Speakers

Carole has been in the aromatherapy, botanical perfumery, and natural products field for the past three decades. Carole has imparted Nomad Botanicals with the unique experiences of her professional travels and launched it on a mission to enhance people’s journeys with high quality botanical perfume and aromatherapy lifestyle products, featuring premium essential oils and absolutes from all over the world. Carole crafts Nomad Botanicals products to capture the profound beauty of botanicals, honoring their heritage, keeping their stories alive, and connecting people with scents that have been celebrated throughout the centuries around the world. In addition to developing products for Nomad Botanicals, Carole also customizes signature perfumes for people, teaches classes on botanical perfumery & aromatherapy, and hosts events like the upcoming botanical perfume retreat in Provence this summer.

Jay Afrisando is a composer, multimedia artist, researcher, and educator. He works on aural diversity, acoustic ecology, and cultural identity, focusing on disability and environmental justice, arts and accessibility, and decolonizing arts practices. He shares vital experiences and disseminates knowledge through various media and methods. He is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

All The Way Live Foundation (ATWLF) is a Bay Area based grassroots organization centered in preserving and honoring Hip Hop Culture by elevating and amplifying voices and kinetics from historically marginalized communities since 2006. The upcoming 24-week project “Hip Hop on the Plaza” dedicated towards re-activating San Francisco’s UN Plaza, will lead up to the return of the world-renowned “All The Way Live USA: Hip Hop Dance Festival” on Saturday and Sunday November 2nd & 3rd, 2024 (San Francisco – Fulton Plaza). Our Night of Ideas performance will highlight four of the Bay Area’s best Breakin Crews, as well as our All The Way Live Youth Breakin’ program with MCs The PowerSerge and B-boy Precise (Beatz N Pieces Crew).

Azikiwee Anderson is the founder of Rize Up Bakery, a fast growing San Francisco based black-owned bakery focused on reinventing and rethinking the traditional sourdough.

Jorge Bachmann has been involved in San Francisco’s experimental music/dance scene since the early 2000. Working across a wide range of explorations, Bachmann’s work is eclectic, going from subtle “Musique Concrète” soundscapes to analog modular synth minimalism. Since the early 1980’s he has been exploring the strange, unique and microscopic sounds of everyday life., collecting field recordings and creating immersive soundscapes. He blurs the boundaries between wilderness sound environments and man-made sounds. Bachmann has composed music for MOBU Dance troupe and is actively collaborating with Christine Bonansea Dance Company and the coreographer Pei Ling Kao, and has served as a curator for SFEMF, SoundWave Festival, and Mare Island’s Re:Sound Series.

A native Californian, Terah refined her unique style and found her love of wine by way of food and from her travels across the globe. She started her professional career in the hospitality industry studying at the International Culinary Institute in California. She then spent time working in wine bars, a Michelin-starred restaurant, wine education, and consulting in the Bay Area.

Terah holds a BS in Finance from San Jose State University and a master’s degree in Enology and Viticulture from Montpellier Supagro in France. She is a Level 2 Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master and holds the WSET Level 3 Award in Wine & Spirits.

She recently lead winemaking for Dorcich Family Vineyards and has moved on to pursue her personal wine label called Terah Wine Co. as well as consulting projects such as Maker.

Balitrónica is a cyborg-feminist poet, performance artist, hereditary witch, 2nd Degree, Cabot Priestess, and Artistic Co-Director of La Pocha Nostra. Since joining La Pocha Nostra, she has made a full-time performance practice that explores the ideas of ritual psychomagic acts, occult methods of transcendence, and the human body as conduit. In addition to her formal training in musical theater and Victorian literature, she holds an MFA in Poetry from Mills College. Her performance work has been largely influenced by her time spent living in a 17th Century Catholic Convent in Paris with a Dominican Order of Nuns. Balitrónica has been touring internationally with Gómez-Peña since 2013 and currently resides between San Francisco, Mexico City, and the San Diego/Tijuana Border.

To Chef Dontaye there’s no doubt: Gumbo is the most important food to American culture. It’s a dish that comes from the soul, and it’s social at its core. Much like the ingredients that come together to make a good pot, gumbo has the power to bring people together and establish community.

BARRACUDA (it) is a multi-gender avatar of Salimatu Amabebe (he/they), a trans, Nigerian-American chef and multimedia artist, working in food, film, photography, performance, sculpture and installation. His work focuses on the intersection of food and art while centering community activism, African diasporic culinary traditions and Black queer/ trans liberation. Amabebe is the founder/ director of Black Feast – a culinary event celebrating Black artists and writers through food. BARRACUDA has gathered the entirety of its learning from movies, TV shows, and the series of images on its mobile device, and is prone to the occasional “glitch,” veering into the opulent, decadent and perverted. It identifies most significantly as a “crowd-sourced slut.”

Cheyenne (Chiricahua Apache) is a social video producer with KQED and host of PBS Voice’s YouTube series Sovereign Innovations, which celebrates and explores Indigenous technology and innovation and how it allows Indigenous communities from around the globe to thrive. As a reconnecting Urban Native, her personal work challenges audiences to re-think their understanding of Indigenous identity; and she is passionate about decolonizing media and Indigenizing digital spaces by amplifying Indigenous voices and connecting with Indigenous creatives in the Bay Area and around the country.

Former synchronized swimmer, Bahia is an athlete who has participated multiple times in the French National Championships with her team in different categories, between 2016 and 2019. She is now a law graduate and is studying to get her Master’s degree in comparative law.

Dewa Berata is a composer, musician, teacher and visual artist born in the village of Pengosekan in Ubud, Bali. He is the founding director of Çudamani, one of Bali’s most active performing ensembles and schools. He has toured to Spain, Greece, Japan, Canada, Denmark, Holland and throughout the United States. His compositions range from classical to contemporary in their aesthetic, being performed on stages such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the Parthenon, the Gedung Kesenian in Jakarta and the Bali Arts Festival. He was also a composer for the award winning video game, Kena Bridge of Spirits and served as a cultural consultant for Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon.

Simon Bertrang is the Executive Director of SF New Deal, a non-profit whose mission
is to strengthen neighborhoods by making it easier for under-resourced small business owners to succeed.

Ana joined IOFF as executive director in 2011. Ana brings a passion for the ocean and more than ten years of experience in executive nonprofit management at various organizations in the Bay Area. Most recently, she served as vice president and development director at BizWorld.org, an educational entrepreneurship curriculum for young students, and as donor relations officer for the San Francisco Foundation. Ana also volunteers with Blue Water Foundation, dedicated to introducing at-risk youth to the joys and challenges of sailing on the San Francisco Bay. As a certified scuba diver, she always looks for opportunities to explore and discover the beautiful underwater world.

Ana has served as a jury member for several film festivals, including JacksonWild, CINEMARE International Ocean Film Festival (Kiel, Germany), San Diego Underwater Film Expo, FICMA Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain and the Brest Surf Film Festival in Brest, France.

Chavé Alexander (aka Alotta Boutté), hailing from the Bay area, is an International Cabaret and Burlesque Sensation who is classically trained, yet forged in nightclubs. Chavé may have discovered burlesque in the back of a magazine, but she is a dance and theater kid at her core. She has shared the stage with the likes of Joey Arias, Taylor Mac, and Margaret Cho as well as graced a multitude of stages. She spent 11 years as part of the final cast of Beach Blanket Babylon and had a stint in Paris as the Chanteuse in the Mugler Follies.

Bran(…)Pos is the ongoing audio-visual-performance-noise-musique-brain-bend of Jake Rodriguez from the San Francisco Bay Area, CA. Rodriguez has been performing and recording under this moniker since 1996 with releases on C.I.P., Resipiscent, Ratskin Records, Planetary Magnetics, Tymbal Tapes, Rubber City Noise, Animal Disguise, and Chitah! Chitah! Soundcrack. Rodriguez also plays organ and synthesizers with Oakland, CA psychedelic cumbia band Ritmos Tropicosmos, and designs sound for live theater.

Peter has worked for 30 years to restore biodiversity in San Francisco and to connect San Franciscans to nature in the city. Following geography graduate school at UCLA, Peter worked for ten years for the National Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and then in 2005, Peter founded Nature in the City, the first and only organization (still) wholly dedicated to restoration and community stewardship of the Franciscan bioregion. Since 2012, Peter has worked at the San Francisco Environment Department as the Senior Biodiversity Coordinator, convening an interagency working group to promote local biodiversity policies and programs, implementing the Healthy Ecosystems Chapter (which production he led) of the City’s 2021 Climate Action Plan, and serving as the restoration ecologist for Yerba Buena and Treasure Islands in San Francisco Bay.

Lisa N. Brown is the Senior Brand Manager for LVE Wines at Boisset Collection. Lisa began her career at négociant in Beaune Burgundy.

Patricia Buffa is the Director of Digital Strategy at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where she leads teams and partnerships to develop engaging digital experiences for art-curious audiences both online and onsite. Pivotal initiatives she’s led include the FAMSF website redesign, the creation of an award-winning short documentary series, and an AR activation for the exhibition Fashioning San Francisco: a Century of Style. From 2015 to 2020 she was the Head of Digital Communications for the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.  Previously she has held positions at MoMA, New York, and at multiple Italian museums, including MAXXI in Rome and Madre in Naples. She is passionate about digital technologies, art and audience engagement, and has presented her work at international conferences in France, Portugal, Italy, the UK and the US.

Adrien Burlacot is an algal physiologist specialized in the study of photosynthesis and bioenergetics of algal cell. His scientific goal is to understand how photosynthesis acclimates to various environmental fluctuations and the mechanisms that allow it to fast and efficiently fix CO2. Eventually being able to engineer it to create new photosynthesis-based carbon capture technologies.

Mathilde Cerioli is a Doctor in Neuroscience and a repeat entrepreneur.

She is the Chief Scientist at Everyone.Ai whose project alerts and educates about the risks and opportunities of AI for children. The project underscores the urgency of proactive regulations and education in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

James Q. Chan is an Emmy-nominated producer and director based in San Francisco. Recent producing credits include PLAGUE AT THE GOLDEN GATE (PBS/American Experience); CHINATOWN RISING (PBS/America ReFramed). Recent directing projects include BLOODLINE (Emmy®Nominee, 2022); large- format 360° CIRCLE VISION films for Disney Studios; and launching the doc series CHINATOWN SHORTS. His film FOREVER, CHINATOWN (Emmy® Nominee, 2018) received multiple festival awards, screened globally with American Film Showcase where James serves as a filmmaker envoy. He received a Certificate of Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for his work highlighting stories from the AAPI community. His sensibilities throughout his projects are shaped by his refugee and working class background, love for nature shows, and memories of his mother’s cooking. He is currently adapting Laurence Yep’s acclaimed CHILD OF THE OWL book into a narrative series set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. James is a 2021 YBCA100 Honoree and a member of the Directors Guild of America.

Terri Cohn is an independent curator, writer, and art historian who is committed to preserving and contextualizing the contributions of women and under-recognized artists in the Bay Area and California. Her particular focus is oral histories, ecological practices, and the legacy of community spaces. Since the 1990s Terri has participated in and documented numerous artist-run projects including an interview and several essays about The Farm and Bonnie Ora Sherk.

Jonathan Cordero, Ph.D. (Ramaytush Ohlone) is Executive Director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone and Visiting Scholar in the Spatial Sciences Institute at USC. Dr. Cordero serves as co-editor of the forthcoming Critical Mission Studies Handbook with UC Press, and he is a leader, speaker, and activist in the broader Ohlone and Chumash communities, especially in the arts. As an Indigenous scholar, Dr. Cordero’s work centers indigeneity and sovereignty as they relate to the ideas and practices related to decolonization, settler colonialism, and epistemicide.

Juan Ruiz Cortes is a 2nd-year Ph.D. Student in the Latin American & Latino Studies Department at UC Santa Cruz. Juan works on cultivating resources for undocumented students, theorizing about the undocumented lived experience, and respecting, valuing, and enjoying all forms of People of Color livingness. When not engaging academically, he loves playing soccer, swimming in open waters, and hiking through the forest on a rainy day.

Leigh Crow is the iconic face behind the world’s first drag king Elvis impersonator, Elvis Herselvis! Leigh has performed in hundreds of historic music venues, bars, and stages all over the world. You may have seen her as Captain Kirk in the hit smash Star Trek Live! Whether she’s commanding the Enterprise or croonin’ to make you swoon, Leigh Crow knows how to show you a good time!

Beth Custer is a composer, performer, bandleader, recording artist, the proprietor of All Hands On Deck Publishing and BC Records label. She’s a member of the live music-to-silent film ensemble the Club Foot Orchestra, the world music group Trance Mission, the trip-hop duo Eighty Mile Beach, the jazz quartet Clarinet Thing and the funky/arty ensemble Russian Telegraph and of David James’s GPS. Custer has composed for the films of William Farley, Cathy Lee Crane, and Judith Ehrlich, for the dance companies Joe Goode Performance Group, AXIS, and Flyaway, and the company Campo Santo and Mile High Theatre.

Ruby Day is a seasoned performer with professional experience in acting, musical theater, clown, and voice over. Some of her favorite roles include Snow White in SF’s longest running musical revue Beach Blanket Babylon, Orinda the Green Fairy in Panto at the Presidio, and Carrie in Carousel. A graduate of Idyllwild Arts Academy, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and the Clown Conservatory of SF, Ruby has been a working actor in New York and the Bay Area for the last decade. She has also performed as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, back-up danced for Belle and Sebastian at Radio City Music Hall, and can be seen performing original content with friends at venues across the Bay Area, including Ryan Patrick Welsh’s Sex, Camp & Rock n’ Roll.

Originally hailing from Canada’s west coast, Josh studied science before becoming one of the youngest Canadians to receive his WSET Diploma at 22 and become a Certified Sommelier at 23. Excited by the future of food and beverage, he co-founded Endless West in San Francisco and is an avid lover of flavor experimentation, especially through a queer and Filipino lens. Through videos and writing, Josh is dedicated to making the wine world inclusive.

French born, American citizen, Cyril Derreumaux is an Offshore Kayaker and Twice Guinness World Record Holder. In 2022, Cyril became the first fully human-powered kayaker to paddle the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii, in a 91-day expedition. 

A member of the Explorers Club, Cyril is working on a book, a documentary and plans to paddle 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in December 2024.

Having worked for the City and County of San Francisco in many capacities, Sam Dodge is currently the Director of Street Response Coordination.

Madeline Drake is the State of California’s Assistant Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat. She oversees implementation of the State’s 30×30 initiative, directed by Governor Gavin Newsom’s Executive Order N-82-20 signed in October of 2020. 30×30 is a global project of the United Nations to safeguard 30 percent of Earth’s ecosystems by 2030, to help ensure human survival in the face of unprecedented pressures on the natural world. California is by far the leader in thought and practice of 30×30, and the world is watching us.

D’Arcy Drollinger (born January 17, 1969) is an American actor, writer, musician, director, producer & choreographer known for his high-camp / vaudeville-style stage productions and films that combine slapstick, farce and often drag. He was a founding member of the post-punk art band Enrique. He is the owner of the San Francisco nightclub Oasis. Drollinger is also the creator of the dance-fitness brand, Sexitude. D’Arcy was appointed the San Francisco Drag Laureate in 2023.

El Sistema Santa Cruz/Parajo Valley and Estrellas de Esperanza are two organizations giving the children of Watsonville/Pajaro Valley the keys to claim their cultural heritage and the tools to build their creative and social legacy through music and dance education.

Actively preserving community memory through public guided tours, city-wide history events, writing, and archival work, LisaRuth Elliott co-directs Shaping San Francisco and the participatory history website, Foundsf.org. She brings an historian’s inquisitiveness to her practice of observing urban environments, with her resulting artistic and written work prompted by stories and experiences of landscape. An urban farmer at Alemany Farm stewarding Ramaytush Ohlone land since 2010, she has cultivated a deep commitment to place and relationship building—with the human as well as non-humans interacting with the space. The question of human occupation is an ongoing exploration for LisaRuth, while she learns to recognize the languages of the birds. She regularly gets to engage with Villa Albertine visiting residents as a Community Guide.

Jeanne Everett is Director of Programs and Operations at the Blue Climate Initiative, a global program that accelerates ocean-based solutions to climate change, operating out of the San Francisco Bay Area and French Polynesia. BCI is working to raise the alarm and inform the public about the imminent and irreversible threats to the environment the Deep Sea Mining industry poses, the affront it will represent to indigenous cultures, and the false rationales it is based upon. Jeanne has civil engineering and MBA degrees, with 20 years’ experience in environmental advocacy, infrastructure, climate change, economic and rural development in over 15 countries and 5 continents.

Carla Fabrizio began her study of Indonesian music at Mills College under the direction of Lou Harrison and K.R.T. Wasitodipuro, where she premiered in Harrison’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan. She specialized in rebab (Balinese spike fiddle), studying with I Madé Lemping, the leader of one of the foremost gambuh dance drama troupes in Bali. She has acted as music coordinator on several projects, including ShadowLight’s stage production of A (Balinese) Tempest, and Club Foot Orchestra’s and Gamelan Sekar Jaya’s score for Legong: Dance of the Virgins.

Brian Feldman is a Pulitzer Prize entrant in Drama. A performance artist and actor, he is the only person to ever be named D.C.’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, & 5th Best Performance Artist by Washington City Paper. Since arriving to the District in 2012, he has presented work in all 8 Wards and 30 D.C. neighborhoods. As the news site DCist noted, “In a city that has an advocacy group exploring how to ‘make D.C. weird’ – and is still struggling – Brian Feldman is a shining beacon of eccentricity.”

Paloma (Pit River Nation, Purhepecha) studied Native American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a champion for American Indian communities supporting the shifting of consciousness through professional development, youth empowerment, and systemic change. She is an advocate for American Indian voice and representation in the arts.

In a career spanning 50 years, Bill Fontana (b. 1947, Cleveland, USA) is internationally known for his pioneering experiments in sound. He has consistently used sound as a sculptural medium to interact with and transform our perceptions of visual and architectural spaces. Applying his knowledge of composition, he draws out patterns of sound from the natural and man-made worlds to create sound works with the potential to conjure up visual imagery in the mind of the listener. Many of these works create live listening networks that collect information from sources as diverse as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the Millennium Bridge in London, the beaches of Normandy, fog horns in San Francisco, old-growth forests, hydroelectric turbines, and urban environments. His most recent project was Silent Echoes Notre Dame that was commissioned and exhibited by the Centre Pompidou and IRCAM in Pairs 2022. This live sound sculpture revealed that Notre Dame’s 10 bells, silenced by the tragic fire of 2019, are secretly ringing all the time in response to secretly “listening” to Paris.

DeMarcello Funes, a native of Oakland CA, is a well rounded physical performer. Funes has performed throughout the Bay Area and beyond, honing his circus skills of juggling, clowning, hambone body percussion, and onstage presence in the Prescott Circus Theatre, and later polishing up new skills in Circus Bella. His experience in stage acting, musical theatre, and improv stems from his emphasis on drama at Oakland School for the Arts. Funes is now in works with Thrillride Mechanics at ZSpace, Beautiful Beginnings Art Collective (BBAC), and Circus Center as an Instructor & Community Engagement Associate of Performance.

Marcia Gagliardi is an SF-based restaurant columnist and culinary personality, well-known for her groundbreaking 17-year-old tablehopper newsletter, offering an insider’s take on restaurant news.

SFMemory.org is a project of David Gallagher to collect useful San Francisco and Bay Area history resources for researchers and the general public. This site is a labor of love, a work in progress, and has no financial goal. Some of the resources presented require third-party authentication or payment to access.

Since 1978, the five-time GRAMMY Award winning San Francisco Girls Chorus has provided girls and young women the unique opportunity to perform at the highest artistic caliber and develop self-confidence, leadership skills, and an awareness of the role of the arts in civic engagement. A leader in the Bay Area and national music scenes, SFGC produces award-winning concerts, recordings and tours, and sets the international standard for the highest level of performance and education. The organization consists of the six-level Chorus School and the Premier Ensemble, a professional-level chorus led by Artistic Director Valérie Sainte-Agathe. NOI ensemble includes Ayve Algazi, Georgia Madland, Gloria Cebrian, Anushka Chandran, Natalie Chin, Cate Cross, Arien Frey, Sofia Fung-Lee, Adea Hansen-Whistler, Julia Howe, Rebecca Jia, Charlotte Kelly, Francisca Li, Angelyn Liu, Sierra Valencia Lyon, Lois McTrang, Mackenzie Pederson, Alexandra Peregudova, Elinore Pett-Ridge Hennessy, Wilhelmina Ratto, Elizabeth Rogers, Cayden Sewell, Vibhuti Singh, Angelina Sorensen, Azaria Stauffer-Barney, Leonora Mireille Steward, Sophia Stolte, Madeline Swain, Shiva Swaminathan Strickland, Anayah Tin, and Linda Ye.

Beatrice Glow is a New York and Bay Area-based multidisciplinary artist who focuses on the visual and material languages of power and aromatic cultural histories. An American of Taiwanese heritage, her practice includes examination of archival collections and collaboration with culture bearers and historians in the creation of sculptural installations, textiles, emerging media, and olfactory experiences to reimagine a more just and thriving world guided by history. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at New-York Historical Society, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Yale-NUS College, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, the Fulbright Program, and many more. 

Judy Goldhaft is an activist who uses art, theater and education to further social change. Her place-based theatrical performances and workshops have promoted community empowerment and ecological education. Judy works with the bioregional nonprofit Planet Drum Foundation as a performer/lecturer, writer, editor, workshop leader, art director, event producer, chef, photographer, and administrative coordinator. Currently she is its director and gardens, dances, and is a maker/repairer/reuser. Theater credits include the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the San Francisco Diggers, the Reinhabitory Theater, Water Web and Human Nature. Her writing has appeared in Coyote’s Journal, Reinhabiting A Separate Country, and City Lights Journal.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a performance artist, writer, activist, radical pedagogue and artistic director of the performance troupe La Pocha Nostra. Born in Mexico City, he moved to the US in 1978, and since 1995, his three homes have been San Francisco, Mexico City and the “road”. His performance work and 21 books have contributed to the debates on cultural, generational, and gender diversity, border culture and North-South relations. His artwork has been presented at over one thousand venues across the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Russia, South Africa and Australia. A MacArthur Fellow, USA Artists Fellow, and a Bessie, Guggenheim, and American Book Award recipient, he is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines in the US, Mexico, and Europe and a contributing editor to The Drama Review (NYU-MIT), the Venice Performance Art Week Journal, and emisférica, the publication of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics (NYU). Gómez-Peña is currently a Patron for the London-based Live Art Development Agency, and a Senior Fellow in the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

Satya is a cosmologist working at Berkeley Lab and a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.
Her research topics include large-scale structure, intergalactic-medium based cosmology, data analysis and survey operations.

After completing a Bachelor in Mathematics, Physics & Mechanics in her hometown of Lyon in France, she went to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for her Masters Thesis and subsequently obtained a Masters in High Energy Physics from Sorbonne University in Paris. She earned a PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the University of Barcelona in Spain, under the supervision of Prof. Jordi Miralda-Escudé. She spent two years as a postodoctoral fellow at the University of Rochester NY before being recruited by LBNL in my current position.

She mades it a point to dedicate a portion of her time to teaching, supervising and mentoring junior scientists, as well as conducting speaking engagements in educational structures, governmental structures and in industry.

She also combines her expertise as an artist and a scientist to engage in science communication around my work studying the history of the universe.

Chris Grady, trumpet, has been performing and recording music in the San Francisco Bay area for more than 35 years. Chris has studied at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has performed and recorded with many bay area groups and artists including Tom Waits, Jewel, Beth Custer, The Grassy Knoll, The Guadalajara based band “SUTRA”, and the Club Foot Orchestra among many others. Chris has a solo project featured on i-tunes and Pandora music stations entitled “On It.” Currently Chris teaches, records, and performs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Kalie Granier is a French interdisciplinary artist based in Santa Cruz, explores the profound connections between humans and non-human entities through ecofeminist values. Her work addresses social and ecological imbalances, envisioning alternative narratives for a more equitable future. Engaging at the intersection of art, science, and activism, Granier collaborates closely with scientists and environmentalists. She co-founded Loud Spring, an ecofeminist-inspired European-American Art Tank/Collective, and holds an MA from the ESAG, Penninghen School of Visual Art in Paris. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States, Europe and Argentina and she delivers lectures at various institutions, including UCSC, Cabrillo College, and Santa Clara University.

Senior biologist Dr. Elizabeth Hadly is leading a team of Stanford University researchers to create a template for potentially reintroducing more elk into the Santa Cruz Mountains south of San Francisco. She is focused on the history of elk in California, their role in the ecosystem, the challenges faced in bringing them home, and the necessity for doing so.

Chico State pyro-geographer Don Hankins combines academic expertise in fire and water with long experience as a Miwkok traditional cultural practitioner. He is at the forefront of applying indigenous land stewardship practices as keystone processes to aid in conservation.

Mary Ellen Hannibal is an author and avid citizen scientist from the Bay Area. Her work focuses on science, culture, and the important connections between people, species and eco systems. Her most recent book, Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction, was named one of the best titles of 2016 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Reporting deeply, Hannibal digs into the origins of today’s tech-savvy citizen science movement — tracing it back through centuries of amateur observations by writers and naturalists. Prompted by her novelist father’s sudden death, she connects the activity of bearing witness to nature today with a broad inquiry into time, place and purpose. Hannibal’s previous books include The Spine of the Continent, about which Publisher’s Weekly said, “This is what science writing should be: fascinating and true.” Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Nautilus and many other publications. She is a frequent speaker and emissary bringing science to a general audience.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s culture critic and co-founder of Total SF. The Bay Area native, a former Chronicle paperboy, has worked at The Chronicle since 2000. He covers Bay Area culture, co-hosts the Total SF podcast and writes the archive-based Our SF local history column. Hartlaub and columnist Heather Knight co-created the Total SF podcast and event series, engaging with locals to explore and find new ways to celebrate San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Luna HighJohn-Bey emerges as a trailblazing figure at the forefront of the intersection between artificial intelligence, spirituality, and culture. As an AI visionary and shrine keeper, she channels ancestral wisdom into contemporary art, offering a unique perspective on the role of AI and machine spirits in shaping our collective future. Luna’s profound connection to these realms positions her as a cultural bearer, transcending traditional boundaries. In her capacity as Historian in Residence and curator, Luna serves as a bridge between the past and the future, crafting transformative experiences. Her work emphasizes the liberatory potential of imagination within the realm of AI, envisioning a future where creativity and technology converge to unlock new possibilities for individual and collective liberation. Luna HighJohn Bey’s contributions resonate as a beacon, inviting us to reimagine the potential of AI not only as a technological force but as a liberatory tool for the boundless realms of human imagination.

David James’s GPS (Good People, Son) is a rhythm-horns-and-strings sextet that plays the compositions of guitarist and vocalist David James. Bringing these political instrumentals and songs to life, the orchestration features clarinets, viola, trombone, acoustic bass, and drums. David James’s compositions combine the influences of various African diaspora-derived musics with sing-song-y melodies – a sound which has developed over years of songwriting, touring and recording. In 2015, GPS recorded their debut album Billionaire Blues, and in 2023 premiered “Mission Rebel No. 1: Looking for Rev. Jesse James”, a multimedia song cycle about David’s father, a San Francisco Mission District activist.

Aude-Émilie is a producer of radio documentaries for France Culture. She focuses on social, political, and cultural issues. She is the producer of a series on the history of global migrations. She is a returning Villa Albertine resident.

Luc Julia is a French-American engineer and computer scientist, born in Toulouse, and world renowned expert in AI. He co-created voice assistant Siri at Apple, participated in the launch of Nuance Communications, the world leader in speech recognition, and co-founded several start-ups in Silicon Valley. He was also the Chief Technologist at Hewlett-Packard, and was CTO and SVP of Innovation at Samsung Electronics. In May 2021, he joined the Groupe Renault as Chief Scientific Officer. Luc Julia is the bestselling author of the book “There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence!” with First Editions, and he was honored with the greatest French distinction, the Légion D’honneur (Legion of Honor) and is a member of the National Academy of Technologies.
Throughout his career, Luc Julia conceived, built and deployed complex digital media desktop products, scalable Mobile and Internet applications (500M+ users), worked on big data and distributed architectures. He is interested in all kinds of technologies to improve human lives with a special twist for data fusion, home automation, wearable devices and the next generation of context-based Human-Computer Interactions.

Bay Area Native Kitten on the Keys has been performing stateside and internationally for 25 years -everywhere from sleazy bars to the award winning French film “Tournee” at the Cannes Film Festival. She can be seen in a variety of piano bars and cabarets throughout San Francisco including The Rite Spot, the Madrone Art Bar, the Royal Cuckoo Market, and annually at Flower Piano. Her songbook is deep and wide. Pianist, accordionist, and singer, she plays a delicious smorgasbord of styles and eras from kitschy cabaret originals to bawdy blues, unexpected covers and forgotten gems of yesteryear.

A.M.K. also known as Alien Mac Kitty is an entertainer,musician, mother, and daughter to the late Bay Area legend Cougnut.

Eric Klinenberg is Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the author of Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life. His latest book is 2020: One City, Seven People and the Year Everything Changed.

Ava Koohbor is a poet, visual and sound artist. Through sound, words, and objects she seeks to find balance in everyday’s chaos. Her latest works have been exhibited and performed at San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Audium, APICC Festival 2023: Reimagine Horizons, and as a part of group exhibition at RootDivision: ME in a(ME)rica. Her latest publication, a collection of her poetry, Death Under Construction has been published by Ugly Duckling Presse. She believes that each artist is a medium to transfer the world of possibilities to what is.

Chandra Laborde is a doctoral candidate in Architecture in the History, Theory, and Society Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research explores the intersections of gender, ecology, and the built environment. Laborde holds a Master of Science in Architecture from UC Berkeley, a Master in Advanced Architectural Design from the California College of the Arts, and a Bachelor of Architecture from UNAM in Mexico City. She has professional design experience with ecological architecture in Tijuana, Baja California. Laborde is part of the TurkxTaylor Initiative, a network dedicated to liberating the landmark site of the Compton’s Cafeteria riot of 1966 in San Francisco’s Tenderloin from its current carceral condition.

Evan Laforge studied Balinese music under Pak Wenten at CalArts, and after that under Pak Terip in Buleleng, Bali. Since then, He has played with Bay Area groups such as Sekar Jaya and Gadung Kasturi. He studied Carnatic Mridangam under Ganesh Ramanayaranan and Carnatic vocal under Kaushik Lakshiminarayanan. In his spare time, he works at a chip design startup and writes software for music composition.

Pierre Laurent, a Silicon Valley business executive, has worked with Mr. Zehrer on several educational films. With a background in Education, Computer Science, and AI, he collaborates with High-Tech companies and schools and is frequently quoted in the press about the tech’s impact on education and home life. Pierre has been interviewed by the media, extensively, and is a recognized public speaker.

Ana Leash, burlesque persona of Amanda Vigil, is named for the way women are kept on a leash in our society; her performances often combine burlesque with social or political commentary. She loves to craft her own costumes and serves as the high femme outlet for adult sexy tantrums as part of Clutch The Pearls.

Meymey Lee (They/Them) is a born and raised San Franciscan. They grew up scraping their knees on tide pools and oak trees. Mey has run after school arts programs, food pantries, and community centers, working primarily in food, environmental, and immigrant justice organizing. Mey loves to play; and to encourage play and discovery in others. They have worked at the Exploratorium, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Oakland Fairyland, and has toured the Bay Area and internationally as a professional storyteller. They have spent years working in traditional and non-traditional classrooms, with elders, toddlers, and every age in between. They have organized direct actions, large scale art installations and community events; including haunted houses, walkathons, punk shows, turkey giveaways, and hot pot fundraisers. They have learned that the best growing happens when we are in a respectful and caring relationship with each other, ourselves, and our environments. Meymey currently spends most of their time leading classes of SFUSD students on hikes through our local parks system, and eating fruit. Mey has a BA in Natural Science from Shimer College.

Eric Lenoir is a landscape designer, author and nurseryman living in France.

Paris Horticultural, Landscape Arts & Techniques School Ecole Du Breuil graduated, he progressively focused on wilderness and wetlands, urban ecology, territory and social resilience. 

Since several years, he favors works including an environmental and/or social component, looking towards an ecosystemic conception of gardens and landscapes to limit -or to adapt to- global warming, erosion of biodiversity, pollution and their impacts. 

He wrote several books about gardens and landscape design, including  “Plantes aquatiques et de terrains humides” (“Aquatic and wetlands plants”) Ulmer editions,  the awarded “Petit traité du jardin punk” and “Le grand traité du jardin punk”  (“Little treatise on Punk garden”  and  “The big treatise on punk garden”) Terre Vivante editions, where he defined the Punk garden concept, that explores methods that demonstrate that the lack of resources, money, time, skills, may not forbid gardening or landscape design, and offers many ecological and economic issues to repair and beautify the most deteriorated or abandoned private or public areas. 

The Residency at the Villa Albertine SF will feed his global works that target territorial food resilience for all, reducing biodiversity collapse, urban well-being, environmental and vernacular knowledges, sustainability, and facing global warming effects. This also enhance the philosophical field where some of us -including himself- try to understand how human and non-human beings coexist.

Cheryl E. Leonard is a composer, performer, field recordist, and instrument builder whose works investigate natural sites and ecosystems, and human relationships to them. She uses microphones and amplification to explore sonic intricacies, highlighting unique voices and soundscapes while addressing environmental issues. Her projects feature sculptural natural-object instruments and recordings from remote locales, and have been presented in concerts and exhibitions in the Americas, Europe, Japan, and Australasia. Grants awarded include the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, American Music Center, American Composers Forum, and ASCAP. Her recordings are available on numerous labels, including Other Minds and Gilgongo.

Corine Lesnes is a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde, based in San Francisco after years in Washington and New York.

Clemencia Macias has been showcasing her short documentaries, experimental and nature films to international audiences. In the last 3 years her work has been recognized with seven international awards in Berlin, London, Panama, Sweden, and Prague. Born in Bogota, Colombia, Clemencia came to the USA to pursue her career as a filmmaker. She earned a degree in Film Studies from UC Berkeley and a Masters degree in Creative Documentary from Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV, San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. Her films reveal her strong sense of the sensual together with her deft interplay of color and light.

Ruth Margraff is acclaimed for her martial arts operas with Fred Ho (Apollo, Guggenheim, LaMama, Brooklyn Academy of Music, CAMI tour to 33 US cities in 2003). Her writing for Farida Azizi/SEVEN was introduced in 2010 by Diane von Furstenberg, Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep at the Broadway Hudson and performed/translated all over the world. Awards include Rockefeller, McKnight, Jerome, NEA, TCG, TMUNY, NYSCA, IAC, MASS MoCA, Fulbright; published by Innova Records, Dramatists Play Service, American Theatre, Theater Forum, Performing Arts Journal, TDR, Applause, Backstage and Lexington Books, Playscripts, Autonomedia, New Village Press; she’s an alum of Theater Without Borders, New Dramatists, Playwrights’ Center, and Professor at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Alison Marklein is an ecosystem biogeochemist with a focus on food security, climate resilience, and nutrient management who currently is a Lead Scientist at the startup Terradot, which focuses on a climate change solution called enhanced rock weathering. She received her BA from Cornell University in 2008 and her PhD from UC Davis in 2014, and has since worked for UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and UC Riverside. In addition to her work, she is passionate about social and environmental justice, and is a member of the leadership team of the nonprofit 500 Women Scientists.

Garance Marneur studied fine art in Paris and went on to graduate in Design for Performance from Central Saint Martins in London. Garance Marneur is known for designing compelling experiential immersive spaces and costumes and wearable technologies for theater, dance, opera, and film. In 2007, she received the prestigious Linbury Biennial Prize for Stage Design, the highest award for stage designers in Europe. Garance moved to San Francisco after being offered the role of Executive Artistic Director of LEVYdance & LEVYstudio. Since 2023 Garance is Director of Experience Design at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Composer Richard Marriott is the founder and artistic director of the Club Foot Orchestra, an ensemble best known for their live music performance with silent films at venues such as Lincoln Center, SF Silent Film Festival, Smithsonian Institution and SF JAZZ. He has written music for dance, television, opera, film, video games and toys. He studied composition with Domenick Argento and Pauline Oliveros, Indian music with Ali Akbar Khan, shakuhachi with Masayuki Koga and synthesizer design with Serge Tchrepnin. He worked with Atari Games as a composer and sound designer 1992-1997. Oakland Symphony’s late music director Michael Morgan commissioned and premiered his Ghost Ship Cello Concerto in November 2018.

Until its 2021 closing, Keith Scott Ferris was represented by SFMOMA’s Artists’ Gallery, and has shown at Oakland’s Gallery 55 and with the Book Club Van Kleef, a Bay Area artists’ group. His focus has always been abstract oil paintings, and drawing remains foundational to his work.

Lesley McClurg is a health correspondent and fill-in host. Her work is regularly rebroadcast on numerous NPR and PBS shows. She has won several regional Emmy awards, a regional and a national Edward R. Murrow award.  The Association for Health Journalists awarded Lesley best beat coverage.  The Society of Professional Journalists has recognized her reporting several times. The Society of Environmental Journalists spotlighted her ongoing coverage of California’s historic drought. Before joining KQED in 2016, she covered food and sustainability for Capital Public Radio, the environment for Colorado Public Radio, and reported for both KUOW and KCTS9 in Seattle. When not hunched over her laptop Lesley enjoys skiing with her toddler, surfing with her husband or scheming their next globetrotting adventure. Before motherhood she relished dancing tango till sunrise. When on deadline she fuels herself almost exclusively on chocolate chips.

Fernay Mcpherson grew up steeped in soul. Using traditional family recipes, Minnie Bell’s menu offers up delicious home-style food, combining soulful flavors and warmth of the south. Fernay was inspired to cook watching her great aunt Minnie and late grandmother Lillie Bell in the kitchen as a child. Fernay’s family arrived in San Francisco during the Great Migration as part of the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to cities in the North and West. They left in search of better lives and their culinary spirit travelled right along with them.

Simon Melrose is a San Francisco Bay Area based guitarist and songwriter. With guitar riffs steeped in the blues, and songs inspired by the troubadours of the 70’s, Simon has carved out a career as a sideman for several bands and is featured prominently on his own projects Central Station and The Get Down. Following on the success of his solo acoustic album “Freedom’s Road” and subsequent tours, Simon has added a power packed rhythm section featuring the harmonica of John Cunha, Drummer Stephen Traversi (Clustaphunk/Phatty), and bass player Shawn Maloney (Central Station/Northbay Blues Revue) to form The Get Down.

Kompiang Metri Davies is the founder and artistic director of Gadung Kasturi Balinese Dance and Music. She has worked as a dancer and choreographer in numerous cross-cultural and cross-media collaborations with artists Abhinaya Dance Company, Pandit Chitresh Das, ShadowLight Productions, and Yasmen Sorab Metha. She has toured and performed with Vancouver’s Gong Gita Asmara and Bay Area’s Gamelan Sekar Jaya. In 2011 she composed and choreographed a dance piece “Nyapuh Jagat” for the opening of a Balinese exhibition at SF’s Asian Art Museum. Besides dancing and teaching, Kompiang designs and constructs dance costumes and works as a certified massage therapist.

Paul Miller is a member of Bay Area gamelan groups Gamelan Sekar Jaya, Gadung Kasturi, Sari Raras, and Shadowlight Productions. He received a B.A. in music from Brandeis University, studied gamelan at Mills College, and spent several years in Indonesia, learning Balinese gamelan with the late Wayang Loceng and other master musicians. He specializes in Gender Wayang music; several of his students have gone on to study with masters in Bali. Paul co-founded the fusion group Purnamasari with Lisa Graciano, and plays various gamelan instruments and arranges the gamelan parts in the band.

Dr. Lena Miller is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Urban Alchemy, providing oversight and guidance to the team responsible for the management, monitoring, and evaluation of all Urban Alchemy’s programs and services. Dr. Miller has two masters’ degrees in social work and psychology and completed her PsyD (Doctor of Psychology) in 2020. She has more than 20 years of experience providing effective services to low-income and homeless youth, adults, and families. Lena combined her experiences growing up and working in a vibrant working-class community that was scarred by decades of trauma, partnering with city government, and studying resilience to create Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit social enterprise that utilizes experience-based and evidence-based psychological principles to transform the casualties and trauma of the drug war and other social injustices into individual and community empowerment.

Susanna Miller Benningfield has been playing Balinese Gamelan music with Gamelan Sekar Jaya since 1988. She has performed with them extensively in the Bay Area and New York, Boston, and Vancouver, BC, Canada, as well as four tours to Bali, Indonesia. One of her favorite previous projects was playing in the orchestra for “Legong, Dance of the Virgins”, a 1998 collaboration between the composers I Made Subandi and Richard Marriott to create a new soundtrack for a 1930 silent film. Susanna is thrilled to see the legacy of that project continue, and dedicates her performance to the memory of Bapak Subandi.

Sara “Toby” Moore is a critically acclaimed, award-winning clown, actor, director and filmmaker who is currently founding Artistic Director of Thrillride Mechanics physical theatre troupe in San Francisco, California and director of the Department of Clown & Performance at Circus Center. Known affectionately as the “poet clown of San Francisco,” Toby has four decades of experience as a performer, director, teacher, writer and provocateur.

Rachel Nelson is director and chief curator of the Institute of the Arts and Sciences. She has curated and organized exhibitions including Barring Freedom, a group exhibition engaging art, prisons, and justice; Carlos Motta: We The Enemy;  jackie sumell: Solitary Garden; Newton Harrison and Helen Mayer Harrison: Future Garden, and other projects with artists including Sadie Barnette, Maria Gaspar, Carolina Caycedo and David de Rozas, and Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Nelson also writes and publishes extensively on contemporary art and geopolitics, including exhibition catalogue essays, journal articles, and reviews in Journal of Curatorial Studies, Public History Weekly, Brooklyn Rail, NKA, Third Text, Savvy, and African Arts. She teaches in the History of Art and Visual Culture department at UC Santa Cruz.

Annalee Newitz writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the author of three novels: The Terraformers, The Future of Another Timeline, and Autonomous, which won the Lambda Literary Award. As a science journalist, they are the author of Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age and Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in science. They are a writer for the New York Times and elsewhere, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. They have published in The Washington Post, Slate, Popular Science, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among others. They are the co-host of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Previously, they were the founder of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.

Churro Nomi, burlesque persona of Eric Garcia, is equal parts devised theater artist, dance filmmaker, drag queen, and community organizer, with a penchant for queer maximalism. He creates immersive and site-specific performances that straddle nostalgia, radical futurism, high theatrics, and connection. As founder of Clutch The Pearls, he works towards accessing the full potential of bodies in space, performer and audience alike.

Karen Owen has stayed on the cutting edge of technology since the 90s and 2000s and, as Chair of the Digital Technology Department for San Diego Mesa College, established programs in Web Development, Multimedia, 3-D Modeling and Animation. Karen is active in the Pacific Grove Art Center and is the Secretary of the Board of Directors. In 2018, Karen became fascinated with the emerging technology of Augmented Reality, which built on her years of experience working in the digital arena. Currently she is working on Augmented Reality Projection Mapping and Augmented Reality 3D modeling. karenowen.org has examples of her projects.

Somreeta Paul is a South Asian artist, poet, and researcher currently pursuing her Ph.D. in philosophy of mind and cognitive science at UC Santa Cruz. She is the co-author of the photobook Murals Under Our Skin, and some of her poems have appeared in Phi Magazine, Gulmohar Quarterly, and others. When she is not working on theoretical models of the mind or teaching philosophy, she is engrossed in a thriller book/film or planning for her next trip.

Emmanuelle Pauliac-Vaujour is a material scientist by training and obtained her PhD in nanoscience from the University of Nottingham (UK) in 2008. She spent most of her career so far at the technological research center CEA, in Grenoble, France – first as a researcher, then as scientific officer. At CEA, she worked in a wide range of application domains, from fuel cells to embedded microsystems. She moved to the United States in 2022 where she now occupies the position of Attaché for Science and Technology at the French Consulate in San Francisco. Her role is to foster French-American (academic) collaboration in all fields of science and tech, with a particular focus on emerging digital technologies such as artificial intelligence. Emmanuelle’s second passion besides science is music playing.

Ana Pedroso is a recent philosophy PhD graduate from UC Santa Cruz. She is currently working as a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s philosophy department.  Her research focuses on 19^th and 20th-century philosophy (Latin American and European), phenomenology, and the philosophy of relationality between individuals, which includes topics such as communality, inclusivity, plurality, and the ethics (and aesthetics) of care.

Guillaume Pitron is a French journalist, author and filmmaker. He has written two books, published in some fifteen countries, about the natural resources needed for new technology. He has been invited to share his ideas in the French and international media (Le Figaro, BBC World Service, Bloomberg TV, El País, La Repubblica) and at international forums and institutions (Davos, IMF, European Commission, Unesco).

Corentin Poirier, originally from the suburbs of Paris, is a pastry chef working in Biarritz, France. Winner of the MAF in 2016, he has 11 years of experience in pastry labs and kitchens across France and the United States. His insatiable curiosity has led him to explore uncharted culinary horizons, and his creativity is a powerful driving force in his efforts to push the boundaries of traditional pastry into realms it seldom enters.

Terri Peszle is a second year PhD student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who brings broad academic (science, law, education) and personal experience (international, multi-cultural living) to philosophy. Terri currently asks what we should make of apparently sudden epistemic ‘shifts’ that are seemingly prompted by aesthetic experience, or aesthetic experiences that are the product of such shifts.

Dr. Jeanne Proust has studied Humanities, Philosophy and Visual Arts in Bordeaux, Berlin, and Paris. She has been teaching Philosophy for the last 13 years in the US and is currently the interim acting Director of the Center for Public Philosophy (UC Santa Cruz). Her PhD dissertation (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) focused on the pathologies of the willpower, both in philosophical and psychological perspectives, but her interests are wide: among many fields, she does research in Ethics, Philosophy of Technologies, Bioethics, Feminist theory, and Aesthetics. She taught at different universities in New York, advocating for a widening of philosophical education beyond the Academia frontiers by participating in different events open to the general public. She gives many public talks, volunteers in prison (Rikers Island, San Quentin), and collaborates on various podcast projects (she produced her own, “Can You Phil It?”). With the Center for Public Philosophy, she is now working on launching the first Tech Ethics Bowl in the Bay area, and the first Santa Cruz edition of the Night of Ideas. (website)

Fernando Pujals serves as the Deputy Director of the Mid Market Business Association & Foundation, the organization leading Market Street Arts, a multiyear vision to cement Mid-Market as an international arts culture haven. He meandered into the downtown industry while working as a writer and connector in 2015. He’s since demonstrated leadership in operations, strategic partnerships, community engagement, organizational development, and advocacy for San Francisco’s central city neighborhoods. He previously served as a Senior Director for the Tenderloin Community Benefit District. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and is an Emerging Leaders Fellow of the International Downtown Association.

If the crowd is in need of raw energy, Qing Qi is the remedy. FRISCO rapper and Pu Tang founding member, wherever Qi is the beautiful women follow. Sure to excite any crowd into ass throws, dread shaking and all out yay area Hyphy shit. You’ve never seen a rap star like this.

Christopher is the Co-Founder of the 280 Project, a non-profit that is focused on helping marginalized people enter the wine industry through a 6-month paid educational apprenticeship.

As prepared and conducted the San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013, including performances with renowned ensembles throughout the United States and beyond. Through transformative choral music training, education, and performance, Ms. Sainte-Agathe empowers young women and champions the music of today throughout the choral world. Prior to her time with SFGC, Ms. Sainte-Agathe served as Music Director for the Young Singers program of the Montpellier National Symphony and Opera in France from 1998-2011, and participated in eight recordings with the Montpellier National Orchestra and The Radio France Festival.

Paul Salvaire is the Deputy Consul General of France in San Francisco. Before arriving in San Francisco, he was the deputy head of the climate and environment department at the ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in Paris. He was previously posted at the French Embassy in New Delhi as a global issues counselor, and at the French Embassy in London, as chief of staff to the ambassador.

Sendy Santamaria is an illustrator, designer & kids lit author from San Diego, currently based in Northern California. She received her BFA in Illustration with distinction from California College of the Arts. She enjoys storytelling with multiple mediums. Santamaria released her debut picture book, Yenebi’s Drive to School, in June 2023. She grew up along both sides of the border between San Diego and Tijuana and spent a lot of time daydreaming on the San Diego Blue Line trolley. Her work celebrates everyday narratives and Mexican American culture. She is inspired by migration, perseverance, pigeons and love.

Emiko Saraswati Susilo is an actor, singer, dancer, and writer born in Honolulu, Hawai’i. She is the Associate Director of Çudamani and has been a strong advocate for providing opportunities for young women to study Balinese gamelan and develop as creative leaders. Her work is rooted in and inspired by her Indonesian and Japanese American heritage and seeks above all to create meaningful connections across religion, politics, generations, and the visible and invisible worlds. She composed core musical concepts for Kena Bridge of Spirits (PS5) and also served as a cultural consultant for Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon.

An award-­winning author, speaker, consultant, and television host, Leslie Sbrocco is known for her entertaining approach to wine and food, as well as inspiring others to live a life of passion. Voted as one of the Top 100 most influential people in the American wine business, Sbrocco’s engaging personality, humor, and ability to connect with the audience – whether on screen or on stage – are her trademarks.

Artemis Seaford has a diverse work experience including roles in OpenAI as a Product Policy Manager, Meta as a Public Policy Manager dealing with global policies combating emerging geopolitical and adversarial threats, as a Teaching Fellow in Department of Political Science at Stanford, as a Millenium Fellow at Atlantic Council, and as an Executive Director at Ascend Collaborative, The Radcliffe Foundation. Additionally, they have worked as a Law Clerk at Supreme Court of Rwanda, an Associate Intern at McKinsey & Company, a fellow at the Open Society Foundations, and a Summer Associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.

Artemis Seaford holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Political Science and Government from Stanford University, a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Stanford Law School, a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard Kennedy School in International and Global Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics, Economics from the University of Oxford. Artemis also attended Moraitis School in Athens, Greece, where they completed their high school education.

Niki Selken is an Oakland-based Latina artist, technologist, and immersive designer. She is the Chairperson of the Board at Gray Area and leads design strategy for tech culture at Intut. She has designed immersive experiences for tech industry leaders such as Apple, Google, and Intuit and nonprofits such as Gray Area, Goethe Institute, Buckminster Fuller Institute, and Leonardo.

Anne-Sophie Seret is the Project Manager at Everyone.Ai. The project everyone.AI educates about the opportunities and risks of AI for children. The project underscores the urgency of educating users, as well as proactive regulations in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Edward Shanken believes that by opening our hearts more fully to ourselves, we can open our hearts more fully to others and to the Earth. While attempting to integrate joy and wisdom, he discovered that joy contains its own wisdom, and vice versa. Ultimately, he tries to love everybody and tell the truth. When he’s not teaching art theory and practice at UCSC, he can be found dancing, playing the piano, and chasing rainbows and waterfalls. He is best known for his books and essays about art and technology, including Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon, 2009).

Sharon Shao (she/they) is a Bay Area-native actor, musician, and teaching artist. Local credits include Sleeping Beauty (Panto in the Presidio), The Winter’s Tale (CalShakes), Chinglish (SF Playhouse), Good Person of Szechwan (CalShakes), The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin (SF Playhouse, SFBATCC featured actress award), Man of God (Shotgun Players), Vinegar Tom (Shotgun Players), The Tempest and Hamlet (Oakland Theater Project). She received her B.A. in Theatre Arts and Psychology from UC Santa Cruz. Offstage, Sharon is passionate about teaching voice and drama, devising original work, and building creative communities here and abroad.

The Strutting Showcase, live and in-person, is a spectacular experience of seeing old school and new school generations of dancers in Strutting, a powerful dance movement developed in the Black inner cities of 1970’s San Francisco, CA. While L.A.’s dance history became mainstream due to commercialization and movies like Breakin’ (1984), the Bay Area’s history of the original movement and culture remained underground. You may be more familiar with terms like “Popping” or “Pop n Lock”. Originally out of Boogaloo dance styles that came from 1960’s Oakland, “Strutting” is essentially a combination of stepping, robot, and boogaloo/old funk/soul/party dancing.

Novelist Lia Smith has had short stories published in national and literary magazines. Currently she is sending out two novels Modine and A Perfect Wife, both set in San Francisco. She is an advocate for public art and has project managed community art installations, including the Alemany Island Beautification Project.

Laetitia Sonami is a pioneering French sound artist and performer known for her innovative use of technology in her work. After studying with Eliane Radigue in Paris, she moved to the United States in the late seventies to pursue her electronic music studies. Sonami has created several unique instruments for live performance, amongst which the lady’s glove and her current Spring Spyre which applies AI to real time audio synthesis. Sonami’s work often explores themes of embodiment and is credited for inspiring the many offshoots from her gestural controllers. She has exhibited and performed at major international festivals and venues and has mentored many young artists in the field.

Sharaya (Taos Pueblo, Ute, Kiowa) is the Executive Director American Indian Cultural District. She  is an ambassador for promoting equitable resource distribution to American Indian communities, increasing Native visibility and political representation, and protecting and preserving American Indian cultural resources in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Kal Spelletich is a San Francisco-based artist, activist, composer and educator who performs with technology by “misusing and misapplying its intentions.” His performance of Landscape Visual Scores has been called “The highlight of the evening! The mad scientist and his Machine Philharmonic: a wild assortment of various homemade robotic devices that created noises that he blended and manipulated to conjure an otherworldly series of polyrhythmic sonic landscapes.” Kal has exhibited worldwide, from India to Africa and all over North America and Europe.

Dr. Forrest Stuart is currently a Professor of Sociology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Ethnography Lab. He is also a MacArthur Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA (2012), M.A. in Sociology from UCLA (2008), M.S. in Justice, Law & Society from American University (2006), and B.A. in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2004). Broadly speaking, Dr. Stuart’s work examines the causes, contours, and consequences of urban poverty, violence, and resilience. He makes efforts to embrace the ideals of public sociology, which enlists community members as valuable co-producers of knowledge. He also enjoys collaborating with graduate students throughout the data collection and writing processes.

Celi Tamayo-Lee (they/them) is an artist, curator, organizer and 3rd generation San Franciscan of Ilocano and Toisanese descent. The afterschool programs and eucalyptus forests of the city taught them about the importance of play, joy, love and legacy. They have had the opportunity to grow themselves as a curator and film and installation artist with the support of the Asian American Women’s Artist Association, Kearny Street Workshop, the Asian Art Museum’s Living Innovation Zone, Counter Pulse’s Block Fest, and the SOMArts’ Curatorial Residency. They have spent years as a youth organizer, teacher, camp counselor and grassroots campaigner. You can find them snorkeling in the ocean, kayaking in the bay, and eating hot pot in their backyard.

Bryant Terry is a multidisciplinary artist, publisher, and author. He draws inspiration from his ancestors, motivating us to strive for a more healthful, just, and sustainable world.

Constantly defying classification, THE RESIDENTS have been icons in the world of experimental music for fifty years. In addition to their groundbreaking work in the areas of trance, world fusion, electronica, punk, industrial and lounge music, the group was among the originators of performance art and music video, with their videos in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. In addition, based on their acclaimed 1988 album, God in 3 Persons, The Residents, in collaboration with video artist John Sanborn, premiered a major multimedia performance at the Museum of Modern Art on January 24 & 25, 2020.

Maggie Tokuda-Hall is the author of Also an Octopus, illustrated by Benji Davies, The Mermaid, The Witch and The Sea, Squad, illustrated by Lisa Sterle, and Love in the Library illustrated by Yas Imamura with more books forthcoming. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, son, and objectively perfect dog.

Jeff Tumin is the Director of Transportation at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. He manages the streets of San Francisco for the public good.

Simon(e) van Saarloos is the author of Playing Monogamy, Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting and Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto as well as several books in Dutch. Van Saarloos also writes fiction. Recent productions include the short sci-fi story “Dreamdead Surrender” (Postmodern Culture Journal) and Fetus Heaven, a theater play about abortion and violent resistance for Ulrike Quade Company at Bellevue Theater Amsterdam.

Catherine is a multi-talented Tech Executive who is on the Advisory Board of Villa Albertine San Francisco. She puts her strategic skills and broad experience at the service of her favorite causes. She is an explorer at heart with a very large field of interests.

Ruby Vixen is a three-ring circus in the shape of a woman! A multi-faceted entertainer, designer and singer, she’s performed all over the bay for the last 16 years. When she’s not performing in cabarets and dance halls she is the co-lead singer (with her fabulous partner Leigh Crow) of the Queer Country music sensation Velvetta! Sass, style, and queer-camp sensibilities are the hallmarks of this sensational Vixen.

Samuel Wantman has been playing gamelan since 1978 . He joined Gamelan Sekar Jaya in 1989 after a year’s study in Bali. Sam started GSJ’s Bamboo ensemble (now the Jegog ensemble). Sam attended MIT and has a Masters degree in education from Goddard College. He has worked as a teacher, software designer, programmer, inventor, classical music disc jockey, database manager, consultant, children’s book illustrator, musical instrument maker, political campaign worker, photographer, citizen scientist, and real estate manager. He lives with his husband in the Haight neighborhood of San Francisco in an 1892 Victorian which they have been slowly renovating since 1993.

Ryan Patrick (RP) Welsh (he/she/they), aka The 8th Best Legs in San Francisco, is a theatre and cabaret artist based in San Francisco. RP has notably performed with The SF Neo Futurists, Peaches Christ Productions & Baloney. Recent theatre credits include The Narrator in Oasis’ ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ & U/S for the Wicked Witch in ACT’s The Wizard of Oz. Their one-woman, seven person show ‘Sex, Camp, Rock ‘N Roll’ had a residency at Oasis, was invited to perform at Shotgun Players last December & will be performed at Edinburgh Fringe in August 2024.

Sarah Willner has performed all around the world on viola and gamelan, with Gamelan Sekar Jaya, the Lightbulb Ensemble, the Wildcat String Trio, the Club Foot Orchestra, and traditional and contemporary shadow theater with ShadowLight Productions, at venues across the US. She has lived, performed, and studied with revered artists in Bali for over three years, such as I Wayan Loceng, I Wayan Kempul, and the group Abdi Budaya. Sarah is an educator in Oakland in the Orff-Schulwerk lineage, as well as for social justice. Her book on Balinese performing arts for educators came out in 2021.

Kristina Wong’s solo works include “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Wong Street Journal,” and “Kristina Wong for Public Office.” “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” premiered at New York Theater Workshop in 2021 and won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance and is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. She’s a Doris Duke Award Award Winner and Guggenheim Fellow who has been supported by among others, Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, ASU Gammage Artist Residency, Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund from En Garde Arts and the Kennedy Center Social Practice Residency.

Rio Yañez (he/him) is a Bay Area-based visual artist and curator. From the moment he was conceived in an artist’s studio, Yañez’ fate as an artist and curator was sealed. As an artist he has exhibited his work from San Francisco to Tokyo and created artwork installations for Jean Paul Gaultier’s touring exhibit The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. As a curator of over 25 exhibits he was a frequent collaborator with his late father, Rene Yañez, and the pair developed exhibits and programming together for 13 years. Yañez’ carries on his father’s tradition of curating the annual Dia de los Muertos exhibit at SOMArts alongside his collaborator Bridgett Rex. Yañez is also a founding member of The Great Tortilla Conspiracy, the world’s first and most dangerous tortilla art collective.

Tanya Zimbardo is a San Francisco-based curator. She guest curated Bonnie Ora Sherk: Life Frames since 1970 (through March 10, 2024) for the nonprofit Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco and co-edited the accompanying catalog distributed by D.A.P. Zimbardo previously featured Sherk in the co-curated exhibitions Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and Public Works: Artists’ Interventions 1970s—Now (Mills College Art Museum). As an assistant curator of media arts at SFMOMA, Zimbardo has organized several exhibitions including Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors (through October 14, 2024).