistic director of Stage One Family Theater in Louisville, KY for which he penned the award-winning and widely produced And In This Corner: Cassius Clay. Other plays include: How We Got On, This Is Modern Art co-written with Kevin Coval, Bars and Measures and Hype Man: a break beat play. Idris's play The Way The Mountain Moved was commissioned and produced as part of Oregon Shakespeare’s groundbreaking American Revolutions series. His work has been produced Off-Broadway, as well as at The Humana Festival at Actor’s Theater of Louisville, Steppenwolf Theater, The Kennedy Center, The Denver Center for The Performing Arts, Cleveland Playhouse and Company One. Idris is a highly sought-after writer for young audiences, produced and commissioned by children's theaters across the country. He has received awards and development support from the NEA; The Ford, Mellon and Edgerton Foundations; Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor Program; The Eugene O’Neill Center; The Lark Playwriting Center; and New Harmony Project. Idris is the 2018-2019 recipient of the Playwright Center's McKnight Fellowship. These Are The Breaks (Write Bloody, 2011), his debut collection of essays and poetry, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Inauguration, a chapbook co-written with Nico Wilkinson (Haymarket Books), won the 2017 Literary Arts Award from The Pikes Peak Arts Council. He's performed his poetry on HBO, The Discovery Channel, “Sesame Street” and National Public Radio. Idris is a member of The Dramatists Guild and serves on the boards of TYA/USA and The Children’s Theatre Foundation of America.

REV. CANON LEONARD L. HAMLIN, SR.

REV. CANON LEONARD L. HAMLIN, SR. began his tenure at the Washington National Cathedral in April 2018. In his role as Canon Missioner, Dr. Hamlin oversees the Cathedral’s outreach and social justice initiatives, including gun violence prevention and racial justice and reconciliation. In particular, Dr. Hamlin assists in the building of partnerships and the equipping of the Cathedral community and the congregation to serve as the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

Prior to his arrival at the Cathedral, Dr. Hamlin served as the Pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Arlington, Va. for 22 years. Under his leadership, the congregation was strengthened numerically and spiritually while numerous ministries, discipleship classes and mission efforts were organized to meet the needs of the congregation and the community locally, regionally and nationally. Dr. Hamlin received his Bachelor of Business Administration Degree (1983) from the Howard University School of Business, Master of Divinity Degree (1994), and a Doctor of Ministry Degree from the Howard University School of Divinity (1996). He has served and been appointed to numerous community, faith based and governmental boards, commissions, agencies.

Dr. Hamlin is married to Machell Nicholson Hamlin, Esquire, assistant vice president of staff counsel for the GEICO Corporation, and they are the proud parents of one son, Leonard L. Hamlin, Jr.

DERRICK HARKINS

REVERAND DERRICK HARKINS currently serves as director of interfaith outreach for The Democratic National Committee. Previously, he served as senior vice president for innovation in public programs at Union Theological Seminary. For 17 years, Harkins served as senior pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington D.C., as well as director of faith outreach for Enroll America. In addition, he was an informal advisor to the Obama Administration. He has been a guest lecturer on the church and social action at several colleges and universities, including Cornell, Rutgers, The Jewish Theological Seminary and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and NPR. An active voice in the debate for immigration reform, he has worked closely with the Immigration Policy Center and Esperanza for America. He has preached and been extensively engaged in relief and development work in Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Jamaica. Harkins has served as a member of the board of directors for World Relief, Faith in Public Life and Sojourners and is the chair of the board for Odyssey Impact.

MONICA HOPKINS

MONICA HOPKINS is the executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia (ACLU-DC). She took the helm of the D.C. affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union in 2014. Prior to joining the ACLU-DC, Monica served as the executive director of the ACLU of Idaho from 2008–2014 during which time she oversaw sweeping statewide victories, particularly in the areas of criminal justice reform, LGBTQIA equality, immigrants’ rights and upholding the First Amendment. She also had held several executive and development positions in the nonprofit sector. Under Monica’s leadership, the ACLU-DC has grown its capacity and reach allowing the organization to become a resource for all District residents. As executive director, Monica oversees substantive programmatic and advocacy efforts to defend and advance the ACLU-DC’s work on civil rights and civil liberties for the over 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia. As the organization’s principal spokesperson, she helps increase public awareness of the ACLU-DC’s work. Monica has been quoted by national radio, television and print media outlets, including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Al-Jazeera, Politico and NPR. Monica is a graduate of Boise State University. She is also a 2012–2013 Rockwood Institute LGBT Advocacy Fellow and currently serves on the board of the National Reentry Network for Returning Citizens.

PHILIPPA HUGHES

PHILIPPA P.B. HUGHES produces human-centered and collaborative art-fueled projects to spark humanizing conversations between people who might not normally meet. Art —> awe and wonder —> curiosity —> empathy. She has designed and produced hundreds of creative activations since 2007 for curious folks to engage with art and with one another in unconventional and meaningful ways. She leads CuriosityConnects.us, a partner in Looking For America a national series inviting politically diverse guests to break bread and talk to each other face-to-face using art as the starting point for conversation.

DAVID INOUE

David Inoue has served as Executive Director for the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) since July 2017. He came to JACL with a background in health care policy and administration, previously overseeing daily operations and finances for Christ House, a medical shelter for homeless persons in the District of Columbia. He previously focused on health care policy in roles at the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In all the work David has been involved, he has sought to bring his passion for social justice to align with the organizations’ mission. He has also served the District of Columbia as an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner representing 2,000 DC residents. He is a long time resident of the District of Columbia with his wife and two children.

KIRK JOHNSON

DR. KIRK JOHNSON is the sant director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where he oversees the world’s largest natural history collection. The museum hosts more than six million visitors each year. In 2018, its scientists published 586 scientific research papers and named 310 new species. In 2019, the museum opened The David H. Koch Hall of Fossils-Deep Time, an exhibition that interprets the history of life on Earth and its relevance to the future of humanity. Before his arrival at the Smithsonian in 2012, Johnson was a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science where he led expeditions in 18 states and 11 countries. His research focuses on fossil plants and the extinction of the dinosaurs. In 2011, he led an ice age excavation near Snowmass Village in Colorado that recovered parts of more than 50 mastodon skeletons. He is known for his scientific articles, popular books, museum exhibitions, documentaries and collaborations with artists. His recent documentaries include: “Making North America” and “The Great Yellowstone Thaw”, both of which aired on PBS channels. He is presently working on Polar Extremes, a documentary about the ancient climate of the Arctic and Antarctic. His latest book, Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline, The Travels of an Artist and a Scientist along the Shores of the Prehistoric Pacific, explores the deep history of the West Coast from California to Alaska. Johnson is originally from Bellevue, Washington, has a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in geology and paleobotany from Yale University.

JACQUELINE E. LAWTON

JAQUELINE E. LAWTON’s plays include Intelligence; Among These Wild Things; Anna K; Behold, A Negress; Blackbirds; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful; The Devil’s Sweet Water; Edges of Time; The Hampton Years; The Inferior Sex; Love Brothers Serenade; Mad Breed; and Noms de Guerre. She has received commissions from Adventure Theatre-MTC, Discovery Theater, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American History, Round House and Theater J. Her play Cinder Blocks was published in Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia and the Austin Project (University of Texas Press). A 2012 TCG Young Leader of Color, she is an alumna of the National New Play Network (NNPN), Arena Stage’s Playwrights’ Arena and Center Stage’s Playwrights Collective. She is the Dramatists Guild of America’s Regional Representative of North Carolina; an assistant professor in the department of Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and a production dramaturg at PlayMakers Repertory Company. She received her M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow.

KENNETH LIN

KENNETH LIN's plays Warrior Class (TCG Edgerton New Play Prize); Fallow (Barrymore Nomination for Outstanding New Play, Brown Martin Philadelphia Award); Intelligence-Slave and Po Boy Tango (TCG Edgerton New Play Prize); said Saïd (L. Arnold Weissberger Award, Princess Grace Award); Life On Paper, Agency* and Genius In Love have been seen at theaters throughout the country, including Second Stage, Alliance Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Alley Theatre, People's Light, South Coast Repertory, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Marin Theater Company and East West Players. He is the creator of a new limited series, “American Way” for USA Networks, and was a staff writer on Netflix's “House of Cards”. Commissions include: Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Rep, Wilma Theater and Arena Stage. Residencies include: Ojai Playwrights Conference, Ucross Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Lark Playwrights Workshop, Interstate 73, New York Stage and Film and McCarter Playwrights Retreat. He attended Cornell University, Fulbright Scholarship, Yale School of Drama.

ROBERT L. LYNCH

ROBERT L. LYNCH is president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. With more than 43 years of experience in the arts industry, he remains motivated to empower communities and leaders to advance the arts in society and in the lives of citizens. In 1996, Bob managed the merger of the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, where he had spent 12 years as executive director, with the American Council for the Arts to form Americans for the Arts. Under his 35 years of leadership, the services and membership of Americans for the Arts have grown fiftyfold, and he has personally reached audiences in more than 2,000 locations spanning all 50 states and more than a dozen nations, with diverse constituencies ranging from Native American tribal gatherings to the US Armed Forces in Europe to the President of the United States. All told, Bob has overseen six mergers–including the Arts and Business Council Inc. and the Business Committee for the Arts—into Americans for the Arts. He also has created the Americans for the Arts Action Fund and its connected political action committee to establish arts-friendly public policy.  Americans for the Arts has become a leader in documenting and articulating the key role played by the nonprofit arts and culture industry, and its audiences, in strengthening our nation’s economy. Bob also has been instrumental in creating a strong portfolio of projects and information about the transformative power of the arts in non-arts areas such as civic dialogue, social problem solving, and arts and military. He serves on the board of the Independent Sector and previously served two terms on the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. In 2017, he was the inaugural recipient of the JFK Commonwealth Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. In 2014, he was awarded the Sidney R. Yates Award for Outstanding Advocacy on Behalf of the Performing Arts, and he was selected as one of the most influential executives in the nonprofit sector for the years 2012, 2013, 2014, 2018, and 2019 as part of the NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50. Bob earned a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and enjoys playing the piano, mandolin, and guitar.

EDUARDO MACHADO

EDUARDO MACHADO was born in Cuba and came to the United States when he was nine. He is the author of over 40 plays, including The Cook, Havana is Waiting, The Modern Ladies of Guanabacoa, Fabiola, Broken Eggs and Stevie Wants to Play the Blues. His plays have been produced at Seattle Repertory, Goodman, Hartford Stage, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf, Hampstead Theatre in London, Cherry Lane, Theater for the New City and Repertorio Español, among many others. He was formerly artistic director of INTAR Theatre in New York and has been a Professor of Playwriting at NYU Tisch and Columbia. He is the co-author of Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile’s Hunger for Home and his plays are published by Samuel French and TCG.

MICHAEL MCAFEE

MICHAEL MCAFEE, President and CEO, leads PolicyLink, a national research and action institute focused on advancing racial and economic equity: just and fair inclusion for everyone living in America. He brings over 20 years of experience as a leader who has partnered with organizations across the public, philanthropic, and private sectors to realize this vision.  Michael came to PolicyLink in 2011 as the inaugural director of the Promise Neighborhoods Institute at PolicyLink. Under his leadership, PolicyLink emerged as a national leader in building cradle-to-career systems that ensure children and youth in our nation’s most distressed communities have a pathway into the middle class. His partnership with local leaders, in more than 60 communities in 27 states and the District of Columbia, contributed to significant improvements in the educational and developmental outcomes for more than 300,000 children, and helped attract public and private investments exceeding $1 billion. Because of the focus on results, Promise Neighborhoods became a permanent federal program through the 2015 authorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).  Before joining PolicyLink, Michael served as senior community planning and development representative in the Chicago Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He earned his doctorate of education in human and organizational learning from George Washington University and completed Harvard University's Executive Program in Public Management.

LATA NOTT

Lata Nott is executive director of the Freedom Forum Institute’s First Amendment Center, which has offices at the Newseum, in Washington, D.C.; and at the John Seigenthaler Center, on the Vanderbilt University campus, in Nashville, Tenn.  Nott formerly was the assistant director of admissions at the Georgetown University Law Center, where she implemented strategies to increase diversity, promote the scholarship program for high-need students, and integrate technology into the Law Center’s recruitment efforts.  Prior to that, she was a litigator in New York City at the law firms of Proskauer Rose and Chadbourne & Parke. She graduated from the University of California, Davis, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a Bachelor of Arts in international relations. She earned her Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 2010.  She remains an active member of the New York Bar and the American Bar Association.

AARON POSNER

AARON POSNER is an award-winning playwright, director, teacher and former artistic director of two LORT theaters. His Helen Hayes Award-winning play, Stupid Fucking Bird, was one of the 10 most produced plays in the country in 2015. Other plays include Life Sucks and No Sisters (both re-inventions of Chekhov), District Merchants (inspired by The Merchant of Venice), Who Am I This Time? (& Other Conundrums of Love) (adapted from Kurt Vonnegut), The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev (adapted from Chaim Potok), Sometimes a Great Notion (adapted from Ken Kesey) and several more. He has directed more than 150 productions at major regional theaters across the country, including Arena Stage, and currently lives outside of D.C. with his wife, actress Erin Weaver, and his amazing daughter, Maisie.

ROBERT RABEN

ROBERT RABEN, and the people who have joined him in the unique public policy/communications firm he created, works to drive public policy in a humane direction; to bring diversity and equity to the boardrooms, think tanks and corporations of America; to create a fair judiciary; and to influence legislation that will broaden civil rights, reform our criminal justice system and improve education for all our children. Robert’s near 30 years of professional experience as an attorney, senior Hill staffer and assistant attorney general include seven years as counsel on the House Judiciary Committee, fighting some of the toughest battles on civil rights, crime and civil liberties. He was appointed assistant attorney general under Attorney General Reno and President Clinton, after a unanimous confirmation vote by a Republican-controlled Senate. He serves on the boards of The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, President Obama’s My Brothers’ Keeper Alliance and the Hispanic National Bar Association. He has also founded Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary, the Friends of the Museum of the American Latino, Green 2.0, Committee for a Fair Judiciary and the March on Washington Film Festival. Robert is a native of Miami, and a graduate of the Wharton School and the New York University Law School.

JACKIE REYES-YANES

Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed Jackie Reyes-Yanes as Executive Director of the Office on Latino Affairs (MOLA) for the second time. Director Reyes has lived in DC since 1990 and is the first Salvadoran to run the agency. During her tenure, Director Reyes has increased MOLA's budget from 2.9 million to 5.9 million dollars. The agency has also allocated more than $13 million to support programs that improve the quality of life for Latinos in the District. Director Reyes has been a key player in the design and implementation of the Immigrant Justice Legal Services Program (IJLSG).
In her previous position, she served as Director of Latino Affairs and Community Outreach for former DC Council Member Jim Graham (D - Ward 1). While working with Graham, Reyes-Yanes led initiatives to address the needs of Latino residents in the District. Director Reyes was also case manager at the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC) and at the Office of the Mayor of Community Relations and Services (MOCRS) under former Mayor Adrian Fenty.
With more than fifteen years of experience and commitment to serve Latinos in DC, some of her most important accomplishments are: the historic Sister Cities Agreement between Washington, DC and San Salvador, efforts in gang prevention and helping to secure funding to rebuild the Monseñor Romero building apartments in Mount Pleasant that were destroyed by fire in 2008.

THERESA REBECK

THERESA REBECK is a widely produced playwright on and off-Broadway, regionally and internationally. Her plays include Seminar, Mauritius (IRNE Award and Elliot Norton Award), Spike Heels, Poor Behavior, The Family of Mann (National Theatre Conference Award), The Bells (William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award), Omnium Gatherum (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Bad Dates and The Understudy. In television, she is known for her work on NYPD Blue (Writer’s Guild, Peabody and Edgar Awards) and for creating the NBC series Smash. Theresa is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. She has a Ph.D. and M.F.A. from Brandeis University. She serves on the board of PEN America and is a proud member of the Dramatist’s Guild. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Jess Lynn, and her children, Cooper and Cleo Lynn.

SUSAN RICE

AMBASSADOR SUSAN E. RICE served as President Obama’s National Security Advisor and U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2009-2017. She recently published her memoir, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For. Rice also served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, special assistant to the President and senior director for African Affairs and director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping at the National Security Council under President Clinton from 1993-2001. She began her career as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company and later served for several years as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Rice is currently a distinguished visiting research fellow at American University’s School of International Service and a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. Rice serves on the boards of Netflix and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She previously served as a director at the Bureau of National Affairs (now Bloomberg BNA), the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and numerous other non-profits. Rice received her master's degree and Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and her B.A. with honors in history from Stanford University. A native of Washington, D.C., Ambassador Rice is married to Ian Cameron, and they have two children.

NAJMA ROBERTS

NAJMA LYNNE ROBERTS is a proven communications strategist with over 16 years experience in developing and implementing fully integrated communications programs for mission driven organizations and causes.  She has spent a significant portion of her career developing public relations campaigns, managing crisis, re-branding organizations, implementing strategic communications plans, as well as serving as a spokesperson for various government organizations and leading non-profits such as the Truth Initiative (formerly known as the American Legacy Foundation), creators of the award-winning teen smoking prevention campaign, truth®. Najma now serves as the Communications Director for the Democracy Fund, a bipartisan foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that the American people come first in our democracy. In her spare time, she serves on the board of directors for the District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH). Najma lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland with her two children Christian and Blythe and husband Greg- and loves to cook her favorite Creole dishes when time permits. 

CHASE RYND

CHASE RYND has served as executive director of the National Building Museum since 2003. Prior to his work at the National Building Museum, Rynd was appointed executive director of the Tacoma Art Museum in 1993, and to the same position at the Frist Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee in 1998. A former longtime Seattle resident, Rynd was appointed by the mayor to the Seattle Arts Commission in 1988 and served two consecutive terms as the Commission’s chairman. In 1990, Security Pacific Bank recruited Rynd to develop a public gallery space that would serve the community with a series of contemporary art exhibitions and programs designed to enhance the city’s arts environment. While in Seattle, Rynd served on numerous boards and served as chair of the design committee for St. Mark’s Cathedral. A graduate of Georgetown University and active in the museum community, Rynd is a member of the International Council of Museums and American Alliance of Museums. He sits on the Boards of the Downtown D.C. BID, Washington D.C. Economic Partnership, Penn Quarter Neighborhood Association, Havana Heritage Foundation, and American Friends of Chantilly, France.  He also is a member of ACE Mentor Program’s National Advisory Board and serves on the Facilities and Fine Arts Committee of the Washington National Cathedral.

LEX SANT

LEX SANT has been the president of The Summit Foundation since 2018 and a trustee since 1991. In addition, he has been president of the Sant Foundation since its inception in 2015 and a director since 2016. Prior to starting the Sant Foundation, he was co-founder and managing director of Persimmon Tree Capital, a private investment fund focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency investments, founded in 2008. Mr. Sant also worked for five years at the AES Corporation, a leading global power company with electrical generation and distribution businesses in more than 20 countries. At AES, Mr. Sant was most recently a director in the Alternative Energy Group, for which he was responsible for the origination and execution of transactions related to biofuels, wind and other forms of renewable energy. Prior to that position, Mr. Sant had responsibility for large-scale mergers, acquisitions and corporate strategy. Before joining AES, Mr. Sant worked in public relations from 1994 to 2000 for the Carolina Panthers, a franchise of the National Football League. In addition, he is a member of the national board of directors for the Trust for Public Land and trustee of the Maret School in Washington, D.C. He is past chairman of Island Press, a leading publisher of books on the environment and, until 2014, served on the executive committee of the board of trustees for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Mr. Sant holds an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in English from Dickinson College.

NEEL SAXENA

NEEL SAXENA as the child of Indian immigrants, Neel Saxena understands the cultural and linguistic differences that many Asian immigrants experience and is a vociferous advocate for youth. As the Executive Director at Asian American LEAD, his work supports low-income and underserved Asian Pacific American youth in their academic development and social and emotional well-being. In Saxena’s experience, engaging across cultural difference can be empowering and transforming, for people on both sides of the conversation. His work supports at-risk youth, creating positive, safe, and supportive spaces where young people are supported in their social & emotional well-being. He has an 18 year track record of direct service, advocacy, management, and commitment to working with overlooked populations and given talks or featured at places like NPR, The Urban Institute, Department of ED, Migration Policy Institute, and Montgomery College. For 10 years, Neel served on an Advisory group to the Census Bureau; is on the steering committee of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy; and serves on the Asian Pacific American Advisory Group to the Montgomery County Executive and a member of the County Executive's transition team. He is a partner, father, son, and friend and wishes that people do not feel alone.

OCTAVIO SOLIS

OCTAVIO SOLIS is a playwright and director whose works Mother Road, Quixote Nuevo, Se Llama Cristina, John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven, Ghosts of the River, Lydia, June in a Box, Lethe, Gibraltar, The Ballad of Pancho and Lucy, Bethlehem, Dreamlandia, El Otro, Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, La Posada Mágica and many others have been mounted in theatres across the country, such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the California Shakespeare Theatre, the Center Theatre Group, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Magic Theatre, South Coast Repertory Theatre, El Teatro Campesino, Campo Santo, INTAR and Cornerstone Theatre. His collaborative works include Cloudlands, with Music by Adam Gwon, and Shiner, written with Erik Ehn. Solis has received numerous awards, including the United States Artists Fellowship for 2011 and the 2014 Pen Center USA Award for Drama. His new book Retablos is published by City Lights Publishing.

STEPHANIE STEBICH

Stephanie Stebich is the Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where she is responsible for the nation’s premier collection of American art and major exhibition, research, publication, education and digital-media programs at the museum and its Renwick Gallery.  She also is a trustee of the American Alliance of Museums. Before coming to the Smithsonian, Stebich had been the executive director of the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington from 2005-2017. Under her leadership, the museum underwent a major renovation that doubled its exhibition space; launched a capital campaign with a goal of $17 million and raised more than $37 million; and added endowed curator, educator and fellow positions. Prior to that Stebich was assistant director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from 2001 to 2004 and assistant director at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1995 to 2001. She was previously a trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors from 2010 to 2012, where she led and implemented its diversity initiative as chair of the membership committee. Stebich earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Columbia University and a master’s degree with a concentration in modern art from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. She has a certificate in nonprofit management from Case Western Reserve University and is a graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute in Los Angeles. She was a fellow at the Guggenheim Museum and has studied at the University College London. 

GEORGIA STITT

GEORGIA STITT is a composer and lyricist whose shows include: Snow Child (premiered at Arena Stage); Big Red Sun (11th Hour Theater); and Samantha Spade, Ace Detective (TADA Youth Theater, winner of “Outstanding New Musical” from the National Youth Theatre in 2014). Other shows include: The Big Boom (with Hunter Foster); Common Ground (with Lisa Diana Shapiro); Signature Stitch (with Warren Adams); The Water (winner of the 2008 ANMT Search for New Voices in American Musical Theater); and Mosaic (commissioned for Inner Voices, starring Heidi Blickenstaff). Georgia has released three albums of her music: “This Ordinary Thursday”, “Alphabet City Cycle” (featuring Tony-nominated actress Kate Baldwin) and “My Lifelong Love” and she is currently at work on a collection of theatrical art songs and an as-yet-untitled oratorio. Her choral piece with hope and virtue (using text from President Obama's 2009 inauguration speech) was featured on NPR as part of Judith Clurman’s Sing Out and Mister President cycle. Her orchestral piece, “Waiting for Wings”, co-written with husband Jason Robert Brown, was commissioned by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and premiered there with conductor John Morris Russell. Georgia is on the board of directors for The Lillys and the Council of The Dramatists Guild, and she is the founding director of MAESTRA, a not-for-profit organization serving women theater musicians. www.georgiastitt.com

TARA SUSMAN-PEÑA

Tara Susman-Peña is senior technical expert at IREX, a global development and education non-profit. At IREX, she is constructing and piloting an index for measuring complex information systems, called VIBE (the Vibrant Information Barometer). She also leads the adaptation and expansion of IREX's media and information literacy methodology, Learn to Discern, to the United States, Iraq, Tunisia, among other countries. She has managed media development projects and conducted research in Mozambique, Latin America, and Europe / Eurasia. Previously she worked at Internews, NPR, and in commercial market research, and taught a course on media development at George Washington University. She has also been a choreographer and modern dancer.

JOHN STRAND

JOHN STRAND's Arena Stage commissions include The Originalist, about the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; The Miser, an adaptation of the Moliére play set in Reagan-era America; Lovers and Executioners, winner of the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play; and Tom Walker. Recent work includes the book and lyrics for Hat! A Vaudeville, a new musical with a score by composer Dennis McCarthy (South Coast Repertory); Lincolnesque, a dark comedy about politics and madness in D.C. (Old Globe); and Lorenzaccio, his adaptation of Alfred de Musset’s 1834 French classic (Shakespeare Theatre Company). Strand wrote the book for the musical The Highest Yellow, with a score by Michael John LaChiusa (Signature Theatre). Additional plays are The Diaries (Signature Theatre, MacArthur nomination); Otabenga (Signature Theatre, MacArthur nomination); Three Nights in Tehran, a comedy about the Iran-Contra affair (Signature Theatre); and The Cockburn Rituals (Woolly Mammoth). Strand spent 10 years in Paris, where he worked as a journalist and drama critic, writing in English and French, and directed New York University's Experimental Theater Wing in Paris. His novel Commieland was published by Kiwai Media, Paris in 2013. He is currently at work on a new musical for Arena Stage and on the film adaptation of The Originalist.
John wrote the script for Arena's 2017 production of The Originalist and the 2018 production of Snow Child.

MARK TOOLEY

MARK TOOLEY is president of the Institute on Religion & Democracy and co-editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity & American Foreign Policy.  He previously worked for the CIA and he attended Georgetown University. A native of Arlington, Virginia, he’s the author of three books and numerous articles on politics, religion and history.

SARAH ROSEN WARTELL

In 2012, Sarah Rosen Wartell became the third president of the Urban Institute since it was founded in 1968.   Urban is an economic and social science research and policy organization whose 450+ researchers, experts, and other staff share a belief in the power of evidence to improve lives and strengthen communities.   During her tenure, Urban has articulated it strategy to “elevate the debate” by:  bringing more of its insights from research to federal, state, and local government and practice; becoming a leader in research communications and data visualization; and undertaking an ambitious program of business systems and technology modernization.  Previously, Wartell was deputy assistant to the president for economic policy and deputy director of the National Economic Council. At the US Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 to 1998, she advised the federal housing commissioner on housing finance, mortgage markets, and consumer protection.  Later, she was a consultant to the bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission.  After government service, Wartell was the founding chief operating officer and then executive vice president of the Center for American Progress.  Her work focused on the economy and housing markets, and she directed the Mortgage Finance Working Group and "Doing What Works" government performance program.  Prior to her tenure in government, she practiced law with the Washington, DC, firm of Arnold & Porter. Wartell currently serves on the board of the Center for Law and Social Policy, and on Bank  of America’s National Community Advisory Council. In the past, she has served on the boards of the Low Income Investment Fund, Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University, and CFED. Her areas of expertise include community development, consumer finance, asset building, and housing finance. Wartell has an AB degree with honors in urban affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She has a JD degree from Yale Law School.

BRIAN WESOLOWSKI

BRIAN WESOLOWSKI serves as vice president of External Affairs at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-profit advocating for the digital rights of all. He leads the organization’s strategic partnerships, communications and special events. Brian has more than 15 years of communications and outreach experience, having worked in both organizational and agency settings. Previously, he served as director of communications for Qatar’s Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology, the country’s government technology policy body and telecommunications regulatory authority. While in Qatar, he also founded and led the country’s affiliate of Creative Commons and worked to promote digital openness. Brian began his career working for D.C.-based communications and public affairs agencies, supporting a wide range of government, non-profit and corporate clients. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Leadership and Communications from the University of Richmond and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Michigan.

JACQUIE GALES WEBB

JACQUIE GALES WEBB is a Peabody award-winning producer, performer and host of the number one Sunday afternoon gospel music program on 96.3 WHUR. Ms. Webb will mark her 29th year of providing her special mix of inspirational music on WHUR in December 2019. She is also director of content at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting where she works to support and improve the nation’s public media system. The Indiana University Archives of African American Music and Culture established the Jacquie Gales Webb Collection in 2016 that has been a resource for books, publications and an online exhibit on the Golden Age of Black Radio for the Google Cultural Institute. Webb produced two gospel music CD compilations for Time Life and is a featured gospel music expert in the Magnolia Pictures film documentary “Rejoice and Shout.” Her awards include the George Foster Peabody Award, the Alfred I. Dupont Silver Baton, six local Emmy’s and 14 nominations from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Jacquie Gales Webb currently serves on community advisory boards for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

LAUREN YEE

LAUREN YEE’s Cambodian Rock Band, with music by Dengue Fever, premiered at South Coast Rep. with subsequent productions at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, City Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Signature Theatre, Portland Center Stage and Jungle Theatre. Her play The Great Leap has been produced at the Denver Center, Seattle Repertory, Atlantic Theatre, the Guthrie Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Arts Club, InterAct Theatre and Steppenwolf, with future productions at Long Wharf and Asolo Rep/Miami New Drama. Honors include: the Doris Duke Artists Award, Whiting Award, Steinberg/ATCA Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters literature award, Horton Foote Prize, Kesselring Prize, Primus Prize, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton and the number one and number two plays on the 2017 Kilroys List. She's a residency five playwright at Signature Theatre, New Dramatists members, Ma-Yi Writers’ Lab member and Playwrights Realm alumni playwright. TV credits include: “Pachinko” (Apple) and “Soundtrack” (Netflix). Current commissions include: Geffen Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, Second Stage and South Coast Rep. BA: Yale. MFA: UCSD. www.laurenyee.com

KAREN ZACARÍAS

KAREN ZACARÍAS was recently hailed by American Theater Magazine as one of the 10 most-produced playwrights in the U.S. Her award-winning plays include The Copper Children, Destiny of Desire, Native Gardens, The Book Club Play, Legacy of Light, Mariela in the Desert, The Sins of Sor Juana, the adaptations of Just Like Us, Into the Beautiful North and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. She is the author of 10 renowned TYA musicals and the Marvel play Squirrel Girl Goes to College, and the librettist of several ballets. She is one of the inaugural resident playwrights at Arena Stage (where she has been produced four times!), a core founder of the Latinx Theatre Commons – a large national organization of artists seeking to update the American narrative with the stories of Latinos – and she is the founder of the award-winning Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT). YPT was cited by the Obama administration as one of the best arts-education programs in the nation. Karen was just voted 2018 Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine for her advocacy work involving the arts. She is an inaugural 2019 Sine Fellow for Policy Innovation at American University and is selected by The League of Professional Theatre Women to receive the 2019 Lee Reynolds Award given annually to a woman in theater who has helped illuminate the possibilities for social, cultural or political change. She also was awarded the 2019 Medallion by the Children’s Theater Foundation of America for her advocacy for youth and the arts. Karen lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband and three children.

ZACK ZADEK

ZACK ZADEK is a composer/lyricist, playwright and songwriter with Warner/Chappell. Zack has been named by Playbill as “A Contemporary Musical Theatre Songwriter You Should Know,” was a MacDowell Fellow and VCCA Fellow and is a 2019 Dramatist Guild Fellow. Zack won the Weston New Musical Award for his book, music and lyrics to Deathless (dir. Tina Landau), which was produced at Goodspeed Musicals in 2017. His work has been developed and presented at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, Roundabout, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, New York Stage and Film, The 5th Avenue Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, The Lark, Arena Stage, Goodspeed Musicals, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Weston Playhouse, Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, Legacy Theatre, NYMF, The Mitten Lab and in the UK at the London Theatre Workshop and Edinburgh Fringe. He is a two-time finalist for the Kleban Prize as a librettist and a lyricist, a three-time Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, SigWorks @ Signature Theatre finalist, KSF Artists of Choice finalist and winner of the inaugural NMI/Disney Imagineering New Voices Award. Other pieces include The Crazy Ones (dir. Sam Buntrock/Hunter Bird), The Role of a Lifetime (dir. Jerry Mitchell) and 6 (dir. Sheryl Kaller/Max Friedman). Upcoming projects include Store Brand (dir. Jaki Bradley), which is being developed by The Civilians and current commissions from Mike Bosner Productions, Jill Furman Productions, Arena Stage and Ars Nova. He is currently a writer-in-residence with The Orchard Project Greenhouse and Ars Nova.

SUZANNE BLUE STAR BOY

SUZANNE BLUE STAR BOY

FAREED MOSTOUFI

Fareed Mostoufi is the Senior Education Manager at the Pulitzer Center, where he designs classroom resources and programs that engage students and teachers in pressing, under-reported global issues. He is also a teaching artist at Arena Stage, where he has devised and directed original, autobiographical plays over the last nine years with communities in Washington D.C., Peru, India and Croatia that explored violence, health and identity. Before that, Fareed taught ESL and Spanish in D.C. Public Schools. As a recipient of a 2009 Fulbright Scholarship to Argentina, he also taught culture, literature and playwriting at a teachers’ college in San Miguel de Tucuman. Fareed received his BFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University in 2008 and his MA in Teaching from American University in 2012.

E. ANDREW TAYLOR

Andrew Taylor is a tenured Associate Professor of Arts Management at American University in Washington, DC, where he studies and teaches organizational structure, strategy, and management practice in the cultural sector. As a consultant, he has advised and supported the International Society for the Performing Arts, American Ballet Theatre, Create Austin, Theatre Communications Group, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, and the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru), among others. With AMS Planning & Research, he helped develop the budget pro forma and operating plan for the $205-million Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, Wisconsin, and advised its transition from a public entity to a nonprofit. Recently, he completed a three-year research project for the William Penn Foundation called “Capitalizing Change in the Performing Arts” with a project report in progress. Prior to his appointment at American University, he directed the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, an MBA degree program and learning center in the Wisconsin School of Business, for more than a decade. 

Andrew is past president of the Association of Arts Administration Educators (www.artsadministration.org), board member for Fractured Atlas, and consulting editor for The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, and for Artivate, a journal on arts entrepreneurship. Since July 2003, he has written a popular weblog on the business of arts and culture, “The Artful Manager,” hosted by ArtsJournal.com (www.artfulmanager.com).

XIMENA VARELA

Ximena Varela is the Program Director for the MA in Arts Management, and the Graduate Certificates in Arts Management and International Arts Management at American University, Washington, DC. A skilled negotiator and facilitator, she has worked with and advised international organizations, national and regional governments, city agencies, as well as private and nonprofit organizations in arts funding and arts policy in North, South, and Central America. A former Fulbright and Organization of American States fellow, she has published, lectured and taught extensively in the United States, Latin America, Europe and China. Ximena has more than 25 years of experience in arts management curricular design, museum management, international cultural policy, management practice, marketing strategy, arts management research, culturally sustainable development research and practice. She serves as Vice President of the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE), on the board of the Latin American Institute of Museums, and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Sociomuseology. A champion of inclusive practice and diverse leadership in arts organization, Prof. Varela is the Faculty Chair for the President’s Council on Diversity and Inclusion at American University, and the 2018 winner of the College of Arts and Science’s Dean’s Award for "Outstanding Contributions to an Inclusive Community.” 

REBECCA CAMPANA

REBECCA CAMPANA is in her 14th season at Arena Stage as its School Programs Manager, serving as a teaching artist for the theater’s education programs and managing its ticketing program for D.C. public school students.  She teaches students from pre-school through college and provides professional development and training for teaching artists and teachers. Playing a central role in the development of Camp Arena Stage, she has served as the assistant director and, now, co-director of the camp since its inception. Rebecca stepped into her role at Community Engagement after completing the executive director internship at Arena. Along with a team of teaching artists from Arena Stage, she has taught and directed internationally in Croatia and India at the invitation of the US Department of State. She has a dual degree in English and journalism, and her main arts disciplines are playwriting for the classroom, devising and writing. She also enjoys improvisation, singing and painting.