People
Board of Directors
Candace Chewning
Deputy Director, Philadelphia Department of Labor
Director, Office of Worker Protections
Sandra Clark
Chief Executive Officer, StoryCorps
Catherine Lee
Board Secretary
Chief Operations Officer, BlackStar Projects
Tuan H. Nguyen
Board Chair
Sr. Client Advisory, Managing Director, Rockefeller Capital Family Office
Blessy Thomas
Treasurer
Partner, Innovate Capital Growth Fund
Mary Yee, Ed.D
Educational Researcher, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
Staff
Ann Adachi-Tasch
(she/her)Project Manager
Clarissa Cheung
(she/they)Development Coordinator
Daniela Galindo
(she/her)Lead Teaching Artist
Dave Kyu
(he/him)Interim Executive Director| ext. 703
Devin McKnight
(he/him)Technical Director
Dominique Chua
(she/they)Programs Coordinator| ext. 710
Hanzi
(they/them)Teaching Artist
Jeanette Lloyd
(she/her)Director of Marketing
Jino Lee
(he/him)Brand & Publicity Director | ext. 706
Joey Wong
(they/them)Director of Development| ext. 708
Joyce Chung
(she/her)Curator| ext. 714
Kong Yang
(she/her)Youth Education Programs Manager| ext. 705
Liz Karcewski
(she/her)Operations Assistant
Matt Nelson
(they/all)Managing Director| ext. 707
Mehgan Abdel-Moneim
(she/her)Lead Teaching Artist
Samantha Cavanaugh
(she/her)Building Custodian
Samantha Quinn
(she/her)Operations Supervisor| ext. 709
Gayle Isa (Executive Director, 1993-2018) is a Founder and former Executive Director of Asian Arts Initiative. Gayle has been a Douglas Redd Fellow focused on arts and community development and has served on the boards of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, the National Performance Network, and the national Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists. She has also been a member of the Philadelphia Mayor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs and the Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Council, and was the first Asian American appointed to serve on the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She has been an aspiring dramaturg and taiko drummer, and is currently focusing her creative energy on parenting her school-aged daughter.
Anne Ishii (Executive Director, 2018-2024) is a writer, editor and translator, who for the past ten years has worked specifically to achieve visibility and recognition for art and artists that touches on issues of gender and sexuality in the Asian diaspora. In her quest to platform more and better iterations of work from the API diaspora, Anne has worked in publishing and advertising, venture consulting and content strategy.