Charlotte Montel has been Consul General of France in Chicago since September 2025. A career diplomat, she joined the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in 2005 and has held senior positions in Ottawa, Pretoria, New York, and Paris, working on cultural diplomacy, security cooperation, sustainable development, and international relations.
Debra Kerr (car) is president and CEO of Intuit Art Museum, a position she has held since 2014. Deb’s passion is for the role museums can play in social good and increasing museum relevance through programming focused on bringing the traditionally overlooked into community. She is excited by opportunities to introduce audiences to unexpected engagement with art. She has overseen an $11 million renovation and expansion of Intuit with the vision to create a welcoming museum space like none other, tripling the size of the museum and expanding exhibition and education spaces. Prior to Intuit, Deb spent 17 years at the world-renowned Shedd Aquarium, 11 as executive vice president.
Founded in 1991, Intuit is a premier museum of art made by untrained creators; Intuit champions the diverse voices of self-taught art, welcoming both new and familiar audiences.
Sibylle Friche (born France, 1983) is Partner at DOCUMENT gallery in Chicago where she served as the gallery’s first Director between 2015 and 2022. Prior to DOCUMENT, she was the Director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago and Galerie Laurent Godin in Paris. She holds degrees in French and Hispanic Studies and an M.A. in Arts Administration from University of Lille, France. Friche has also worked at various institutions such as the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Buenos Aires, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Le Plateau / FRAC Ile de France in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Project Onward is a Chicago-based nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting artists with disabilities. Since 2004, it has provided a safe, professional studio environment, fostered connections with the wider arts community, and used art to challenge stigma, promote empathy, and inspire social change.
Isabelle Olivier has collaborated with such artistic luminaries as Oscar winner filmmaker Agnes Varda, drummer Peter Erskine, violin player Didier Lockwood, and developed an instantly recognizable style using her rare and fascinating instrument: the harp. Exploring both acoustic and electronic music, she composes jazz that is open to all influences.
After Olivier became the first composer to win the Villa Le Notre – Versailles Prize, The Art Institute in Chicago asked her to write and perform an artistic response to the exhibition “Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist.” Her project “Oasis,” with Rez Abbasi, was supported by the FACE Foundation. Her new project « Open » – her 13th album is supported by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation which will be released in September 2026. Olivier is passionate about exchanges between cultures and generations.
Cédric Cerna is a physicist at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Director of the Particle Physics & Cosmology International Research Laboratory (IRL PPC) at the University of Chicago. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Joseph Fourier University in 2000, specializing in neutrino.
Cerna has made significant contributions to several high-profile experiments, including the DUNE experiment in the United States, where he manages CNRS’s contributions, and the JUNO experiment in China, where he has played a leading role in detector development. His expertise spans neutrino physics and dark energy, with an emphasis on designing and managing large-scale scientific projects and international collaborations.
Throughout his career, Cerna has earned several research grants, mentoring Ph.D. students and supervising internships. He has been involved in numerous international collaborations and published over 70 peer-reviewed articles.
Rachelle Hill is a Chicago-based artist with an MFA in Printmaking. Rachelle currently works as an art administrator and teaching artist for the Chicago Park District, developing art programs and events. Rachelle serves as Vice President for the Chicago Printers Guild and has worked throughout Chicago with youth and adults creating accessible art spaces for all while building community. Her current work explores mapping as a way to investigate identity, creating a dialogue through the use of abstraction to contemplate how home and landscape condition the way we approach the world utilizing printmaking and textile methods.
Alfonso “Piloto” Nieves Ruiz is a visionary artist who transforms clay and discarded items into captivating works of art highlighting the resilience, struggles, and triumphs of communities and individuals who often go unseen. His journey as a former undocumented immigrant from the Sierra Gorda de Guanajuato and Queretaro’s barrios is a testament to the power of art as a tool for self expression, communication, and transformation.
www.artistapiloto.com
Daniel X. and Shawn-Laree O’Neil created the taxonomy and definition of Arte Agora—art that is made placed or sold in the public way. They have collaborated on two books on the subject: Arte Agora and Spots Forms and Methods in Arte Agora. Wherever they are, they take pictures, archive, index, document, and collect art of all kinds.
Lisa Kahn is a native of Scottsdale, AZ who has resided in Chicago for over 35 years. She is a founding member and Chair of French Heritage Society’s Chicago-Midwest Chapter. Working professionally as an Art Historian, she also indulges her passion for the culinary arts with work in the food sector. Lisa has worked as an Assistant Curator in the Department of Decorative & Industrial Arts at the Chicago History Museum and Assistant Appraiser at Fine Arts Appraisers. She cooked in a French bistro, co-authored the cookbook, The Fairway Gourmet, and helped produce the eponymous pilot series which aired on PBS in 2005-6. In recent years, Lisa has provided art historical research and content marketing for Galerie Fledermaus. She developed and gives food tasting and cultural walking tours through Chicago neighborhoods with the French expatriate group, Chicago Discovery. An avid francophile, Lisa continues on her quest to communicate couramment en français. She directs the French Heritage Corridor, an initiative which comprises seven states in the Midwest (IA; IL; IN; MI; MN; MO and WI). This network, joined by waterways connecting to the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes, transcends borders to recreate in the Midwest what was once la Nouvelle France.
Tiphanie Babinet is a French/American independent curator and artist. She is the founder and director of Hana Pietri, a Chicago-based artist-run platform, gallery + studio that champions self-taught and contemporary artists and projects.