Board Members

She is also Senior Advisor, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion at New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Currently her portfolio includes social justice initiatives and Equity Diversity Inclusion workshops. She is a veteran of over 22 Broadway productions and her nonprofit clients include Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  She is co-founder of Impact Broadway, a multicultural project that engaged over 900 students as audience members for Broadway with the goal to empower this community to be economic drivers of new audiences for the Broadway Theater district. Walker-Kuhne is a lecturer and keynote presenter for international arts conferences in Moscow, Russia; Blomfontein, South Africa; and Australian Arts Conferences. She is an adjunct professor at New York University and Columbia University. Walker-Kuhne is the recipient of over 50 awards including the 2024 The Black Seed Award. Her first book, Invitation to the Party:  Building Bridges to Arts, Culture and Community, was published in 2005 and her second book, Champions for the Arts: Lessons and Successful Strategies for Engaging Diverse Audiences will be published this fall. She has a weekly blog, Arts and Culture Connections, that explores cultural efforts to expand diverse audiences.

Lemons is the Former Chair of the Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism. Lemons has served as a panelist/moderator for the Association of Presenting Arts Professionals, Autopistes Circus Network, PEA Southwest, and the Adirondack Nonprofit Network. He has served as a grant reviewer for the New York State Council of the Arts, CNY Arts, and the Essex County Arts Alliance. Prior to his tenure at LPCA, Lemons served as the General Manager of Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota and as the Associate Artistic Director and Communications Manager for WaterTower Theatre in Addison.

Under John’s leadership the Alliance completed a successful endowment campaign, and designed and implemented several initiatives benefiting the state’s entire arts sector including The Creating Change Network, a resource to educate and support the filed as it becomes a more just and inclusive community; the Arts and Culture Administrators of Color Network, providing networking and educational opportunities for multi-generational leaders of color; and the Cultural Access Network Project, an educational and networking resource as the field makes its programs and facilities accessible to artists and patrons with disabilities.

Prior to the Alliance, John served as Vice President for Development of the New Jersey Network Foundation where he was responsible for providing the leadership for the annual fund in support of NJN Public Television and Radio’s programs and services. Prior to joining NJN, John served as the Director of Development for Paper Mill Playhouse where he provided leadership to the theatre’s $5 million Project Completion capital campaign, strategic planning and board development; and instituted many of its award-winning access services for patrons with disabilities.

John is a trustee for the Fund for New Jersey Blind and has served on the boards of ArtPride New Jersey, the New Jersey Center for NonProfits, and Montclair University’s School of the Arts. John received his BA from Montclair State University, where he served as a board member of their School of the Arts, and his MA from New York University, where he has served as an adjunct professor.

John is a graduate of Leadership/New Jersey, a program of the state’s leaders working together to make the state a better place to live and work. In addition, John was selected as one of 50 nonprofit arts leaders to participate in the Executive Program for Nonprofit Arts Leaders at Stanford University, a partnership of Stanford and National Arts Strategies.

John has been recognized by numerous state and national organizations for his work in the areas of arts access, fundraising, and advocacy. John is the recipient of the inaugural Excellence in Accessibility Award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, the Robert Smythe Award for Outstanding Fundraising Professional from the Association of Fundraising Professionals/New Jersey Chapter , the Byrne/Kean Arts Advocate Award from Paper Mill Playhouse, the Thomas H. Kean Arts Partnership Award from New Jersey Network Public Television and Radio, the Award of Excellence from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, and the Arts Advocate Award from ArtPride New Jersey.

In addition to his work as an attorney, he is active in a range of community and professional organizations, including serving as the current Vice President of the Board of Directors for Baltimore Clayworks, and serving as the former Chair of the Intellectual Property Section of the Maryland State Bar Association.  Hawkins has also served as interim Executive Director and Art Law Clinic Director for Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, a Maryland nonprofit that provides legal services to creatives throughout the state.

Ball is dedicated to strengthening the cultural sector and growing the creative economy and workforce. Before becoming the Director of DDOA she was the Executive Director of the Delaware Arts Alliance. There, Ball developed sector wide strategies to advance arts and culture. She worked with cultural, community, and civic leaders on policy and funding initiatives to ensure that the creative sector is vibrant. Ball graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design with dual master’s degrees in Historic Preservation and Landscape Architecture. She has a Bachelor of Architecture from Florida International University. She spent the first part of her career in the fields of design and architecture. Ball is a visual artist, artisan, and co-founder of Handmade Modern Accessories–a Women and Black-owned creative business. Her diverse background gives her perspective on the importance of arts and culture’s positive impacts on communities. She volunteers on the Delaware Fund for Women’s Young Founders Committee and the Delaware MillSummit Planning Committee.

She produced the city-wide PECO Energy Jazz Festival and the first city career fair focused on careers in hospitality for urban school students in the area. Her passion is shown through 25 years of experience in non-profit, hospitality, meetings and conference management, arts management, and public sector work. Benson is the recipient of the 2023 Eliza Shirley Women in Leadership Award for exemplifying Salvation Army pioneer Eliza Shirley’s dedication to service, community, and faith. 

Prior to joining NCTA, Lora served as the Executive Director of the Ward Museum of Wildfowl from 2006-2018. As folklorist there, she established the Lower Shore Traditions Folklife Program, co-directed the American Folklife Center Field School in Crisfield, Maryland, supported the 2004 Smithsonian Folklife Festival Mid Atlantic Water Ways program, and designed the Pass It On: Cultural Traditions of the Eastern Shore K-12 Curriculum and Activity Guide. She was responsible for major capital upgrades to the museum, including the planning and opening of the John A. Luetkemeyer Sr and Thomas F. Mullan Jr, Legacy Center.

Lora served two terms on the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) in leadership roles including the Executive Committee and Treasurer, and partnered in developing Imagine Maryland: A Renewed Strategic Plan for the Arts 2014-2019. As chair of the Advocacy Committee, she worked in coordination with the Maryland Citizens for the Arts to secure the Special Fund for Preservation of Cultural Arts. She served on the MSAC’s Diversity Committee, working to engage people of diverse backgrounds throughout the state. A common thread in her success has been the building of partnerships at the local, regional, state and national levels.

Lora played a key role in creating the coalition that culminated in the City of Salisbury’s successful application to host the National Folk Festival, and later guided that event and other major traditional arts events through the pandemic in her role at NCTA. In 2022, under her leadership at NCTA, National Treasures was launched – bringing NEA National Heritage Fellows to National Parks throughout the country. Lora is a passionate folk arts advocate and a founding member of the Living Traditions Network.

She is a board member for the MAP Fund, Mid Atlantic Arts, Ping Chong + Company, and Pick-Up Performance Co(s). She has also served on the New York Dance and Performance “Bessies” Award Committee, on the boards for Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s La Pocha Nostra, and Dance Place, on the advisory board at GALA Hispanic Theatre, and as a National Dance Project Hub Site. She is the recipient of the Workforce Development Mentor of the Year Award from the National Independent Venue Foundation for her work at National Sawdust, the music incubator in Brooklyn; the Pola Nirenska Lifetime Achievement in Dance  Award from Washington Performing Arts; and  Outstanding Service Awards from the International Association of Blacks in Dance and the Chen Dance Center  Chan is also one of the volunteers with Make Us Visible NJ who helped organize advocacy efforts that made New Jersey the second state in the country to pass legislation requiring Asian American Pacific Island Studies be taught in K-12 school curriculums as a long-term approach to counter anti-Asian racism.

Previously, Cohen was the Community Engagement and Education Director at Baltimore Symphony Orchestra where he and his team worked to enrich the lives of 85,000+ students annually with musical experiences while ensuring free access to performances for 50,000+ students from underserved communities yearly.

His is a member of President Biden and Vice President Harris’s Arts Policy Committee and he has provided volunteer leadership to the Baltimore City Midtown Community Benefits District. An avid musician, Cohen is a Bassoonist/Contrabassoonist in several Baltimore and Mid-Atlantic region ensembles.

He oversees over two-hundred employees and contractors, over thirty-five historic buildings, two sub-corporations, and two theaters. Ruiz Cortés, a 2021 Emmy Awardee, supervises the progress of eighteen divisions of the State ranging from the National Art Collection of Puerto Rico to Folk Arts. Specifically, he oversees Building Improvement and Conservation; Support for the Arts; Cultural Promotion in Municipalities; Fine Arts Division; Popular Arts Division; Music and Theater Division -including 2 theaters; Built Historical Heritage; Parks and Museums Division; Archeology Division; Publications, Sales, Marketing, and Magazine Division; General Archive of Puerto Rico; and National Library of Puerto Rico.

Her essays about multicultural and international performance appear in Black Acting Methods, The Community Performance Reader and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre among others. Gonzalez has completed three Senior Scholar Fulbright grants and been a resident artist at Rockefeller’s Bellagio Center in Italy. Gonzalez extends the reach of her scholarship through public engagement. She created a massive open online course “Storytelling for Social Change” that has reached over 40,000 learners to date. A new open access course, “Black Performance as Social Protest” is available on the FutureLearn digital platform. Gonzalez also directs, devises and writes theatrical works. Her innovative stagings of historical and cross-cultural experiences have appeared on PBS national television and at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, The Working Theatre, Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, New York Live Arts, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and other national and international venues. Gonzalez is a member of the National Theatre Conference, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, League of Professional Women in Theatre, the Players Club NYC, and the Dramatists Guild.

Hardy held leadership positions with IBM that spanned software development, systems engineering, and management consulting (1974-2005). After retiring from IBM, Hardy founded Tiger Management Consulting Group, an executive coaching and business consulting services firm. Hardy’s client portfolio comprises for-profit and non-profit organizations, including Right Management, a global human capital development firm since 2006. Hardy has been associated with Urban Land Institute, a global non-profit committed to responsible land use, since 2016. She has served ULI in various advisory and consulting roles, including its Senior Visiting Fellow for Creative Placemaking. Hardy was former Executive Director of CulturalDC (2013-2015), a nonprofit that provides space for artists and creative placemaking services for real estate developers. She co-founded Millennium Arts Salon, an art education initiative, in 2000.

Hardy was among the 2022 honorees by The Phillips Collection, a prominent Washington, DC museum, for her work in the arts. She was recognized as a Minority Business Leader by the Washington Business Journal (2010). She is an accomplished writer and public speaker. Her articles and essays have appeared in magazines and journals in the U.S. and abroad. Recent writings include an essay, “Development Without Displacement” in Volume 3 of The Place Economy published by Hoyne based in Australia; ULI’s 2022 Publication, “Creative Placemaking: Recommendations from and Impact of Six Advisory Services Panels;” and ULI’s 2020 Publication “Creative Placemaking: Sparking Development with Art and Culture.” Between 2016 and 2023, Hardy has written a sextet of articles on creative placemaking in Urban Land magazine.

Hardy’s board affiliations, in addition to Mid Atlantic Arts, include board member for Mosaic Theatre Company and chair of the board for International Arts and Artists, both based in Washington, DC. Hardy is an avid collector of fine art and, with her husband, has acquired many works on paper, canvas, sculptures, and African art.

Manus has a B.A. in Communications and Film from Stanford University. She is also a member of the Stanford University New York Arts Advisory Council, the Capital Campaign Committee of Sylvester Manor Educational Farm (Shelter Island, NY), and the North Fork Art Center Advisory Council.

In addition to his extensive background in the arts, Myers is known for his advocacy for social justice and community engagement. He has served as a community organizer and principle organizer of the DMV Music Stakeholders, a grassroots effort to center relief and resources for members of the music community impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as serving on the Executive Committee of the DC Branch of the NAACP.

He is a Commissioner on the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission, serving as the Arts Council Ex-Officio to the Commission. He has been honored with the Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce 2014 Man of the Year award, three State Legislature Resolutions for service, and the New Jersey AFL-CIO Labor Leader of the Year award. O’Brien was appointed by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to the Governor’s Restart and Recovery Advisory Council to advise state leadership on economic matters impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. He currently serves as the New Jersey Legislative Director of the NY/NJ 10th District IATSE.