Patrick Baker
Director
South Dakota Arts Council
Patrick Baker joined the staff of the South Dakota Arts Council in 2016, becoming the fourth executive director of the Council in the agency’s 50th anniversary year. Prior to joining the Arts Council staff, Baker served as the communications director for the South Dakota Department of Human Services for over three years. He also served the state in 2012 as an elections coordinator in the secretary of state’s office. A native of Pierre, South Dakota, Baker holds a journalism degree from South Dakota State University and earned a graduate certificate in the South Dakota Governor’s Leadership Development Program through the University of South Dakota in 2015. He worked for various newspapers in South Dakota, Arizona and Minnesota as well as serving as the senior editor of a website magazine devoted to professional fishing prior to entering the field of public service in his home state.
Baker has been active in the arts throughout his life, with a focus on music. He is a founding member of the band Houdek and is a member of Pierre Four, a men’s vocal quartet. He frequently performs in an acoustic duo with his wife, Jennifer Baker, with whom he also writes and records music. The Bakers also sing in a local church choir and have enjoyed expanding the family musical experience to include their son, Jack, who plays keyboards and percussion in Houdek as well as crossing over with the family in other musical projects.
Michael Bobbitt
Executive Director
Mass Cultural Council
A director, choreographer and playwright, Michael Bobbitt served as the artistic director of the New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, Massachusetts before joining Mass Cultural Council in 2021. He held the same position at Adventure Theatre-MTC in Maryland for 12 years, leading the organization to be a respected theatre/training company in the Washington, D.C., region, as well as a nationally influential professional Theatre for Young Audiences. He led a merger with Musical Theater Center, increased the organizational budget and audience, commissioned new works by noted playwrights, transferred two shows to Off-Broadway, built an academy, and earned dozens of Helen Hayes Award nominations, garnering eight wins. Bobbitt gained extensive experience in nonprofit arts management by training at Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management, The National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, and Cornell University’s Diversity and Inclusion Certification Program. He has served as an associate professor of theatre at Boston Conservatory at Berklee and has volunteered on numerous nonprofit boards, including Non-Profit Village, Maryland Citizens for the Arts, Leadership Montgomery, Weissberg Foundation, Watertown Public Art Commission and ArtsBoston. He is a member of MASSCreative’s Policy Committee and serves on the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) board of directors.
Karen Hanan
Executive Director
ArtsWA
Karen Hanan is a senior executive with 25+ years of success providing leadership and managerial direction to state and regional arts service and presenting organizations. She was appointed executive director of ArtsWA (Washington State Arts Commission) by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2014. As the agency’s chief executive and as a member of the governor’s cabinet, Hanan’s role is to grow the organization’s capacity, services, and potential for positively impacting the arts and cultural fields, arts in education, the creative economy, and the State. During her nine-year tenure, ArtsWA has expanded its reach and capacity considerably. Hanan has overseen the hiring of 21 new staff to date because of the evolution of all the agency’s legacy programs, and the addition of multiple new programs.
Before her role with the state, Hanan was executive director of Arts Northwest, the regional service organization for performing arts organizations, arts presenters, artists, agents and associated organizations. During her tenure there, Hanan was the driving force in repositioning the nonprofit for growth, artistic vitality, profitability and a commitment to mission. She achieved this through effective planning, vision, partnership building and operational savvy. Hanan oversaw the doubling of the organization’s membership and its budget. Prior to her tenure with Arts Northwest, Hanan was the founder and seven-year executive director of the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.
Hanan sits on several boards of directors including NASAA’s, where she serves as treasurer. She is a trustee for the Western States Arts Federation and an ex-officio board member for Inspire Washington. Hanan enjoys opportunities to be a speaker, panelist or event participant where the focus is arts, culture, the creative economy, and the role of arts and culture in community viability and livability.
Elizabeth G. Shapiro
Director of Arts, Preservation and Museums
Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development
Liz Shapiro has had the pleasure of serving as the director of Arts, Preservation and Museums since August 2018. In this position, she directs and coordinates the work of the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the State Historic Preservation Office, and the four historic sites and museums operated by Historic Preservation Office; the Henry Whitfield State Museum, the Prudence Crandall Museum, the Eric Sloane Museum, and Old New-Gate Prison & Copper Mine. Prior to her position with the state, Shapiro spent six years as executive director of the Connecticut League of History Organizations, the professional networking and support organization for volunteers and professionals working in public history in Connecticut. Shapiro served as executive director of The Sharon (CT) Historical Society for 20 years and has worked as a consultant to nonprofit organizations in the areas of governance and strategic planning. She has worked in various capacities at The Museums and Gallery at Babson College, Wellesley, Massachusetts; The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Shapiro is a former board member and president of the Connecticut League of History Organizations and the Light Opera Company of Salisbury (CT) and currently serves as a board and/or steering committee member for Connecticut History Illustrated, the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, New England Foundation for the Arts, NASAA and the Connecticut Digital Archives.
Shapiro attended Haverford College and received a masters’ degree in history museum studies from the Cooperstown Graduate Program.
Kate Van Steenhuyse
Assistant Director
Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission
Kate Van Steenhuyse (she/her) began working with the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission in 2019 as a regional representative and creative placemaking specialist and was promoted to chief programs officer, working closely on all program development, grant making and strategic visioning in 2020. She served as interim director before being promoted to assistant director in 2023. Van Steenhuyse has over two decades of experience working with public art, community-engaged arts, and arts administration focusing on ecosystem and capacity building initiatives. She received her M.F.A. (fine arts) in 2008 from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and a B.F.A. (painting and women’s studies) in 2001 from Washington University in St. Louis. As an artist, Van Steenhuyse has exhibited paintings nationally and internationally, including in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Wichita, Dallas and more. In 2014 she cofounded Harvester Arts in Wichita, Kansas, which builds the creative capacity of the community through arts experimentation, public art projects, artist residencies and professional development for artists. Van Steenhuyse worked as executive director of Harvester Arts (2014-2022), program manager at Arts Partners Wichita (2017-2019), faculty at Wichita State University (2011-2017), creative director for CreativeRHINO, and an administrator in the Department of Photography + Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She was featured in New American Painting West Edition, was a Transformation Grant administrator and recipient with the Kansas Leadership Center, fellow of The Career Development Program at The Center for Emerging Visual Artists in Philadelphia, PA, and an active member of the Common Field network. Van Steenhuyse has served as a mentor and curator for the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, Wichita State University’s College of Fine Arts; as a facilitator and administrator for the Artist INC program; and as a board member for the Ulrich Museum of Art Alliance (2011-2017, president 2014-2017) and Mid America Arts Alliance (2017-2020, 2022).
Mary Eileen Fouratt
Program Officer, Access, Community Arts
New Jersey State Council on the Arts
Mary Eileen Fouratt works with New Jersey’s 21 county arts agencies and arts organizations to build their capacity and make the arts more accessible. As part of the council for the Performing Arts Readiness project and the New Jersey Cultural Alliance for Response, she has been directly involved in the arts council’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, as the executive director of Monmouth Arts for nearly two decades, Fouratt led creative placemaking initiatives and participated in local, county and regional arts, community and economic development planning. She created Monmouth Arts’s ArtHelps response to Hurricane Sandy, witnessing the importance of emergency preparedness so arts groups are able to respond to community needs after a disaster.
Gary Gibbs
Executive Director
Texas Commission on the Arts
A native Texan, Gary Gibbs was educated and has spent the majority of his career in the state. He earned a B.M.E. (voice) from Baylor University (Waco), an M.M. (voice) from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Fort Worth) and a Ph.D. (musicology) from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to beginning his career in arts administration, he sang professionally in Europe and taught at all levels, kindergarten through college. For 16 years, Gibbs served as the director of education and outreach for Houston Grand Opera. The programs he developed were nationally recognized and served as models for replication for opera companies throughout the United States. In 2007, Gibbs assumed the leadership of the Texas Commission on the Arts. Upon his arrival, he restructured the agency’s grants programs by simplifying the application process and aligning the grants with the priorities of Texas state government: economic development, education, health and human services, criminal justice and public safety, and natural resources and agriculture. Gibbs has been honored to serve as a past member and president of the board of NASAA and a current member of the board of the Mid-America Arts Alliance. He has served as a grants evaluator at the local, state and federal levels.
Emily B. Moses
Executive Staff Advisor
Kentucky Arts Council
Emily B. Moses is executive staff advisor for the Kentucky Arts Council. Moses works with artists, organizations, communities, partners and other stakeholders to advance and support the arts in Kentucky. She manages the grants and fiscal staff at the agency, coordinates an array of programming, develops and coordinates special projects, writes grants, and works with Arts Council staff to achieve the agency’s goals and objectives. Moses worked to develop new efforts related to diversity, equity, inclusion and access during the past six years, the past two years funded by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. She is currently coordinating the state’s response to the arts and culture field following two major disasters in Kentucky. Moses has worked as a government communications director, journalist and editor, and actress.
Maida Owens
Louisiana Folklife Director
Louisiana Division of the Arts
As director of the Louisiana Division of the Arts Folklife Program, Maida Owens has worked with tradition bearers and communities to document and present their traditions to the public for over 30 years. She has conducted folklife surveys, produced exhibits and documentaries, published both virtual and print books, managed grants programs for projects and apprenticeships, and curated the Folklife in Louisiana website and the Louisiana Voices Educator’s Guide. Since 2019, Owens has partnered with the Louisiana Folklore Society’s Bayou Culture Collaborative to help Louisiana sustain its traditional cultures in the face of increasing disruption and migration due to land loss. Monthly online Bayou Culture Gatherings serve as a hub for those who want to support efforts for the state to fully address the human dimension in environmental planning, including preparing receiving communities to welcome newcomers. She is a cofounder of the collaborative and serves on its management team. Through this partnership, the Folklife Program funds Passing It On workshops for master tradition bearers to teach their traditions and offers Sense of Place and Loss workshops to help arts and culture networks become involved in the climate change dialogue about community resilience.
Shannon T. Ford
Director of Community Arts Development
Tennessee Arts Commission
Shannon Ford works with government agencies and nonprofits to strengthen the presence, impact and public value of the arts in communities statewide. He administers grants to local arts agencies, presenters, multidisciplinary arts centers and arts service organizations. Ford works to strengthen small, emerging and volunteer-driven arts organizations statewide through the Arts Build Communities program in collaboration with 13 designated agencies. Prior to joining the Tennessee Arts Commission, Ford was employed by the Ohio Arts Council for nine years, most recently as an arts learning program coordinator. He obtained his B.A. in communication and art from Trinity University and completed coursework toward a master’s degree in arts policy and administration at The Ohio State University.
Kim Konikow
Executive Director
North Dakota Council on the Arts
As executive director of the North Dakota Council on the Arts, Kim Konikow utilizes her combined employment, teaching and consulting experience. She brings to the agency her unique skills and abilities as a passionate facilitator of opportunity. In this position for the past five years, Konikow works to promote creative growth and strengthen communities across North Dakota through the arts. Prior experience includes conference coordinator for Dance | USA in Washington D.C.; executive director for The Mesa in southern Utah; executive director for Minnesota Dance Alliance; associate director for Art Awareness, in upstate New York; and director of special events at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As a teacher, she served as adjunct faculty at several colleges and universities across the country. As a consultant through artservices & company, Konikow has been engaged in projects that focus on organizational development. Konikow was an administrative fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts and a recipient of a travel and study grant from the Jerome Foundation. She has served extensively as a site visitor and panelist for several regional, state and national organizations.
Michelle Patrick
Community Arts Development Specialist, ADA Coordinator
Nevada Arts Council
Over the past decade, Michelle Patrick has worked at the intersections of theatre, dance and arts programming. Her work currently focuses on nonprofit arts organizations, cultural institutions and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) venue coordination. Originally from Queens, New York, she is an artist and has a varied background as an arts administrator that includes the Nevada Arts Council, City of Las Vegas, Denver Center for the Performing Arts and the Sundance Film Festival. Patrick helped launch the Nevada Basin to Range Exchange, a program dedicated to promoting rural and urban arts based collaboration. She facilitates workshops specifically designed toward team building, community planning and organizational assessment. Patrick has served as a grant panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and as a board member for the Nevada Women’s Film Festival. She previously served as a board member for the 18b Arts District Neighborhood Association and as an adviser for the City of Henderson’s Arts & Cultural Advisory Council. She holds a B.A. from Bradford College and is an alumna of YoungArts (Theater) and the High School of Performing Arts in New York City.
Rivka Liss-Levinson, Ph.D.
Senior Research Manager
MissionSquare Research Institute
Dr. Rivka Liss-Levinson is senior research manager at MissionSquare Research Institute. With 15 years of experience designing, implementing, reporting and disseminating rigorous, practitioner-oriented research, she is dedicated to leveraging data and stories to improve the health and well-being of public-sector workers and others who serve their communities. Prior to joining the Research Institute in 2018, Dr. Liss-Levinson worked as director of survey research for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, where she led the full life cycle of the preeminent national survey of the status of state and territorial public health in the United States. She has also worked at the Emory University/Cornell University Institute for Health and Productivity Studies, collaborating with partners from the private and public sectors to research and evaluate workplace wellness programs. Dr. Liss-Levinson’s work has been covered by Forbes, CNBC and The Washington Post, and she has written multiple columns for Route Fifty. She has coauthored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, is a frequent presenter at national conferences, and serves on committees for several public service and public health organizations. Dr. Liss-Levinson holds a doctorate in applied social psychology from The George Washington University and a B.A. in psychology from Brandeis.
Hyunkang Hur
Associate Professor of Public Management
Public Administration and Health Management Program, School of Business at Indiana University Kokomo
Hyunkang Hur is an associate professor of public management in the Public Administration and Health Management program, School of Business, at Indiana University Kokomo. Dr. Hur’s research interests are public management, human resource management, organizational behavior, public employee work attitudes and behavior, work motivation, job security, turnover intention, quantitative research methods, and meta-analysis.
Gordon Abner
Assistant Professor of Public Affairs
LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin
Gordon Abner is an assistant professor of public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Abner’s research interests include employee turnover, commitment and engagement, as well as leadership development in the public sector. His research has appeared in academic research outlets such as Public Administration Review, the Review of Public Personnel Administration, and Public Performance & Management Review.
Dori Kelner, M.S., M.B.S.R., C.W.M.F.
Workplace Well-being Facilitator/Mindfulness Teacher
Insightful Culture LLC;
Vice President, Human Workplace
Esteemed Inc.
Dori Kelner serves as a senior advisor and mentor in the corporate, government and nonprofit spaces. She designs and facilitates leadership and well-being programs for executives, managers and individuals. Kelner is a mindfulness based stress reduction teacher and a certified workplace mindfulness facilitator who regularly speaks at conferences and conducts workshops on topics of leadership and wellness, focusing on stress reduction, personal growth, career development and the human workplace.
Stacie Sanders Evans
President & CEO
Arts for Learning Maryland
Stacie Sanders Evans has devoted her career to young people and creating opportunities for them to find their voice, understand their power, and use their voice and power to realize what is possible for them and for the world. Her strength and passion are creating strong teams and leading a results based management approach centered in equity. Evans’s focus for the past 18 years has been building Arts for Learning Maryland (formerly Young Audiences of Maryland) into a driving force for arts education that is transforming the lives of Maryland youth by connecting educators, professional artists and communities. In that time, she built the organization from a small, four-person operation into a staff of more than 40 people, with a tenfold increase in budget and a network of more than 200 artists, that directly serves nearly 180,000 children every year. The opportunity to create, understand and express who she was as an individual was the foundation for Evans’s growth as a young person, from attending a performing-arts high school to studying dance in Ghana in college. She is passionate about creating similar opportunities for children, particularly for students who are not being well served by the traditional education system.
Carlos Jamieson
Policy Researcher
Education Commission of the States
As a policy researcher at the Education Commission of the States, Carlos Jamieson focuses on many issues related to K-12 education. Prior to joining Education Commission of the States, Jamieson was an elementary school physical education and health teacher. He earned a master’s degree in physical education from Teacher’s College and is currently pursuing his Ed.D. at Howard University in education leadership and policy.
Jamie Kasper
Director
Arts Education Partnership
Photo by Ellen Jaskol
As director of the Arts Education Partnership, Jamie Kasper works with over 100 partner organizations to support arts learning across the United States. Prior to joining Education Commission of the States, Kasper worked for Arts Education Collaborative in Pittsburgh and was previously the state arts curriculum advisor at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Kasper is an active musician who spends time on the weekends rehearsing or performing with various groups. jkasper@ecs.org.
Kimberly Washburn Motte
Arts Learning Director
South Carolina Arts Commission
Kimberly Washburn Motte is the arts learning director for the South Carolina Arts Commission. With a background in museum education and as a certified visual arts teacher, her passion for education in and through the arts drives her work for statewide equitable access to arts learning opportunities across the age spectrum. Motte received her B.S. in art education from Francis Marion University. She is the 2017 recipient of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance’s Gregory Fry Arts Educator Award and the 2021 South Carolina Art Education Association Museum Educator of the Year.
Michael Lange
Executive Director
Wyoming Arts Council
Michael Lange is the executive director of the Wyoming Arts Council, helping to strengthen Wyoming communities by using the arts as a vehicle for positive change. Prior to serving as executive director, Lange was the community development specialist for the Arts Council. He previously worked for the University of Wyoming, where he used the arts as a catalyst for cocurricular student development initiatives. Lange is a trustee for the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF). His research interests are centered on exploring and creating structures and atmospheres that promote creativity. Lange is the recipient of the 2017 Northwest College Alumnus of the Year. He is a musician and composer, performing mostly in the jazz idiom, and holds a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in public administration.
Miah Michaelsen
Executive Director
Indiana Arts Commission
Miah Michaelsen is the executive director of the Indiana Arts Commission (IAC), previously serving as the agency’s deputy director of operations for six years. Before joining IAC, Michaelsen served as the first assistant economic development director for the arts for the City of Bloomington. In that role, she developed and implemented all aspects of programming and services offered to the creative sector by the City of Bloomington and its state-designated cultural district. She served in executive director roles for the Bloomington Area Arts Council, the Children’s Hands on Museum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and the Kentucky Art Center and Festival in Northport, Alabama. Michaelsen has served on panels including the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Arts Council of Indianapolis, and Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. She is a graduate of Hendrix College (Conway, Arkansas) with a B.A. with distinction in theatre and serves on its board of governors.
David Schmitz
Administrator
Iowa Arts Council
David Schmitz has served as administrator of the Iowa Arts Council, Iowa’s state arts agency and a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, since 2020. Schmitz previously worked for the Iowa Arts Council as a community resources specialist and managed programs supporting the development of community arts, cultural infrastructure and public art. He has more than 15 years of experience in arts administration and museums and has held roles with the Chicago Artists’ Coalition and the Des Moines Art Center. Most recently, Schmitz served as executive director of the Dubuque Museum of Art. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, Columbia College Chicago and the Getty Leadership Institute.
Jen Benoit-Bryan
President
Slover Linett Audience Research
Jen Benoit-Bryan is the president of Slover Linett Audience Research, a firm that uses the tools of research and evaluation to help the cultural sector understand its participants and communities, experiment with new strategies for engagement, and connect more deeply. Over the past few years, she’s been the principal investigator for the national Culture & Community research series—a special edition of Culture Track, one of the largest studies of cultural behavior conducted in the United States. While at Slover Linett, Jen has worked with a variety of clients across the cultural sector including the National Academy of Sciences, Museums Moving Forward, Central Park Conservancy, the Kennedy Center, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Carnegie Hall, Washington National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, the High Line and SFMOMA. Jen holds a Ph.D. in public administration specializing in research methodology.