CREATIVITY IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN

Lynnette Mawhinney, Ph.D. is Professor of Urban Education and Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Academic Initiatives at Rutgers University-Newark. She was a former high school English teacher in the School District of Philadelphia and transitioned into teacher education. She has conducted teacher trainings in the U.S., Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, South Africa, Bahrain, and Egypt. As a secret artist, she applies her craft of visual-based approaches to her research and scholarship on the recruitment and retention of teachers of Color. Dr. Mawhinney is the Founder and Director of the Visual Studies in Education Lab (ViSE), a consortium of community members and scholars that aims to amplify community voices, challenge traditional research methods, and foster creativity through the power of visual and arts-based research.

Nicole Auffant, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Associate and Research Lab Manager for the Visual Studies in Education (ViSE) Lab at Rutgers University-Newark. As an activist scholar, she employs critical race feminist and decolonial lenses in her work, believing that scholarship should prioritize the voices and stories of its participants. Much of her research involves working with youth through participatory action research, centering their experiences to drive meaningful change. Dr. Auffant earned her Ph.D. in Urban Systems and is deeply committed to social justice, both within and beyond academia. In addition to her academic work, she organizes in her community and leads anti-racism workshops, striving to create more equitable spaces through education and action.

Dr. Vandeen Campbell is an Assistant Research Professor and Associate Director at the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies at Rutgers University, Newark and holds an affiliation with the Department of Urban Education.With a focus on equitable educational outcomes for youth, Campbell’s research interests include school improvement, STEM pathways, dual enrollment, college access and success, and parental engagement. Dr. Campbell is currently the principal investigator for several policy-oriented research projects and research-practice partnerships based in New Jersey. Her current projects include the New Jersey Education Equity Project and the Newark To & Through Project.

The New Jersey Education Equity Project: Using various statewide district, school, and student-level datasets and working with a team of postdocs and graduate research assistants, Dr. Campbell leads a study of education disparities in New Jersey, to monitor equity by mapping the landscape of opportunities and outcomes in the state with a focus on high leverage areas including positive, supportive, and well-resourced school environments; STEM access; and preparation for college and the workforce. Her work has led to a series of policy and practitioner-oriented reports and interactive data exploration dashboards for public use. As part of the study, Dr. Campbell also conducts data mining of longitudinal student-level course data to identify science course pathways common in NJ high schools and test their effectiveness. In addition, Dr. Campbell is studying various statewide policies such as the impact of the portfolio degree option for graduation requirements in mathematics and English language arts and the option to offer Algebra I in 8^th grade.

The Newark To & Through Project: Dr. Campbell co-leads the research in a research-practice partnership (RPP) with Newark Public Schools to improve secondary and postsecondary outcomes beginning with a focus on freshman year. In collaboration with district researchers, Dr. Campbell studies efficacy of the freshman success initiative, with attention to the relationships between continuous improvement cycles, teacher and collective teacher efficacy, and changes in the school culture and student outcomes such as freshman on-track, high school graduation, and college enrollment.

Dr. Campbell’s research has received support from the American Educational Research Association (AERA) – National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Grant Program, the New Jersey State Policy Lab, the Rutgers Research Council Seed Grant Program, and the Rutgers Equity Alliance for Community Health (REACH) Community-Academic Grants Program. Dr. Campbell has also been the principal investigator on research contracts with the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE).

Dr. Campbell holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Graduate Center of CUNY, a master’s degree in Sociology – Applied Statistics and Social Research from Queens College, CUNY, and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Education from York College, CUNY.

Christina Wright Fields, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Education at Marist College. She is a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) educator, activist-scholar, and researcher, who broadly explores the issues of race, gender, and equity in education and administrative practices. Additionally, through use of critical qualitative methodologies, she centers the experiences of Black educators, administrators, and students in both K-12 and postsecondary educational spaces. She has published work exploring culturally responsive pedagogy, cultural competence, global education, African-centered education, and faculty-led equity work in teacher education. She is a co-chair for the Global Diversity committee for American Association of Colleges of Teacher Educators (AACTE).

Dr. Laura Porterfield is an educator, Black femme-inist, poet, mama, and auntie. Laura loves young people and wants to hold the best of the world up for them. In a professional capacity, she does this through her work at the university and through consulting. Laura is an Assistant Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark. Her fundamental belief and philosophy is that education is a human and civil right. She believes that in order to hold the best of the world up for young folx, every one of them must have equal access to high-quality, life-affirming educations. As a founding member of Derute Consulting Cooperative, she believes that a collective and cooperative-oriented approach to justice work means more minds stretched and more hearts opened. Her particular areas of research, teaching, and consulting expertise include visual sociology, Black girlhood studies, Black feminist theory, race and representation, culturally-sustaining pedagogies, and participatory youth research.

Jhanae Wingfield, Ed.D. is the Director of Field Experiences and Instructor of Professional Practice in the Department of Urban Education at Rutgers University- Newark. Jhanae is a scholar, practitioner, and agent of change who has paid particular attention to early literacy practices of teachers in urban school settings. Dr. Wingfield began her career in education as a teacher, then an Educational Consultant with Teaching Matters before joining Rutgers University- Newark. She has had experience in public, private, and charter schools throughout the tri-state area. Her research interests include teacher preparation, early literacy, and urban schooling. Dr. Wingfield’s commitment to ensure that students in urban communities receive access to quality education and rich literature experiences extends to her role as a community leader. She has served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey, Orange Public Library and has developed and instructed summer programs for youth in urban communities. Dr. Wingfield holds a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Reading/ Reading Specialist from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Dr. Wingfield also holds a Doctorate of Education from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

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Mark Comesañas serves as Executive Director of My Brother’s Keeper Newark, a strategy of the Opportunity Youth Network. Prior to this role, Mark was the Head of Schools and a founding board member of LEAD Charter School, an educational leader within Newark Public Schools, and served as a middle and high school teacher. He is also an active member on several community non-profit boards. Comesañas holds a Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University, a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Montclair State University, and is currently working towards a Doctoral degree in Educational Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania.

Natalie Dreyer (she/her) is the Director of Arts Integration at New Jersey Performing Arts Center where she supports curriculum development and leads the Arts Integration Initiative. This program brings together classroom educators and teaching artists in creative collaboration to understand the spectrum of arts in education. During the multi-year professional development, educators will engage in a creativity deep dive to reignite their own creative sparks in different art forms and move through arts enhancement on the road to arts integration.

She holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and Spanish from DePauw University, where she studied Opera Performance in Milan, Italy, assistant directed main stage theater productions and coordinated a multi-art form final performance for her Spanish thesis that incorporated different works by Federico García Lorca. She received her Master’s in Education in Integrated Teaching through the Arts from Lesley University. Her thesis, “Arts Integration: The Key to Student Success”, explored the development of a professional development series for educators of English Language Learners.

Prior to NJPAC, Natalie worked in the Education Department at Trinity Repertory Company for 7 years as the School Partnerships & Professional Development Manager. While in Providence, RI, she partnered with the Providence Public School District to provide Arts Integration programming in 24 classrooms at 5 elementary schools. In addition to her arts integration work, she managed the post-graduate apprenticeship program which supported 10 apprentice positions in 10 separate departments throughout the theater. Through the TurnAround Arts Program, she led various professional development workshops for middle school educators in Partnership with the City of Providence and Providence Public Schools. She was also an active teaching artist, leading 3-6 after school programs every week, in addition to her in-school teaching.

Natalie served two years as an AmeriCorps member at the Robinson Community Learning Center, an affiliate of the University of Notre Dame, where she supported their Shakespeare programming. She assistant directed four productions, as well as developing multiple new after-school and in-school programs in partnership with South Bend Community School Corporation. In addition, she taught for South Bend Civic Theater and served as an arts integration consultant for Tricycle Theater for Youth based in Bentonville, AR, where she also had her first internship.

She is passionate about finding connections between the arts and education in ways that best serve and support students and educators. Her experiences range from supporting early literacy through dramatic arts in pre-k classrooms to mentoring post-graduate apprentices to coaching classroom educators.

Demetria Hart (she/her) is the Senior Coordinator of Faculty Relations at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She observes the development and trajectory of NJPAC Arts Education teaching artist faculty and their artistic practices. Some of her responsibilities include faculty recruitment, faculty onboarding and surveying the effectiveness of the training and professional development opportunities NJPAC Arts Education provides to teaching artists.

Demetria has a Bachelor’s degree in Black Studies and History, with a focus on researching the sociological implications of ways art and culture enhance diverse communities. From January 2022 to January 2023, Demetria served as the Project Coordinator for City Verses, a jazz poetry program offered through the partnership between NJPAC and Rutgers University-Newark. The purpose of this program was to amplify the authentic voices of the people of Greater Newark, create new opportunities for the public to engage with various art forms, and strengthen ties within communities through the arts. Through this program, Demetria engaged with 6,173 students ages 13+, 3,873 community residents through public events and virtual programming, 13 Rutgers-Newark MFA candidates and alums, and 11 local community organizations and small businesses.

Ashley Mandaglio (she/her) is the Associate Director of Professional Learning and Program Development at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She is an equity-centered learning expert with over 10 years of deep fieldwork in high-needs schools. She works to curate impactful arts learning opportunities reaching over 5,000 educators, teaching artists and Arts administrators across over 20 school districts in New Jersey and beyond. She partners with artists and practitioners from around the world to develop curricula that meet the current challenges facing our communities. In 2020, Ashley launched NJPAC’s first Social Justice Learning Series including virtual workshops grounded in antiracism, equity and access-centered principles. Ashley also worked to develop and scale a model framework for Teaching Artist Training reflective of educating the whole child including social emotional learning, trauma-informed and healing-centered practices, and culturally relevant pedagogy.

Prior to NJPAC, Ashley worked for the New York City Department of Education as the Theater Director for the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics. She impacted over 150 9-12th grade students by introducing acting, playwriting, and musical theater techniques as a means of self-expression and cultivating brave spaces for growth. She was the director and choreographer of the mainstage musicals and offered an after-school drama club for students to learn about play production. Ashley partnered with local organizations such as Roundabout Theater and Theater Development Fund to introduce students to the magic of live performance and offer exceptional opportunities like accessing Broadway for the first time. She was also accepted as an Arthur Miller Fellow and was mentored by artists and educators working in the NYC school system.

Ashley received her B.A. in Theatre and Communications from Florida State University and M.A. in Educational Theatre from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. While studying at NYU, Ashley worked as Education Associate for NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. She oversaw educational programming, public engagement and community engagement. She created and maintained NYU Skirball Blog, education newsletter and playgoer guides. Ashley planned and implemented artist-led workshops, lobby activities for family programming, open-rehearsals and masterclasses with artists and organized panels, lectures, symposiums, pre- and post- show discussions and Q&A’s

Ashley is an alum of Teach For America, where she taught English Language Arts at Charles R. Drew Middle School, a Title I school in Miami, Fl. She impacted over 400 students in one of the most underserved neighborhoods in the country, by instilling a love of reading and writing and providing a brave space for exploration. As an Americorps member, Ashley developed leadership skills by training with high quality instructors in curriculum design, differentiated instruction, and classroom management strategies to help close the opportunity gap for students and families.

As a Florida native, Ashley was a recipient of school and community arts education programs that continue to shape her experience as an arts administrator and educator today. She commits to serving future generations so they may benefit from the healing and transformative power the arts can play in a young person’s life.

Taylor Masamitsu (they/he) is the Senior Director of Research and Impact at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where they use interdisciplinary qualitative methods to study student agency, curricular and instructive efficacy, and education policy. Outside of NJPAC, Taylor uses their research to consider and advocate for more holistic approaches to education policy analysis, paying particular attention to issues of Asian Americanness, queerness, and power in American politics and educational settings. Some of their recent publications are available in Educational Policy, The American Educational History Journal, and The Journal of LGBT Youth.  Taylor is a PhD Candidate is social sciences at education policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); they also hold an EdM in education policy, organization, and leadership from UIUC; an MA in music and music education from Teachers College, Columbia University; and a BFA in music performance from the California Institute of the Arts. For more information, visit www.taylormasamitsu.com.

New Jersey Performing Arts Center Manager of Professional Learning & Training Angela Peletier (she/her) is a teaching artist and choreographer from Milltown, NJ. She is passionate about inspiring and cultivating budding teaching artists, and collaborating with others to develop innovative, artistic teaching practices and to bring the arts to the larger community. In her first year at NJPAC, Angela has helped cultivate several new school partnerships for professional development opportunities while also assisting in the relaunch of in-person professional development workshops at off-site locations. In addition, she and a team of other AED colleagues have partnered on developing new training sessions for NJPAC Teaching Artists that foster and cultivate the NJPAC AED core values and guiding principles.

Angela graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University (Florham) with dual B.A. degrees in Musical Theatre and Communications. During her time in undergrad, she launched a student-run theater company and became a founding board member, as well as performed in the university’s first touring theater production for youth. She has trained with Broadway alum Ron and Barbara Sharpe (Les Miserables/Sharpe Family Singers/America’s Got Talent), Jon Rua (OBC Hamilton) and Glen Burtnick (Styx), and toured in Disney, Seaworld, Universal Studios and Six Flags Great Adventure.

Before NJPAC, Angela worked as an administrator and teaching artist in the Education Department at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ. There she expanded the institution’s Summer Intern program, developing specifically tailored professional development workshops for college students looking to enter the art and education field, providing mentorship, and increasing applications for the program by implementing a targeted outreach program. Angela also increased enrollment of summer program attendees by 10% in her time with the organization by developing new strategic marketing plans in partnership with the institution’s marketing team. In addition, she participated in the development of an Arts and Wellness Initiative through George Streets Touring Theatre Program to help bring awareness to opioid addiction in New Jersey in the production of Anytown by Jim Jack in partnership with RWJBarnabas and the Horizon Foundation. Lastly, she collaborated with a highly efficient team to establish a three-day Virtual Professional Development initiative for teachers, enhancing individuals’ knowledge on Social Emotional Learning, Arts Integration, Virtual Instruction and Culturally Responsive Teaching. This included spearheading workshops and individual sessions on various subjects including video editing, puppetry, Google site design for classroom, and third grade specific core curriculum virtual strategies.

Angela also spent a short time in Staten Island at Sundog Theatre as an administrator and teaching artist where she managed the organization’s 20th anniversary kick-off event in partnership with The Association for a Better New York and Amazon. She continued managing the events of the 20th year celebration by coordinating the first live-stream of the organization’s yearly sort play contest, Scenes from the Staten Island Ferry.

Through her years as an administrator, Angela has cultivated her own teaching artist practice through core curriculum-based Arts Integration residency programs, as well as devised theatre, dance and movement-based residency programs across New Jersey and New York.

Shannon Pulusan (she/they) is a Fil-Am writer, illustrator, educator and the Special Assistant to the VP of Arts Education at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She taught jazz poetry as a teaching artist for NJPAC City Verses, a multidisciplinary program that explores the intersection between music and the written word, and collaborated with local NJ poets and musicians for virtual and in-person classes. At the pulse of their teaching and creative practice is the interplay of art mediums, specifically fiber art, poetry, culinary, and illustration. They believe that engaging in the experience and conventions of other art mediums outside of one’s primary medium can re-instill playfulness and experimentation to artmaking and can alleviate burnout.

Outside of teaching artistry, Shannon is a certified Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) instructor who has taught adult ESL programs at the Jacksonville Library branches and the Women’s Center of Jacksonville. From 2017-2019, Shannon was a Native English Teacher under the English Program in Korea (EPIK) for Gyeonggi-do Province and co-taught grades 3 to 6 at a public school in Namyangju, South Korea. Her split time in Florida, New Jersey, and South Korea has inspired a deep interest in environmental and climate policy and advocacy for sustainability practices grounded in community accessibility and resource sharing.

Shannon’s poetics explore how foodways, superstition and the natural world can offer reparative insight and joy. Shannon is a Pushcart-nominated poet whose writing has been published in Ecotone, Pigeon Pages, SRPR, underblong, and more. Their alliterative poem “bb” was included in Frontier Poetry’s “Exceptional Poetry from Around the Web: January 2023.” Shannon’s work has been anthologized in What’s Mine of Wilderness? (Burrow Press, 2023) and We the Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word (Haymarket Books, 2024). They run Jersey City Reads Poems which organizes literary workshops and events emphasizing local writers in her beloved hometown. She has received support from Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference and Brooklyn Poets and holds a B.A. in English from the University of North Florida and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Rutgers University-Newark.

Jennifer Tsukayama (she/her) is the Vice President of Arts Education at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She leads one of the largest arts education departments in the state that serves nearly 112,000 families and students in grades Pre-K through 12; approx. 74% of participating students attend Title I schools. Programs include on-campus and in-school performances, residencies, afterschool and summer arts training and professional development for teachers. Tsukayama developed new department initiatives that resulted in a $10M endowment gift establishing The Colton Institute for Training and Research in the Arts.

Prior to NJPAC, Tsukayama was the School Administrator at Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, and the Director of Strategic Partnerships and the Director of Performing Arts for the Arizona Commission on the Arts (ACA). For the ACA, she managed the agency’s $2M grant portfolio, provided statewide technical assistance to the grantees and developed partnerships and programs across government and community sectors. This included the areas of Government and Public Affairs, Local Arts Advancement and Private Sector Relations. Her successful philanthropic initiatives include Artist Research and Development Grant, Artspace Initiative, Honoring Our Service Members and Rural Presenters Consortium.

Tsukayama’s artistic work includes the direction of three dance companies and the creation of over 40 original dance works. Her repertory ranges in projects which integrate dance and technology to site-specific and community works. She has collaborated with various international and national artists and scientists to create interactive and telematic work including Paper Interiors, a multimedia dance performance that integrates 3-D projected images, and CellBytes, a dual-site telematic performance. Dance companies across the United States and abroad have commissioned Tsukayama including the Secretaria de Culture de Puebla, Mexico for six years.

Tsukayama was an Associate Professor at Arizona State University’s Department of Dance where she taught technique, choreography, performance technology and theory to both graduate and undergraduates for nearly a decade. Her research focused on three areas: new media technology and performance, multicultural aesthetics and societal issues in choreographic forms, and community scholarship and socially embedded practice. She also directed a standard-aligned K-12 afterschool program with a primary mission to serve Title I schools and nonprofit organizations. Her integrated curriculum designs include a 7th and 8th-grade movement and writing curriculum using the MARS portable and inflatable planetarium as the source for content development. Her teaching awards include the Centennial Professorship, the President’s Medal for Social Embeddedness and the Katherine K. Herberger College of the Arts Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest recognition the college awards for outstanding teaching.

She served as the Chair of the Academic Policy Committee and the College of Fine Arts’ Academic Standards Committee. Tsukayama was invited to present papers on her creative research at such organizations as Counseil Internacional de la Dance of the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) and National Education Dance Organization (NDEO).

Tsukayama was a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture, ArtPlace America and many state arts councils. She is an active member and mentor for the national Women of Color in the Arts. Currently, she serves on the Board of the Newark Trust for Education and the Leadership Council for Arts Ed-Newark, which is dedicated to advancing arts education in the city of Newark, and co-chaired Arts Ed-Newark’s Evaluation Committee.