Kimberleigh Aarn

Ms. Aarn is a theater artist, teacher, facilitator and professional development designer. Currently she is the Senior Planning Manager, Arts for All. She is also a teaching artist and theater mentor with PS Arts. Previously she was the Senior Arts Educator with The Galef Institute/Different Ways of Knowing; Drama Specialist, Crossroad Arts & Science; Drama Specialist, New Roads School, and a teaching artist with Inner City Arts. With a history of facilitating instruction in theater, movement and visual arts, she has also supported the development of arts integrated lessons and theater curriculums with a focus in literacy. Her professional acting background consists of Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theater, film & television with nominations for a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come & Gone. Kimberleigh Aarn was nominated for a 2005 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for The Merchant of Venice, Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare.

Wren Brown

Wren Troy Brown is an American film, theater, and television actor. A fourth generation Angeleno, Mr. Brown is also a fourth generation thespian. He is very proud to be in his third decade as an actor, producer, and director. Among Wren's film appearances are Waiting to Exhale, Heart & Souls, Under Siege II, The Dinner, Hollywood Shuffle, Biker Boyz, The Importance of Being Earnest, Midnight Clear and David Mamet's Edmond. On television, Wren co-starred as Whoopi Goldberg's brother and comic foil in NBC's Whoopi was a regular in the new adventures of Flipper, as well as CBS's Bless This House. He has also guest starred or recurred on The West Wing, The Practice, Touched By An Angel, Frasier, Seinfeld, Charmed, Star Trek: Voyager and as Professor Wilkins on Half & Half. Most recently, Wren has also been seen on Eli Stone, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Women's Murder Club, Everybody Hates Chris, and in his recurring role of Martin Thompson on the The Game. Some of his theatre credits include Shakespeare's As You Like It (Drama-Logue award winner), On Borrowed Time, Burning Hope and his NAACP Image Award-nominated performance in Jeffrey's Plan. Wren has a broad range of commercial, voice-over and spoken word projects including being tapped by acclaimed pianist Billy Childs to recite the classic Langston Hughes poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers on his Grammy-nominated album I've Known Rivers. His voice has been heard narrating The History Channel's U.S.S. Constellation: Battleground Freedom, The Learning Channel series Scene of the Crime, the E! True Hollywood Story on the life of Diana Ross as well as providing the voice of Disney's Brer Rabbit. It was in this arena that Wren also made his directorial debut, directing over thirty-five actors and actresses in their performances in Inspired By . . . The Bible Experience, winner of the 2006 Audio Book of the Year. For that project, Wren also narrated the book of Matthew. In 1999, Wren made his debut as a producer with the critically acclaimed feature film, Boesman & Lena starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett, followed by Dianne Reeves' concert film of her Grammy winning CD, In the Moment. He also produced the play, Confessions of Stepin Fetchit and evenings celebrating, Mr. Lloyd Richards, Complexions Cotemporary Ballet as well as an array of short films for new directors. In 2007, Mr. Brown founded the Ebony Repertory Theatre, Inc., resident company and operator of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, where he serves as the company's producer.

Jim Cantor

Dr. Cantor is a Professor in the College of Education, California State University, Dominguez Hills, where he teaches courses and supervises fieldwork in the Division of Teacher Education. He is currently the Teacher Education Department Co-Chair. His focus is on helping beginning teachers incorporate the arts as they teach the required core curriculum. Dr. Cantor is currently the President of the California Council on Teacher Education, www.ccte.org, the state affiliate of the national professional organization of teacher educators. He has 20 years of experiences as a progressive, multi-age, K-8 grade classroom teacher, and 5 years as a principal in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. He has consulted with numerous arts organizations including: The Galef Institute, Inner-City Arts, P.S. ARTS, and Rock The Classroom. Dr. Cantor earned his Ph.D. at UCLA in 1997, with a dissertation on developing school-university partnerships to support beginning teachers become social justice educators. Jim has been a performing musician in popular bands since the mid-1960’s. He considers himself as the minstrel of education, as he continues his public performances by performing and recording his own songs about the current context in education.

Leilani Lattin Duke

Ms. Duke developed a long range plan for arts education for Los Angeles Unified School District in 1999, which was unanimously adopted by the LAUSD School Board and is being successfully implemented today. Between 1981 and 1998, she directed the Getty Education Institute for the Arts of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Prior to joining the Getty, she served as executive director of the California Confederation of the Arts and spent seven years at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., developing programs in arts education and the performing arts. Lani Duke has served as a member of the California Arts Standards Committee and the National Music Educators Advisory Committee. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY, and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA.

Drew Furedi, Ed.D.

Drew Furedi is Policy and Program Development Advisor for the Los Angeles Unified School District. He joined the district after serving as the Executive Director of the LMU Family of Schools as an iDesign partner. In this role, Drew managed the long-range planning and development as well as day-to-day implementation of LMU's partnership with iDesign and Westchester High School and its feeder middle and elementary schools. Previously, Drew spent five and a half years working for The New Teacher Project implementing programs to recruit, select, train, place, and support hundreds of current teachers and mid-career professionals interested in teaching in the nation's hardest-to-staff public schools. His work also included launching a principal training and capacity building initiative with the Baltimore City Public School System, developing recruitment and selection strategies for schools in New Orleans (post-Katrina), and pioneering a statewide charter school teacher recruitment program in California. Earlier in his career, Drew worked on national service program development and review with Americorps programs; developed municipal, state, and federal youth policy with national nonprofits; and worked in local and regional policy development and advocacy. His commitment to public education and related issues was solidified through his involvement in Teach For America, the national teacher corps. After earning a BA in Political Science from UC Santa Barbara, Drew taught elementary school in the city of Baltimore through Teach For America. Drew earned a Master's in Public Administration from the University of Southern California, and earned his Doctorate in Educational Leadership for Social Justice at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Drew chairs the Board of Directors of Endeavor College Preparatory Middle School, a public charter school in LAUSD. He is married to Naya Bloom and they have a son named Cai.

Virginia Gembica

Mrs. Gembica has experience as a classroom teacher, a special education teacher, elementary school principal, District Director for State and Federal Categorical Programs and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction. She has also served on Arts in Education panels for the National Endowment for the Arts. From 1990-2000, Ginni Gembica was the Director of the Southern California Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts, a program of the J.Paul Getty Museum Education division, which provides teacher training in comprehensive classroom/school/district visual arts programs.

Jeanne Hoel

Jeanne Hoel is Senior Education Program Manager of School and Teacher Programs at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, where she has been since 2003. Hoel served as the president of the Museum Educators of Southern California (2007-09) and is currently a member of the Education Advisory Board for Art:21, a national PBS series on contemporary art. She is currently serving as Pacific Region Representative for the Museum Education Division of the National Art Education Association (NAEA), for which she presents regularly at annual conferences. Hoel studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art (BFA-fiber, art history), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (graduate studies-Fiber and Material Studies Department), and Bank Street College of Education (MS Ed.-Leadership in Museum Education).

Lois Hunter

Mrs. Hunter is Chair of the Theatre Department at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. She held the position of Director for the UCLA California Arts Project for five years and was a member of the State's Curriculum Committee that revised the Visual and Performing Arts Framework in 1996. She served as a member of the State Superintendent of Education's task force and is currently a member of the California Arts Assessment Network. As a member of the Arts Standards Committee, she worked on the new arts standards that were state board approved in the spring of 2001. Lois Hunter was also a 1992 BRAVO Award winner as an arts specialist.

Beth Michelson

Ms. Michelson was the Executive Director of The Wonder of Reading from 2001-2008 after serving on the board of directors for six years. During her tenure, the organization renovated 125 public elementary school libraries throughout Los Angeles County, worked with each school to provide books and ongoing literacy programs, and reached young students and their families in seven school districts. She oversaw all activities of the nonprofit organization, including the selection of school partners. Prior to joining The Wonder of Reading, Ms. Michelson spent more than fifteen years in commercial real estate development, consulting, and association management in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. She has extensive experience as a board member and advisor for a variety of not-for-profit organizations and focuses on the arts and education. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Beverly Hills Literacy Society and was formerly a director of the Venice Art Walk. She is a cum laude graduate of Princeton University with a B.A. in art and architectural history and received her MBA from Columbia University. She is a new board member of the Music Center.

Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo

Amy Shimshon-Santo (Ph.D.) is an artist and educator who believes that creativity is pivotal to personal and community development. Shimshon-Santo enjoyed teaching dance in K-12 Schools as a dance educator with the Music Center Education Division, before becoming a mentor to emerging teaching artists. She recently edited an ethnographic study, Art = Education: Connecting Communities in Los Angeles, that documents the teaching and learning process she guided with novice arts educators and community partners in urban schools. She directed the ArtsBridge Program at UCLA Arts, and received national recognition for her leadership in arts education and service learning by being honored on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll (2007). Shimshon-Santo has performed and choreographed for venues internationally from the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to school cafetoriums in rural Alaska, and performed and taught abroad in Singapore, Senegal, and Brazil. Her writing has been published in the Journal for Learning Through the Arts, the Teaching Artist Journal, UCLA Today, and she contributed to a regional analysis of art and popular education in a forthcoming book VIVA!: Art, Education and Politics in the Americas. She has 15 years of non-profit arts managerial experience as the founding Administrative Director for the Brasil Brasil Cultural Center and the Ballet Folclorico do Brasil. Shimshon-Santo served as a CORO Arts Leadership Fellow, a Dana Foundation Arts Education Fellow, and on committees for the Compton Education Foundation, the Western Arts Alliance, the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District, and the California Arts Council (CAC). She has also been a grant review panelist for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Irvine Foundation, and the CAC.

Selina Traylor

Ms. Traylor is the Manager of Young Musicians' Programs at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, including the Upbeat Live pre-concert lecture series, the Composer Fellowship Program, and the Youth Orchestra Partners Program. Prior to joining the Philharmonic, Ms. Traylor produced the Fowler Out Loud concert series, and was a museum educator for the Fowler Museum at UCLA. She also served as the administrative coordinator for the World Music Summer Institute at UCLA. She has been teaching music appreciation classes in western and non-western music at Pasadena City College since 2006 and has performed locally as a bassist and percussionist. She holds a BA and MA in ethnomusicology from UCLA.

Desiree DeBond Vargas

Mrs. De Bond Vargas has been a LAUSD teacher, District Specialist, Administrative Coordinator, and a Principal in her 29-year career as an educator. As principal of Rockdale Elementary, Mrs. De Bond Vargas has led teachers and staff in building Rockdale's arts programs, infusing the arts into all areas of the curriculum. Rockdale won the 2006 BRAVO Award. Their "ArtsWheel" program which ensures that students receive year-round instruction in all areas of the arts, taught by classroom teachers, was highlighted in the Music Center's Club 100 video, "A+ For the Arts."

Elise Woodson

Ms. Woodson is an educator with 16 years of experience in the field. She currently works for The California African American Museum as Program Manager of Education and Education Curator. Prior to her position at CAAM, Woodson worked as a literacy coach for UCLA, partnering with Los Angeles Unified School District where she provided guidance and professional development to teachers and staff. She has served as the Coordinator of English Language Arts for the Southfield Public Schools in Michigan, designed and facilitated numerous programs including, Congresswoman Maxine Waters' High School Internship Program and Love Thyself for the LA Bridges Program.

Marilyn Wulliger

Mrs. Wulliger has an extensive background as an educator. A teacher for more than 20 years in the Beverly Hills Unified School District, she has presented at conferences nationally and has been honored by numerous awards and grants, including the Music Center's 1993 BRAVO Award, an Outstanding Teacher Award by the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce, an Independent Study in the Humanities grant, and a Fulbright-Hay Fellowship to Ghana, West Africa. She was a member of the Advisory Panel for the California High School Exit Examination and worked closely with TETAC (Transforming Education through the Arts Consortium), a five year Getty-Annenberg grant for arts reform awarded to 36 schools in the United States. She received her BA from University of California, Los Angeles, and an MA in English from Middlebury College.