MEET THE CURATOR:

Jahnna Henderson is the Marketing and PR Manager at Glencairn Museum, where she also oversees annual events. After attending several Empathy Summits, she is thrilled to share Glencairn with this year's attendees. Her work focuses on boosting museum attendance, enhancing visitor accessibility, and coordinating annual events. With a background in business and economics, Jahnna enjoys examining the intersections between the business and museum sectors. She is passionate about Glencairn’s mission to promote reflection, understanding, and empathy. Outside of work, Jahnna enjoys spending time with her family, exploring the outdoors, and playing pickleball.

Amy is the Director of Education and Tours at Glencairn Museum. Her work at Glencairn includes creating and delivering programming to school students, homeschoolers, families, educators, and adults. Outside of the museum her interests include painting and illustration, hiking, and travel. Her background is in early childhood education, and prior to her joining the Glencairn team, she taught third and fourth grades in a traditional classroom setting and educated in nature-based spaces in Australia. In line with Glencairn's mission to stimulate reflection, build understanding, and foster empathy, Amy's work is actively and passionately looking for new ways to bring empathy-based design into the museum education and tours world.

Christine McDonald joined the leadership team as Head of Education at Glencairn Museum in 2015 when she was brought on board to help reshape the museum’s mission and create and implement a new strategic plan. Now serving as a consultant, Glencairn’s focus on religious art and history has allowed Christine to engage her passion for creating content and experiences to stimulate a positive curiosity and appreciation for societal worldviews and practices across cultures and time. Prior to her work at Glencairn, Christine served as researcher, writer, and editor for Feo Pitcairn Fine Art on a variety of multimedia projects emphasizing the importance of preserving wilderness. Her writing and editing on the 2015 Smithsonian exhibition “Primordial Landscapes: Iceland Revealed” led to her serving as editor of the fine art book of the same title. In addition to her work for Glencairn Museum, Christine serves as a free-lance content consultant and creator on various projects designed to encourage reflection and build understanding.

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, and editor and the poet laureate of Alexandria, Virginia, for 2022-25. Her full-length poetry collection, Some Things Never Leave You, was released by Tiger Bark Press (2023), and chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, by The Poetry Box (2021). She holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Zeina's poems appear in webzines, journals, and anthologies including Pleiades, Plume, Vox Populi, One Art, Mizna, Sukoon, Rusted Radishes, The Rumpus, Passager, Gyroscope, Split This Rock, Streetlight Magazine, Cutleaf Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Bettering American Poetry, Making Mirrors: Writing/Righting by and for Refugees, Making Levantine Cuisine: Modern Foodways of the Eastern Mediterranean, and Resilient Kitchens: American Immigrant Cooking in a Time of Crisis. Her poem, “You Birth the Seeds,” was set as a choral piece by renowned composer Melissa Dunphy. Zeina is a mentor for We Are Not Numbers, a writing program for youth in Gaza, and volunteers for Grassroots Alexandria, advocating for the civil rights of vulnerable communities. 

Dr. Stephanie Clintonia Boddie is an associate professor of Church and Community Ministries at Baylor University with appointments at the Diana R. School of Social Work, the School of Education and the George W. Truett Seminary. She is also a Faculty Associate at Washington University’s Center for Social Development and a Faculty Affiliate at University of Michigan’s Center for Equitable Family and Community Well-Being. A social scientist with over 20 years of experience and a classically-trained soprano, Dr. Boddie blends traditional research and oral histories with film, music, and conversations to create multisensory learning opportunities. 

Marta Burnet (she/her) is the Director of Advancing Empathy at Woodland Park Zoo, where she oversees an $8.75 million grant from a private donor to coordinate the Advancing Conservation through Empathy for Wildlife (ACE for Wildlife) Network of accredited zoos and aquariums who are interested in this newer approach to audience engagement. Initially a network of 20 organizations, ACE for Wildlife is in the process of expanding nationwide to include other accredited zoos and aquariums, as well as offering an Affiliate status to researchers, consultants and representatives from other conservation organizations. Grant funding also includes an intermediary role for a $4.6 million capacity building grant program for projects that further the infusion of empathy into the work of Partner organizations. Her work has taken her to over 30 zoos and aquariums in the last 2 years, where she has met with partners and observed programs, exhibits and signage to identify how empathy is showing up in different contexts and how Partners are collaborating. Marta has a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Washington, where she focused on the diffusion of innovations, and has over 20 years of experience in grant development and management.

As a Senior Museum Educator and Manager of National Teacher Programs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Julie Carmean plans, facilitates, and teaches professional development for classroom teachers at the museum and online in programs such as the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the Summer Institute for Educators, and Teacher Workshops. She and her team wrote and produced the self-paced online courses Teaching Critical Thinking through Art (2019) and Teaching Complex Thinking through Art (2024), on the edX platform, which demonstrate through original video and multi-media interactives how to integrate art into classrooms and strengthen thinking using student-centered dialogue. She presents regularly at professional conferences and gatherings about deep thinking through art, meaningful pedagogies, and online learning. Prior to managing programs for teachers, she coordinated the Art Around the Corner program, taught elementary students in Title I and Arts Integration schools, designed and instructed graduate-level education courses, and coached online courses. Julie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education, minoring in Music and Humanities, and received a Master’s degree in Arts in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She believes that making art accessible to all students contributes to each one reaching their highest potential.

Brenda Cowan is a Professor and former Chairperson of Graduate Exhibition & Experience Design at the SUNY/Fashion Institute of Technology where she teaches exhibition development and evaluation; object and museum studies; research methodologies and audience studies. Her background includes work for museums and design firms in the roles of interpreter, exhibition developer, education director, evaluator, and project manager. Brenda is a Fulbright Specialist in the disciplines of museums, objects and mental health. Her theory of Psychotherapeutic Object Dynamics has been presented for the American Alliance of Museums; Museums of Hope; MidAtlantic Association of Museums; Sweden’s National Museums of World Culture; CoMuseum, Athens, and the American Association of State and Local History Leadership Institute. Her publications include Museum Objects, Health and Healing (2019 Cowan et al) and Flourishing in Museums (Latham and Cowan 2024) both published by Routledge Taylor & Francis. Brenda's recent work includes evaluating wellbeing and healing at the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, with Syrian refugees and immigrants. She is currently co-host of Matters of Experience, a podcast about design and museum experiences. 

I am an artist, storyweaver, changemaker, and deeply curious woman. I currently serve as the Director for the Center for Art and Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) and the Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer. CAPE uses artwork, exhibitions, engagement with artists, and programming as a vehicle to have conversations about race and equity. I am responsible for creating human centered spaces that expand visitor's perspectives and reveal our shared humanity. I believe that art has the power to transform and inform us. I am a CPA, and a graduate of Howard University. Prior to my tenure at the Museum, I served as the Senior Program Manager for Parents for Public Schools of Jackson and taught parents how to navigate bureaucratic, and often dehumanizing systems. My career has been a winding path that has resulted in her owning and operating a restaurant, advocating for homeless veterans at the federal level, and creating safe spaces for nursing mothers.

Amir, a Middle Eastern musician, instructor, and composer from Iran, studied at Tehran Music University, specializing in Persian, Sufi, and Middle Eastern instruments. Since relocating to the U.S. in 2003, he has broadened his repertoire to include global percussion traditions and pursued further studies in Music Composition at the University of California - Santa Cruz. Driven by a passion for teaching and using music for spiritual growth, Amir established the Amir School of Music. His teaching, rooted in Western and Iranian classical theory, is tailored to individual learning styles, fostering a holistic educational environment. Amir's conviction in music's healing and expressive power extends beyond teaching. He conducts workshops on music theory and emotion, inspiring students to create solo pieces and blend music with poetry and dance. Through his dedication, Amir cultivates a community of empowered artists. With a deep interest in Sufi music and instruments, Amir collaborates with renowned artists and spiritual groups in the U.S. He also works with psychotherapists to integrate music therapy into his practice.

Amy is the Director of Education and Tours at Glencairn Museum. Her work at Glencairn includes creating and delivering programming to school students, homeschoolers, families, educators, and adults. Outside of the museum her interests include painting and illustration, hiking, and travel. Her background is in early childhood education, and prior to her joining the Glencairn team, she taught third and fourth grades in a traditional classroom setting and educated in nature-based spaces in Australia. In line with Glencairn's mission to stimulate reflection, build understanding, and foster empathy, Amy's work is actively and passionately looking for new ways to bring empathy-based design into the museum education and tours world.

Elif M. Gokcigdem, PhD (she/her) is the founding president of ONE - Organization of Networks for Empathy, and the editor of:  Fostering Empathy Through Museums (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), and Designing for Empathy: Perspectives on the Museum Experience  (American Alliance of Museums, 2019),  which are considered reference books in empathy-building through museums, a field of inquiry she pioneered in 2014. Her forthcoming volume is titled: An Empathy-Building Toolkit for Museums (American Alliance of Museums & Bloomsbury, 2026). Dr. Gokcigdem developed Designing for Empathy® as a unique, patented intellectual framework, and ONE as an international platform for multidisciplinary, multisector, and multicultural collaborations to deepen our understanding of empathy, and to develop strategies, scholarship, and empathy-building experiences that consider the wellbeing of the whole —all of humanity, our kin that we share our planet with, and our planet. In 2018, Dr. Gokcigdem curated, co-chaired, and led the world’s first empathy summit titled: Fostering Universal Ethics and Compassion through Museums with His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, India. She continues to bring together a multidisciplinary group of scholars, creatives, and cultural leaders from around the world for the Annual Designing for Empathy Summit & Workshops, which is celebrating its 7th anniversary in 2024 at the awe-inspiring Glencairn Museum. Elif grew up in Istanbul, studying history of Islamic art with a special interest in the role of  mysticism in arts, and later, museum studies in the US. She was a curatorial research assistant at the Department of Islamic Arts at the National Museum of Asian Art of the Smithsonian Institution, and led international arts, culture, and biodiversity initiatives, as well as strategic international partnerships for a global corporation for 26 years. Currently, Dr. Gokcigdem is an adjunct professor at the GWU Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a member of the Board of Trustees at the Museum of Us, and a consultant to several museums, research, and creative projects.  Contact: info@oneempathynetwork.com | @ElifGokcigdem | @one.empathy.network | www.oneempathynetwork.com

Andrea is a museum consultant, educator, and big-picture thinker. She designs learning experiences that enable people to widen their perspectives, learn about themselves, and connect with our common humanity. At the heart of her work are her values in action: empathy-building, social justice, curiosity, and creativity. Starting as a high school social studies teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, she followed her interests in experiential education to a career in museums. Before starting her consulting business, Peak Experience Lab, Andrea served in education leadership positions within several museums in Atlanta and Washington DC.

Dr. Kosinski was awarded a resident fellowship at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2024. She produced a major article: “Museum Practice as an Act of Citizenship. Democracy Needs Us!” She is the Director Emerita of The Phillips Collection, having served as Vradenburg Director and CEO from 2008 to 2023. During her tenure she launched several innovative, externally facing collaborations including a multi-year multi-disciplinary partnership with the University of Maryland and a permanent satellite in Southeast DC at the Town Hall Arts Recreation Campus (THEARC). Dr. Kosinski diversified and expanded the museum’s collection and programming, notably acquiring photography and contemporary art, establishing paid internships and fellowships, and hiring the museum’s first Chief Diversity Officer. Prior to her directorship Kosinski distinguished herself as an art historian and curator. From 1995 to 2008 she served as Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art and Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art. From 1985 to 1997, while living in Basel, Switzerland she was the curator of the Douglas Cooper Collection of cubist art. She also served as an independent curator of major exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts, London; The Kunstmuseum Basel; The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; and The National Gallery in Prague. Dr. Kosinski received a BA from Yale University and an MA and PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Dr. Kosinski’s bibliography includes publications on 19th Century Symbolism, Dada, Surrealism, 20th Century sculpture, contemporary art, and innovative and socially impactful museum practice. 

Susan Lanzoni is a writer and an historian of psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience, who teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. She received her PhD in the history of science from Harvard University and has taught courses in the history of science for over twenty years at Yale and Harvard Universities, and at the Experimental College at Tufts University. Her award winning 2018 book, Empathy: A History, published by Yale University Press won the Cheiron best book prize in the history of the social sciences. Lanzoni’s writing has been featured in The Atlantic, American Scientist, Psychology Today, the Harvard Divinity Bulletin and The Washington Post.  Her book in progress draws from current scientific literature and experiential practice to describe the many dimensions of empathy, including its bodily, emotional, cognitive and aesthetic facets.

Jamie Lawyer is the Chief Experience Officer at the Rubin Museum of Art, where her work focuses on leaving a lasting impact on visitors, one interaction at a time. Lawyer leads holistic audience engagement strategies that produce aligned exhibitions, publications, and digital experiences focused on serving thousands of visitors annually. She aims to build audience-centered cultures of care that champion visitors and staff alike. She has previously served as the Head of Interpretation, Digital Learning, and Evaluation at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, a guest lecturer at New York University, the City College of New York, and the University of North Texas-Denton, and a board member for the New York City Museum Educators Roundtable.  She also has been a creative partner, inaugural lecturer, and curriculum developer for the Musa Academy, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, a national professional development incubator program for mid to late career museum professionals to build organizational capacity, leadership, and hands-on learning to create audience-centered museums and sites for preserving cultural heritage.  She holds her MFA in Photography/Film from Virginia Commonwealth University and serves as adjunct faculty at the City University of New York School of Professional Studies, Pratt Institute in New York City, and New Bulgaria University.

Mentored by Gregory Hines, Andrew Nemr is an international artist, teacher, and speaker. His work has crossed music, dance, theatre, film, and the visual arts, exploring art as a vehicle for storytelling and community building. Described as “A masterly tapper” by the New York Times, Andrew is recorded on the Grammy nominated recording Itsbynne Reel by Dave Eggar, and is the co-founder of the Tap LegacyTM Foundation, Inc. (along with Hines). Andrew’s work has been recognized with numerous awards, grants, fellowships, and commissions and is the topic of the award-winning documentary short film Identity: The Andrew Nemr Story. He writes regularly at The Notes with Andrew Nemr and considers his highest personal achievement his ability to wiggle his ears. 

Lidewij Niezink is co-founder of Empathic Intervision, focused on evidence-based development of empathy skill building. For over two decades, Dr. Niezink combines academia with practice and works internationally to develop interventions and education for very diverse groups and organizations, ranging from educators to firefighters, from actors to urban search and rescue teams and from healthcare professionals to engineers. She dedicates her professional life to the integration of empathy practices and research in psychology, philosophy, social neuroscience, biology, the arts and anthropology. Coming from a firm belief in research based practice and practice based research, she focuses on the application of psychology and educates, consults, facilitates and trains Integrative Empathy.

Micah Parzen is an experienced museum leader, anthropologist, and attorney. He has served as CEO of the Museum of Us (formerly the San Diego Museum of Man) since 2010, where he and his team are focused on developing better practices in what an anti-racist and decolonial museum can look like. In the past few years alone, the Museum of Us’ work has been featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Museum magazine, Pro Publica, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic, among other high-profile media platforms. In addition to practicing employment law for many years, Dr. Parzen is a psychological and medical anthropologist. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Case Western Reserve University, a Juris Doctor from UC Davis, and a B.A. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. With a wide array of non-profit board experience under his belt, he most recently served as the Board President of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, a collaboration of 28 arts & culture institutions in Balboa Park.

Dr. Rebekah Rodriguez-Boerwinkle is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Her research examines psychological processes underpinning expression of creative behavior and experiences of art engagement, especially in applied and virtual settings. Her work is committed to promoting open science practices and tackling methodological challenges facing research in the arts. 

Daniel Vargas-Diaz is the current Head of Learning at ProjectUs.ai, an MIT Media Lab spinoff dedicated to using AI to help people become more self-aware and empathetic, and to build more cohesive and effective teams. Daniel was part of the team leading the R&D of ProjectUs.ai at the MIT Media Lab, he recently completed his grad studies on the use of Generative AI for children education (Virginia Tech), and has a background in EECS (University of Costa Rica). His passion lies at the intersection of education, empathy, and human-computer interaction. Daniel is also supporting multiple NGOs dedicated to advance education and mental well-being during childhood (particularly in the Latam region).

Dr. Jim Wharton is Chief Executive Officer at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, dedicated to sharing the delicate interconnectedness of people and animals with their community. Empathy is a key driver and strategy in this work, connecting people to animals and ecosystems and encouraging them to see nature as a source of hope, wonder and belonging…not to mention essential to their survival. Previously, as Vice President for Conservation Engagement at the Seattle Aquarium, Jim and the team shared effective practices and strategies for fostering empathy through publications and workshops with over 85 total institutions from 32 states (and, DC and Alberta) with a combined annual attendance of over 82 million.

Susie Wilkening (she/her) has over 25 years of experience in museums, including nearly 20 years leading custom projects for museums as well as fielding groundbreaking national research on the role of museums in American society. As principal of Wilkening Consulting, she provides research leadership for the Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, She is the primary author of most of the infographics Data Stories, which share research findings with the museum field. Additionally, she is the author of Audiences and Inclusion: A Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public and is the primary author of Life Stages of the Museum Visitor. Susie is a go-to expert on museums for the media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, NPR, and others. Susie earned a BS in History, Technology, and Society from Georgia Tech and an MA from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture at the University of Delaware. She resides in Seattle, and her husband and curious children often accompany her as she travels to various museums and historic sites.

Amelia Winger-Bearskin is a Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence and the Arts, at the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida. She is also the founder of the AI Climate Justice Lab, the Talk To Me About Water Collective, and the Stupid Hackathon. In 2022 she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Award as part of the Sundance AOP Fellowship cohort for her project CLOUD WORLD / SKYWORLD which was part of The Whitney’s Sunrise/Sunset series. In 2021 she was a fellow at Stanford University as their artist and technologist in residence, made possible by the Stanford Visiting Artist Fund in Honor of Roberta Bowman Denning (VAF). In 2020 she founded Wampum Codes, an award-winning podcast and an ethical framework for software development based on indigenous values of co-creation, while a Mozilla Fellow at the MIT Co-Creation Studio. In 2019 she was a delegate at the Summit on Fostering Universal Ethics and Compassion for His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama, at his World Headquarters in Dharmsala, India. In 2018 she was awarded the 100k Alternative Realities Prize for her Virtual Reality Project: Your Hands Are Feet from Engadget and Verizon Media. This was also the year that nonprofit IDEA New Rochelle won the $1 Million Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge for their VR/AR Citizen toolkit to help the community co-design their city.