Folklife Festival Staff

Click on the names below for biographies and contact info of staff members.

Meredith Adhikari Participant Assistant, Peace Corps Program

Lisa Allen Exhibit Worker/Painter

Betty Belanus Education Specialist Festival Accessibility Coordinator

Betty Belanus (M.A. and Ph.D., Indiana University) joined the Center staff in 1987. She curated Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs including Massachusetts (1988), Family Farms in the Heartland (1991), Working at the Smithsonian (1996), African Immigrants to Metropolitan D.C. (1997), New Hampshire (1999), Water Ways: Mid-Atlantic Maritime Communities (2004) and The Roots of Virginia Culture (2007). She is currently developing a Welsh culture program for 2009. She instituted the Folklore Summer Institute for Community Scholars (1989 and 1990) and a teacher seminar during the Festival. Other work includes education kits: Learning about Folklife: The U.S. Virgin Islands & Senegal, Borders and Identity, and Discovering Our Delta, an on-line exhibition and Smithsonian Global Sound features. She authored a novel, Seasonal (2002), and co-authored the children's book, Caravan to America: The Living Arts of the Silk Road (2002). Belanus was formerly the State Folk Arts Coordinator for the Indiana Arts Commission.

Marquinta Bell Administrative Specialist

202.633.0643, BellM@si.edu

Marquinta Bell came to the Center in January 2004, serving as an Administrative Specialist. She assists the Associate Director for Administration and Finance in the areas of accounting, budget, and finance. Her financial background includes positions at the Smithsonian's Office of the Comptroller, Cellular One, and AT&T Wireless.

Rogers Cartland Berge Electrician

Tim Bergstrom Exhibit Worker

Jason Bowers Coordinator, Peace Corps Program

202.633.7932, BowersJ@si.edu

Diana Bossa Bastidas Participant Assistant, Colombia Program

202.633.6523, Bossa-BastidasD@SI.edu

Joshua Bristol Exhibit Worker

Andy Buckman Exhibit Worker

Olivia Cadaval Folklorist and Chair, Cultural Research and Education Curator, Colombia Program

202.633.6473, CadavalO@si.edu

Olivia Cadaval has curated numerous Festival programs and exhibitions and has produced curriculum enrichment materials. She has worked extensively on documentation, public programs, and education projects in the Latino community of Washington, D.C. She published a book Creating a Latino Identity in the Nation's Capital: The Latino Festival on the Washington, D.C. Latino community and has written for a number of publications including Urban Odyssey, Creative Ethnicity, Washington at Home, New York Folklore, the Journal of Folklore Research, and The Public Historian. She helped establish the Latino Cultural Heritage Center with which she continues to collaborate in fieldwork training and exhibition development workshops for young people in the community. She is currently co-curator of the Nuestra Música: Music in Latino Culture project and co-curator of the Música del Pueblo Latino Music Virtual Exhibition. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and Folklife from George Washington University.

Josue Castilleja Senior Graphic Designer

202.633.7472, CastillejaJ@si.edu

Rachel Delgado-Simmons Marketplace Coordinator

202.633.3283, DelgadoR@si.edu

Brea Desguin Exhibit Worker

James Deutsch Curator, Peace Corps Program

202.633.6465, DeutschJ@si.edu

Jim Deutsch has curated several Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs, including National World War II Reunion (2004), Forest Service (2005), (as co-curator) Mekong River (2007), and NASA (2008). He has worked in many other capacities—including foodways coordinator, accessibility coordinator, program coordinator, researcher/presenter, and sound engineer—on other Festivals dating back to 1991. At other times, Deutsch has worked overseas (including three stints as a Fulbright Scholar), teaching classes on American folklore, film, history, and literature at universities in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Poland, and Turkey. He is currently adjunct faculty in George Washington University's American Studies Department (where he received his Ph.D. in 1991). Overall, he has held more than sixty different jobs, including: newspaper reporter (Indiana and Mississippi); librarian (Alaska, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.); park ranger/forest ranger (Alaska, Arizona, and Mississippi); census enumerator (Washington, D.C.); and Monorail operator (Walt Disney World).

Cristina Diaz-Carrera Coordinator, Colombia Program

202.633.6519, Diaz-CarreraC@si.edu

Linda Di Bernardo Exhibit Worker

Toby Dodds Webmaster/Technology Director

202.633.6461, DoddsT@si.edu

Toby Dodds came to the Center in April, 2001. Since that time he has helped introduce many technology innovations at the Center including the launch of Smithsonian Global Sound and the digitization of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Prior to coming to the Smithsonian he was employed by the Experience Music Project, a music museum in Seattle. He holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Washington in Seattle, and a Masters in Library and Information Science from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

James Early Director of Cultural Heritage Policy

202.633.6461, EarlyJ@si.edu

James Early has served in various positions at the Smithsonian, including Assistant Provost for Educational and Cultural Programs, and Assistant Secretary for Education and Public Service. Prior to his work with the Smithsonian, Early was a humanist-administrator at the National Endowment for the Humanities; producer, writer, and host of "Ten Minutes Left," a weekly radio segment of cultural, educational, and political interviews and commentary at WHUR-FM radio, Howard University; and a research associate for programs and documentation at the Howard University Institute for the Arts and Humanities. He is a long-time advocate and activist for cultural diversity and equity issues in national and international cultural and educational institutions, and has explored the implications of culture, ethnicity, nationality, capitalism and socialism in constructions of statecraft and democratic institutions. The main focus of his professional work is cultural democracy and development of cultural heritage policy. His service on boards includes the International Network for Cultural Diversity, TransAfrica Forum, the Institute for Policy Studies, Fundación Amistad, and Telesur. He has done graduate work (A.B.D.) in Latin American and Caribbean history, with a minor in African and African American history, at Howard University.

Jacob Epp Exhibit Worker

Ariel Fielding Festival Fellow

202.633.0322, FieldingA@si.edu

Esa Frazier Evening Concert Coordinator

FrazierE@si.edu

Zaki Ghul Visual Information Specialist

202.633.6487, GhulZ@si.edu

Jennifer Harris Volunteer Coordinator

202.526.3586, HarrisJ@si.edu

Marjorie Hunt Education Specialist

202.633.6471, HuntM@si.edu

Marjorie Hunt received her Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. Her extensive work in the area of occupational culture and the building arts includes her Academy- and Emmy Award-winning documentary film The Stone Carvers and her book The Stone Carvers: Master Craftsmen of Washington National Cathedral, published by Smithsonian Books. Hunt is a specialist in material culture, occupational culture, and folklore, culture, and aging. Her publications also include The Grand Generation: Memory, Mastery, Legacy. She has curated numerous programs for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, including Workers at the White House, Working at the Smithsonian, Masters of the Building Arts, and Carriers of Culture: Living Native Basket Traditions and served as curator for the SITES exhibition The Grand Generation, which grew out of a 1985 Folklife Festival program. She is the director of the documentary film Workers at the White House, produced in collaboration with the White House Historical Association, and co-producer and director of The Grand Generation.

Anna Kaplan Participant Assistant, Rhythm and Blues Program

202.633.6524, KaplanA@si.edu

Richard Kennedy Curator Emeritus

202.633.6434, Rich@si.edu

Richard Kennedy was Deputy Director of the Center from 1994 to 2008 and served as Acting Director until April 2009. He co-curated Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs: Hawai'i, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Russian Music, Tibetan Culture, Silk Road, Oman, and the Mekong River and coordinated larger institutional efforts such the Smithsonian's 150th Birthday Party. Previously he was Assistant Director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts. At the Council his film on Cambodian refugees won "Best Documentary" at the San Francisco Film Festival. For twelve years he was chair of South Asian Area Studies at the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute. Kennedy earned a Ph.D. in South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley and was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Connecticut College. He has taught courses at the Berkeley and Santa Cruz campuses of the University of California and has been on the boards of several non-profit organizations.

Stephen Kidd Director, Smithsonian Folklife Festival

202.633.2871, KiddS@si.edu

At the Center since 2001, Stephen Kidd was co-curator of the 2005 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program Food Culture USA, and he worked as a program coordinator for such Festival programs as New York City (2001), Silk Road (2002), and Scotland (2003). Kidd holds a doctorate in American studies from George Washington University. He earned his bachelor's degree in American history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and spent a spring semester studying Irish history and literature at University College in Galway, Ireland, in 1990. Prior to coming to the Smithsonian, Kidd worked in the photo archives at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was also editor of the scholarly journal American Studies International.

Sojin Kim Curator and Special Assistant to the Director

202.633.6468, KimSo@si.edu

Richard Kurin Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture

202.633.5229, Kurin@si.edu

Richard Kurin is the Smithsonian Institution's Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture. For over two decades, Richard Kurin served as the Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Kurin is a former Fulbright fellow with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books including Hope Diamond: The Legendary History of a Cursed Gem, Reflections of a Cultural Broker: A View from the Smithsonian, and Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Culture Of, By, and For the People as well as scores of scholarly chapters and articles. He was a keynote speaker for International Council of Museums at its triennial meeting in 2004 and gave the Founders Lecture at Harvard's Peabody Museum in 2007. He has been awarded the Smithsonian Secretary's Gold Medal for Exceptional Service and the American Folklore Society's Botkin Prize for lifetime achievement in public sector folklore.

Jeannette Lara Housing Coordinator

202.633.6526, LaraJ@si.edu

Michael Lavrich Carpenter

Van Luong Festival Blogger

202.633.0322, LuongV@si.edu

Krystyn MacGregor Design Director

202.633.6442, MacGregorK@si.edu

Arnie Malin Foodways Coordinator

202.633-6529, MalinA@si.edu

Elizabeth Martin
Supply Coordinator

202.633.6529, MartinE@si.edu

Ashley Matthews Marketplace Assistant

MatthewsA@si.edu

Eddie Mendoza Festival Services Manager

202.633.0641, MendozaE@si.edu

Eddie Mendoza started with CFCH as a cashier in the Marketplace at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival from 1993 to 1999. In 2000, Eddie began serving as Food Concessions Coordinator, working closely with food vendors at the Festival, and in 2006 he became Festival Services Manager. His responsibilities include making sure Festival food vendors meet the requirements of the National Park Service and the Public Health Inspector while they feed thousands of people daily during the event.

Trasan Moore Administrative Assistant

202.633.6528, MooreT@si.edu

Jason Morris Shipping Coordinator

MorrisJA@si.edu

Tyler Nelson
Carpenter

Diana Baird N'Diaye
Cultural Specialist and Curator

202.633.6472, NDiaye@si.edu

Diana Baird N'Diaye's research interests, specialties, and publications span the areas of African and African Diaspora folklife and ethnicity, ethnoaesthetics of dress, craft and design; cultural representation, heritage education, community-based tourism and cultural policy. She has curated Smithsonian Folklife Festival programs and exhibitions on Senegal, the communities, children's play, and performance of Maroon, African immigrant culture, Bermuda, Haiti and most recently on the African roots of Virginia's culture. She also coordinated program components on fashion for the Silk Road and Mali Festivals. She directed the Smithsonian's participation in the South African National Cultural Heritage Training and Technology Program, in partnership with Michigan State University, the Chicago Historical Society, and several South African cultural institutions. She has served on the Executive Board of the American Folklore Society, on the faculty of Georgetown University's African Studies Program, and as an advisor to several cultural and humanities institutions including UNESCO. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and visual studies from The Union Institute.

Diana Parker Director Emeritus, Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Diana Parker was director of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival from 1985 until 2010. She had worked on the Festival since 1975, prior to which she worked in various public program positions at the Smithsonian and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. She served as a consultant on several Cultural Olympiads, and an array of public events including the Smithsonian 150th Birthday Party, the Los Angeles Festival, and every public presidential inaugural celebration since Carter's in l976. She served as producer for the WWII Reunion on the Mall, held in conjunction with the dedication of the WWII Memorial, and The First Americans Festival, held to celebrate the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. She worked closely with sponsors, public officials, educational, cultural and arts organizations in numerous states and over forty nations. Parker graduated with distinction from the George Washington University, and received a Rotary Fellowship to study anthropology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Jeff Place Archivist Festival Audio Documentation Coordinator

202.6336438, PlaceJ1@si.edu

Jeff Place has been the archivist for the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at the Center since coming from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center in 1988. He oversees the cataloging of the Center's collections. He has an M.A. in library science from the University of Maryland and specializes in sound archives. He was on the Preservation and Technology Committee for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and is on the advisory board for the Woody Guthrie Archives. He has been involved in the compilation of thirty-eight CDs for Smithsonian Folkways including Woody Guthrie's Long Ways to Travel: The Unreleased Folkways Masters, which won him the 1994 Brenda McCallum Prize from the American Folklore Society, the Asch Recordings of Woody Guthrie, many of the Smithsonian Folkways Classic Series and the Lead Belly Legacy Series. Place has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and ten Indie Awards, winning two Grammys and five Indies. He was one of the producers and writers of the acclaimed 1997 edition of the Anthology of American Folk Music^™ and the Best of Broadside, 1962-1988 (2000). He is also involved in the radio series Sound Sessions from Smithsonian Folkways. Place has overseen the recording of a number of regional folk festivals in addition to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. He was a member of the curatorial team for the traveling Woody Guthrie exhibition, This Land Is Your Land, and the co-curator of the 2003 Appalachia program at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. He has been a collector of traditional music for over thirty-five years.

Mark Puryear Curator, Rhythm and Blues Program

202.633.0653, PuryearM@si.edu

Sita Reddy Editor

202.633.7933, ReddyS@si.edu

Arlene Reiniger Program Specialist and Intern Coordinator Coordinator, Rhythm and Blues Program

202.633.6443, ReinigerA@si.edu

Arlene Reiniger has been with the Center since 1982, when she worked with the Festival's participant staff. As program specialist, some of the projects she has coordinated have included the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings benefit album, "A Vision Shared: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly," a lecture series on contemporary South African society, and a multimedia education kit on Iowa folklife. As a Festival program coordinator, Arlene has worked on many music, state, regional, national, and international programs. And as intern coordinator, she has overseen the internships of several hundred people with the Center. Arlene received her B.A. from George Washington University in anthropology in 1979. She is married to Pete Reiniger, whom she met through the Festival, and they have one son, Eliot, who also knows his way around the Festival.

Pam Rogers IT Specialist

202.633.6437, RogersP@si.edu

Alex Saunders Assistant Technical Director

202.633.6482, SaundersA@si.edu

Travis Williams Saunders Exhibit Worker

Rob Schneider Festival Technical Director

202.633.0658, SchneiderR@si.edu

Rob holds a master of fine arts degree from Indiana University. Prior to joining our staff his work was primarily in the theater where he produced, designed, directed, and served in just about every other position short of wigs and makeup. Rob taught in the theatre departments of ASU and UA in Arizona as well as Chicago public schools. Rob has worked on several feature films, television programs, commercial /industrial events, music festivals, for such events as World Cup Soccer and the 1996 Olympic Games Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta. Since joining the center in 2000, he has directed production for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In addition to his work on the Folklife Festival, Rob has directed production on the dedication of The National Museum of the American Indian the National World War II Reunion and two National Pow Wows. He has also provided technical support on two presidential Inaugurals as well as providing production consulting to other agencies and organizations.

Anthony Seeger Curator Emeritus, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

202.633.6443, ASeeger@ucla.edu

Anthony Seeger is an anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, archivist, and musician. He received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. His research has concentrated on the music of Amazonian Indians in Brazil, where he lived for nearly ten years between. In 1982 he returned to the United States as Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music. In 1988 he moved to the Smithsonian Institution to assume the direction of Folkways Records and to become the curator of the archival collections of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. In 2000 he accepted a position as Professor in the Department of Ethnomusicology at the University of California at Los Angeles, and was appointed Curator Emeritus at the Smithsonian. Seeger is the author of four books and over fifty articles on anthropological, ethnomusicological, archival, intellectual property, and Indian rights issues.

Peter Seitel Folklorist Emeritus

SeitelP@si.edu

Daniel Sheehy Director, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Director, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and the Folkways Collections

202.633.6455, SheehyD@si.edu

Daniel Sheehy served as Director of Folk & Traditional Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts 1992-2000 and staff ethnomusicologist and Assistant Director, 1978-1992. Dr. Sheehy directed the National Heritage Fellowship awards and grants programs of $4 million annually for projects in the folk and traditional arts across the United States and its territories. A Fulbright-Hays scholar in Veracruz, Mexico, he earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA. He served as co-editor of the South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean volume of the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. His book Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture was published by Oxford University Press in 2006. The American Folklore Society honored him with the Benjamin A. Botkin prize in 1997, recognizing major impact on the field of public folklore.

Reshma Sinanan-Hill Production Manager

202.633.6479, Sinanan-HillR@si.edu

Stephanie Smith Assistant Archivist Festival Photo Documentation Coordinator

202.633.6439, SmithSDL@si.edu

Stephanie Smith came to the Center in 1995, and has served as the Center's visual materials archivist since then. Smith earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Scottish ethnology from the University of Edinburgh, and an M.A. degree in library science from the University of North Carolina. Her research specialties are English country dance; Scottish, English, and Appalachian folk music and dance traditions; and the British and American folk revival. Smith, with Daniel Walkowitz of New York University, and the Center's video producer Charles Weber, started the English Country Dance Video Documentation Project in 1999, with the ultimate goal of the production of a documentary film. Smith is the Convener of the American Folklore Society (AFS) Dance and Movement Analysis Section, co-Convener of the AFS British Folk Studies Section, and is an active member of the International Council for Traditional Music Ethnochoreology Study Group. She serves on the non-profit boards of the Country Dance and Song Society and Pinewoods Camp, Inc. in Massachusetts. In her spare time, Smith is a community dance caller and organizer, a musician, a photographer, a Jane Austen fan, and an avid traveler.

Laura Smith Participant Coordinator

202.633.6522, SmithLE@si.edu

Alaric Strickland Exhibit Worker

Barbara Strickland Associate Director, Finance and Administration

202.633.1151, StricklandB@si.edu

Barbara Strickland has been with the Center for thirty-two years, one of seven current staff who came to the Center in 1975 to work on the bicentennial Festival. (She was hired to work on the Native American Program at the Bicentennial.) Strickland was awarded the James E. Webb Fellowship in 1987 to pursue an associate degree in business. In 1996 she was awarded the Unsung Hero Award for her outstanding service and in 2004 she was awarded a certification of recognition for her extraordinary administrative work for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in helping people from all over the world represent themselves. She is one of the longest-serving Smithsonian employees of Native American heritage. She is a native of North Carolina and a member of the Lumbee tribe. She has been asked to serve on the board of directors for the Indian Cultural Center in North Carolina.

Claudia Telliho Financial Management Specialist

202.633.0639, TellihoC@si.edu

Claudia Telliho began her long relationship with the Smithsonian and the Center when she served as a Participant Coordinator for the Massachusetts program at the 1988 Folklife Festival. She spent four years with the National Council for the Traditional Arts as Director of National Touring Programs, before returning to the Smithsonian as an International Program Coordinator at The Smithsonian Associates. She has been at the Center as Administrative Specialist since October 2003.

Martin Thoman Exhibit Worker

Angelita Thomas Assistant to the Technical Director

202.633.6481, ThomasAng@si.edu

Tom Vennum, JR. Senior Ethnomusicologist Emeritus

VennumT@si.edu

Tom Vennum is a graduate of Yale and holds graduate degrees from Harvard and the New England Conservatory of Music. He has specialized in the music of American Indian peoples of the Western Great Lakes and is the author of a classic study on wild rice in Indian culture and a book on American Indian lacrosse. He has been active in promoting the revival of lacrosse on Wisconsin reservations.

Charles Weber Media Specialist Festival Video Documentation Coordinator

202.633.6441, WeberC@si.edu

Charles Weber has been at the Center since 1996. He produces, directs and edits educational, documentary, web and exhibit films. As a workshop instructor, he teaches field research documentation methods and history. His work has won numerous awards, appeared in film festivals the world over, and has been broadcast regionally on Public Broadcasting stations, internationally, and via networks such as the Smithsonian Channel. He has covered the Smithsonian Folklife Festival extensively since 1996 and produced video projects in locations across the U.S. and the globe. He holds a B.A. in Television and Radio with a minor in Cinematography from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and a M.A. in Creative Writing at George Mason University.

Sandy Wang Web Designer

202.633.7478, WangSA@si.edu

Eileen Wayner Assistant to the Director

202.633.0644, WaynerE@si.edu