Cultural Dynamics | Featured Speakers

Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD | Chair, National Endowment for the Arts

In January 2022, Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD became the 13th chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Her appointment by President Biden is historic as she is the agency’s first African American and first Mexican American woman to serve as NEA Chair. Jackson’s career has focused on understanding and elevating arts, culture, and design as crucial elements of healthy and equitable communities.

An urban planner, researcher, and academic, Chair Jackson is a tenured professor on leave from Arizona State University, where she led the Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities. For almost ten years, she served as a senior advisor on arts and culture and strategic learning, research, and evaluation at the Kresge Foundation and has advised other foundations. For 18 years, Chair Jackson worked at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, where she was the founding director of the Culture, Creativity and Communities Program. She has served on numerous boards on national and local nonprofit organizations.

Patricia Wilson Aden | President and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

Patricia Wilson Aden is President & CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, which leads, strengthens and amplifies the voices of 400+ member organizations that make up the region’s cultural community. Aden is an unwavering advocate for the arts and culture sector with more than 40 years of experience leading non-profit and cultural institutions, most recently as President of The Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee and as President & CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

During her tenure at AAMP, Aden preserved a strong financial future for the museum by establishing strategic partnerships, delivering nationally acclaimed programming, and creating deeper donor engagement. At the Blues Foundation, she led the adoption of the Foundation's Statement Against Racism and its accompanying Action Plan, furthered the Blues Foundation's Blues in the Schools program, and helped develop the museum’s Blues Guide, while shepherding the organization through the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. Aden has also served in executive roles for the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia.

Aden currently serves on the board of PA Humanities and is Vice Chair of the Friends of Cooch’s Bridge in Newark, Delaware. She was selected to serve as a member of the National Museum of African American Music’s Music Industry Relations Council. She has also served on the Smithsonian Affiliate Advisory Council and is a member of the Links, Inc. (Philadelphia Chapter). She has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and other national and state level granting agencies.

Aden holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Spelman College and a master’s in historic preservation from Cornell University. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Davis & Elkins College.

Photo credit: Sabina Louise Pierce.

Valerie V. Gay | Chief Cultural Officer, City of Philadelphia and Executive Director of Creative Philadelphia

Valerie V. Gay (Val Gay®) is a Creative, Certified Financial Planner, non-profit administrator, recording and performing artist and thought leader. While a classically trained soprano, Val is an active performer across several genres, having widely performed, including a solo performance at Carnegie Hall and a feature on NPR Music. Val was recently appointed by the Mayor of Philadelphia as executive director of Creative Philadelphia (formerly the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy), and the first executive director of the office to serve in the Mayor’s Cabinet in Philadelphia. In 2019, Val received an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from St. Joseph’s University and has earned a Professional Studies Certificate and a Master of Music in Vocal Performance at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance, a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the University of the Arts and completed degree course work at Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.

Anne Ishii | Program Director, United States Artists

Anne Ishii is the program director at United States Artists, and previously the executive director of Asian Arts Initiative. She is Co-Chair of the Board of the Asian American Writers Workshop, and volunteers service to the field of arts and culture as a writer and musician herself. Anne is an editor and translator by trade, with a background in Japanese letters. Her work hinges on issues relating to gender and sexuality. In 2013 she co-founded MASSIVE GOODS: a lifestyle brand and arts agency representing queer and feminist artists from Japan. MASSIVE has produced multiple volumes of graphic novels and a line of clothing and accessories. She has been published in BUST, Nylon, Slate, Publishers Weekly, the Village Voice, the Philadelphia Inquirer and many other publications. She has translated and rewritten over twenty books.

Shawn McCaney | Executive Director of the William Penn Foundation

Shawn brings more than 10 years of leadership experience at the Foundation to his role as Executive Director. Prior to his appointment as Executive Director, he was the founding program director for the Creative Communities program and managed National Initiatives for the Foundation, seeking to expand philanthropy in the region and share the Foundation’s learnings with others focused on similar issues nationwide.

Recently, Shawn oversaw the Foundation’s grantmaking strategy revision process, which is conducted every 10 years. This effort resulted in the adoption of a new mission statement and grantmaking values and principles, the establishment of expanded and new grantmaking priorities, and key changes to the Foundation’s application process to increase its accessibility and transparency. The strategy revision was informed by an extensive stakeholder engagement effort that included nearly 400 conversations with local stakeholders and community members.

Shawn received his graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his undergraduate degree from Temple University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, an International Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners, and is a licensed Professional Planner in the State of New Jersey. Shawn serves on the board of the Central Philadelphia Development Corporation and is chairman of the Haddonfield Borough Planning Board.

Denis O’Brien | Interim President of Drexel University

Interim President Denis O’Brien leads Drexel during a time of transition, as the University undergoes a leadership change and academic transformation, while ensuring student, faculty, and professional staff success in an ever-evolving era.
O’Brien, a 1987 MBA graduate of Drexel’s LeBow College of Business, and a longtime member of Drexel’s Board of Trustees, previously served as senior executive vice president of Exelon and CEO of Exelon Utilities, where he led the nation’s largest family of electric
and natural gas distribution companies. Prior, he was the president and CEO of PECO Energy, where he began his career as a field engineer. O’Brien, a lifelong Philadelphian, has served on numerous boards, including tenures as the chair of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, the Electric Power Research Institute, and the Pennsylvania Business Roundtable. He also served as a director at the Franklin Institute. He currently serves on the board of Independence Health Group. He has been named Drexel’s 2009 Business Leader of the Year and elected to the Drexel 100, which recognizes the University’s top graduates. In 2019, O’Brien was the recipient of the William Penn Award, the highest honor presented to a business or civic leader in Greater Philadelphia.

Jason Schupbach | Dean of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University

Jason Schupbach is the Dean of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University. He is a nationally recognized expert supporting creatives and the role that arts and design play in improving communities, and was the federal liaison to the design community in his role as Director of Design and Creative Placemaking Programs for the National Endowment for the Arts.  He has held multiple other academic, government and foundation positions, and is the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Urban Cultural Planning. 

Laurie Zierer | Executive Director of PA Humanities

As executive director of PA Humanities, Laurie Zierer strategically focuses on redefining the humanities to build community, foster well being, and make meaningful change in Pennsylvania with ground-breaking programs like Chester Made, PA Heart & Soul, and Teen Reading Lounge. She is a vocal advocate for the cultural sector at the state and national levels, informed by participatory research projects like Humanities in Action: A National Perspective, the PA Humanities Discovery Project and PA CultureCheck. Believing strongly in putting research into action and using the humanities as a catalyst for transformation, Zierer has spearheaded innovative, grantmaking programs like Wingspan, which supports BIPOC-led and rural organizations doing community-based humanities work and cultivating space for creativity and connection. Laurie also has recently published work on centering the human in graduate education and emergent strategies in philanthropy. She is a former high school English teacher, and she holds a B.A. in English from Temple University and an M.A. in Rhetoric from Penn State.

V. Shayne Frederick | Performer

V. Shayne Frederick, vocalist, pianist, composer, curator, and educator, has captivated audiences for 20 years. DownBeat called him “soulful,” All About Jazz said he’s “a shining light,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer hails his "silken baritone and elegant charm.” He’s electrified TEDx, NPR, innumerable international stages, and global airwaves. Outside of serial residencies at Philadelphia Museum of Art, SOUTH Jazz Kitchen, and the Four Seasons’ JG Skyhigh, Shayne serves as pianist, composer, and vocalist for former Poet Laureate’s band Yolanda Wisher and The Afroeaters, and tours as narrator/vocalist with Ruth Naomi Floyd’s Frederick Douglass Jazz Works. Shayne’s voice is also featured on recordings on Ropeadope Records and Outside In Music, and his compositions have been featured in films and commercials. A 2021 Pew Artist Fellowship nominee, V. Shayne recently completed a term as a Board Governor of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Recording Academy, and a stint on faculty at the storied University of the Arts before his recent appointment to Temple University. Shayne also is a Curatorial Collaborator for the United States Semiquincentennial celebration in Philadelphia. He will release his sixth recording, Treasures, in early 2025.

Nina Elizabeth Lyrispect Ball | Performer

Lyrispect, a Baltimore-born and raised, Philadelphia-based poet, author, producer, and Creative, has performed worldwide, from Goa India, to the British Virgin Islands, and has collaborated with cultural institutions across the U.S. and Philadelphia. She is an advocate and amplifier of marginalized communities, who believes in bringing to life the nuances and multidimensionality therein She has served as moderator, panelist, and presenter for the Fulbright Scholars, New York University, The National Archives, and “The Afterlives of Liberation” series at Rutgers New Brunswick in 2024. She currently serves as Deputy Director of the Painted Bride Art Center. Instagram Handle: @Lyrispect