Jonathan Herman has been executive director of the National Guild for Community Arts Education since 2004 and a staff member since 1995. At the Guild he has planned and managed national conferences, training and technical assistance programs, publications, and special projects such as Creative Communities, a national initiative to foster the development of arts instruction programs in public housing communities. He was also the project leader for Partners in Excellence, a national initiative to identify and promote best practices in K-12 public school arts partnerships. Jonathan has served as program director of the Rhinelander Center, an arts-based community center of the Children's Aid Society in New York City, and developed educational programs and materials at the New York Hall of Science. He holds an EdM degree from Teacher's College, Columbia University, and a BA from the State University of New York, Binghamton. He is a graduate of the Executive Level Program at the Columbia Business School’s Institute for Not-for-Profit Management and serves on the board of the National Music Council and the advisory committee of the Arts Education Partnership.

Ken Cole, associate director, oversees the Guild’s program, communications, and marketing departments. Since joining the staff in 2004, Ken has developed and produced numerous national conferences and training events; publications; research studies; grantmaking programs; and the Guild’s Community Arts Education Resource Center. From 2001 to 2004, Ken served as director of advancement at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC. He was executive director of GALA Choruses, the international service association of the lesbian and gay choral movement, and he served as development director for the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, development associate for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and as a professional orchestral violist for more than a decade. Ken has been a grant review panelist for the League of American Orchestras, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, New Jersey State Arts Council, President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, Washington Post Company, and Young Audiences. He presents regularly at national conferences of such organizations as Chorus America, Educational Theater Association, Arts Education Partnership, Association of Fundraising Professionals, League of American Orchestras, Grantmakers in the Arts, and the American Society on Aging. He also helped program the education track for the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention. He helped edit Chorus America’s Leading the Successful Chorus: A Guide for Managers, Board Members, and Music Directors. He holds BM and MM degrees in viola performance from Oberlin College Conservatory and Louisiana State University, respectively.

Heather Ikemire, director of marketing and communications, joined the Guild in June 2007. Heather has 14 years’ experience in community arts education as a practitioner, administrator, and scholar, including three years as marketing and public relations manager at the Madison Repertory Theatre in Wisconsin. She has led programs as a teaching artist in school and community-based settings and has received numerous accolades as an instructor at Arizona State University’s School of Theatre and Film. Heather founded the arts-based civic dialogue project, Phoenix Speaks. Her research on community arts education has been published in the International Journal of the Arts in Society, Perspectives on Public Affairs, and other journals. In 2006 she received the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s Winifred Ward Scholarship for excellence in the field. She holds a BA in English from Vassar College and a PhD in theatre with a concentration in theatre for youth from Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts. Her dissertation, Putting Culture to Work: Building Community with Youth Through Community-Based Theatre Practice, examines how community-based youth theatre ensembles create conditions for youth to practice cultural agency and to develop a sense of themselves as valuable resources in a broader community development process. She helped guide the development of the Guild’s recent publication, Engaging Adolescents: Building Youth Participation in the Arts.

Claire Wilmoth, member services coordinator, has been with the Guild since August 2005. A Seattle native, Claire came to New York from the Chicago area after completing her BA at Northwestern University, where she graduated with honors in 2005. While at Northwestern, Claire helped produce the Waa-Mu show, a nationally known original musical revue by and for Northwestern students. She has also worked for Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project and as a teaching artist for the Experience Arts Camp, both in Seattle.

Lindsey Cosgrove, external affairs coordinator, joined the Guild in September of 2011. Lindsey has worked in community arts education in various capacities: reviving the Fredericksburg, VA chapter of Guitars Not Guns, a non-profit which provides guitars and group lessons free of charge; doing development work for the Washington, DC non-profit Arts for the Aging, Inc.; and teaching afterschool music programs. After earning a B.A. in music education at the University of Mary Washington, Lindsey came to New York to intern at the National Guild in the fall of 2009. In May of 2011, Lindsey earned an M.A. in urban education policy from Brown University. While at Brown, Lindsey focused on the intersections between the arts and public schools. Lindsey also spent time examing past methods of arts education advocacy and fleshing out new language and justifications, in addition to serving as a graduate intern at the Center for Arts Education in New York City.

Ariana Schrier, administrative associate, joined the Guild in May 2011. Ariana has worked in arts education with the Women’s Project, viBe Theater Experience, Earth Celebrations, and Swaran Public School (Shimla, India). She has experience in both administrative support roles and in building programming and leading workshops as a teaching artist. In 2009 Ariana cofounded Pipeline Theatre Company and now serves as its director of artistic development. She has worked with the New York City company as a producer, playwright, actor, and stage manager. Ariana received her BFA in theater, applied theater, and politics from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.