Moderator: Dr. Robert Gregg

Dean Robert Gregg is a Professor of History and Dean of General Studies at Stockton University, where he promotes interdisciplinary learning and creative exploration. His scholarship includes Sparks from the Anvil of Oppression, a study of African American migration, and Inside Out, Outside In, a work of comparative history. Deeply engaged in the arts, he collaborates on theatrical adaptations that reimagine classic works, blending history, culture, and performance.

Panelist: Dr. Elizabeth Ellis

Elizabeth Ellis is an Associate Professor of History at Princeton University, specializing in early American and Native American history as well as Indigenous Studies. Her research focuses on diplomacy, borderlands, cross-cultural exchange, and Indigenous politics in early North America. She earned her B.A. from Tulane University and her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first book, The Great Power of Small Nations: Indigenous Diplomacy in the Gulf South, explores the formation of Native American nations in the Lower Mississippi Valley and their role in shaping the region’s history.

Panelist: Noelle Lorraine Williams

Noelle Lorraine Williams is a public humanities specialist, researcher, curator, and writer whose work explores how African Americans have used culture to envision liberation in the United States. Her multidisciplinary practice spans photography, glass bead embroidery, and video, and her research has been featured in publications such as The Star-Ledger, The New York Times, and Art News. Williams’ exhibitions have been showcased at institutions including the Newark Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, the Philadelphia African American Museum, Jersey City Museum, and Skylight Gallery. As Director of the African American History Program and the Black Heritage Trail at Rutgers University, she is dedicated to uncovering and amplifying the rich narratives of Black history and culture.

Panelist: Sara Cureton

Sara Cureton serves as the Executive Director of the New Jersey Historical Commission, where she provides leadership in preserving and promoting the state's cultural heritage. As a key figure in the NJ 250 Initiative, she plays an instrumental role in shaping New Jersey’s commemoration of the United States’ 250th anniversary. With a distinguished background in historical preservation and public history, Cureton is dedicated to nurturing meaningful engagement with the arts and humanities, ensuring that New Jersey’s diverse narratives are thoughtfully represented and celebrated.

Panelist: Dr. Aamir Rehman

Dr. Aamir A. Rehman is an investor, educator, and author specializing in values-driven investing and ethical finance. With experience managing multi-million-dollar investments and advising organizations like the United Nations and World Bank, he helps people align their finances with their principles. He teaches private equity at Columbia Business School and research how investors learn from experience. The author of books on global finance and entrepreneurship, Dr. Rehman brings real-world insights into finance, strategy, and impact investing.

Panelist: Mark McDonough

Mark McDonough is the President of New Jersey American Water, leading efforts to provide water and wastewater services to 2.8 million people across the state. As the company’s principal external representative in New Jersey, he strengthens customer, regulatory, and government relationships while driving operational and financial performance. Previously, he served as President of American Water’s Military Services Group, overseeing 17 military installations and securing major water and wastewater system operations contracts at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Joint Base San Antonio, and U.S. Army Garrison West Point.

McDonough joined American Water in 2005, serving as Chief Compliance Officer and lead counsel for the Military Services Group. Before that, he worked in private law practice in New Jersey and Maine. He was a Special Agent for the U.S. Government, conducting investigations for the U.S. Department of Energy, Amtrak, and the General Services Administration. He holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice from the University of Delaware, an M.S. in Justice from American University, and a J.D. from George Mason University.

Moderator: Dr. Joe Cronin

Joseph Cronin currently serves as the Executive Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at Stockton University. He has held this role since 2023. His office provides support for faculty, staff, and students at Stockton University seeking or applying for external grant funding. In his 18-year career in higher education, he has led similar positions at Kean University in Union and at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. He received his doctorate in Psychology in 2003 from the University at Albany, State University of New York. 

Panelist: Barbara M. Bickart

Barbara Bickart (she/her) is the new Senior Advisor of Arts and Culture in the New Jersey Economic Development Authority’s (NJEDA’s) Community Development department. In this capacity, she is helping to lead the NJEDA’s efforts in arts, culture, and placemaking by developing and implementing strategies to strengthen community relationships and increase dialogue among stakeholders relative to arts and culture. Prior to joining the NJEDA, she worked as a visiting faculty member and the Video Department Chair at the School of Museum and Fine Arts at Tufts University, teaching and developing curriculum and implementing socially engaged community-based projects. She has also worked as an independent interdisciplinary visual artist for over twenty years, honing a socially engaged practice working in collaboration with historically underrepresented communities of people, as an arts and education consultant, and is the small business owner of Fire in the Belly Artmaking. Her work has been shown in galleries, museums, and theaters nationally and internationally. Barbara earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in Art from Rutgers University and a Master of Arts degree in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research. 

Panelist: Danielle Bursk

Danielle Bursk received her MFA from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of Arts and her BFA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. Ms. Bursk has been selected for a Fleisher Challenge Exhibition, a solo show at Abington Art Center, the Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition at Main Line Art Center, a fellowship to Vermont Studio Center and a CDP Fellowship at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Danielle is pleased to list shows at Locks Gallery (Philadelphia), the Texas Firehouse (NY, NY), and solo shows at 110 Church Gallery (Philadelphia) and Bluestone Gallery (Philadelphia) amongst other venues on her resume. Daniella has been reviewed in publications such as the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh City Paper. Through her role with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, she serves as the Chair of the Arts Selection Committee for the Newark Airport Terminal A art commissions, Art at Amtrak (NY) selection committee, and on other NJ public arts inclusion projects. She has also served as a review panelist for the NEA, the PA Council on the Arts, and the Illinois Arts Council. Danielle lives in Bucks County, PA.

Panelist: Lynne Toye

Toye is the inaugural Executive Director of the New Jersey Arts and Culture Renewal Fund, a public-private collaboration supported by corporate and private foundations, individual donors, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In her role, Toye oversees grantmaking to arts and culture organizations across the state of New Jersey. Her professional experience includes leadership roles in nonprofit administration and higher education. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the Wharton School of Business.

Moderator: Ryann Casey

Ryann Casey is a New Jersey based artist, curator, and educator. Casey holds a BA in Photography with a minor in Gender Studies from Stockton University and an MFA/MS in Photography and Art History from Pratt Institute. She currently works as the Exhibition Coordinator at the Stockton University Art Gallery and is an adjunct Professor of Photography, Art History and Critical Theory. Casey’s current photographic work focuses on themes of loss, trauma and memory including her long-term project Loss Event. Recent curatorial projects include Indigenous Approaches, Sustainable Futures, We Are the River: Complex Narratives, Conservation & Committing to New Jersey's Waterways, Before, After: Reflections on the Armenian Genocide, Gandzaran! Notable Selections from the Armenian Museum of America, and The Road Home: Migration, Displacement & Redefining Where We Live.

Panelist: Jack Swenson

Swenson, who participated in the Science Enrichment Academy at Stockton (SEAS) camp as a rising high school senior, knew he was going to major in Environmental Science. He credits SEAS camp for bringing him to Stockton’s farm where he worked throughout his college years and found the bridge to join his creative side with the sciences. After camp, he continued to work on a long-term garlic research project at the farm that is identifying which variety grows best in New Jersey, when to start planting for optimum growth and how to best space the plants. Jack Swenson ‘24, an Environmental Science and Visual Arts double major, Stockton’s sustainability farm nurturer.

Panelist: Tyrese Gould Jacinto

Tyrese "Bright Flower" Gould Jacinto, of Bridgeton, New Jersey, is a citizen of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Nation. Born on September 27, 1963, in Bridgeton, she is the daughter of Phyllis "Red Deer" and Chief Mark "Quiet Hawk" Gould, who was among a core group in the 1970s that initiated the modern-day structure of the tribe. Tyrese "Bright Flower" was, therefore, immersed in tribal arts from an early age. She is also the first granddaughter of Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould, who was famous in the tribe for her knowledge of herbal medicine, regalia making, and storytelling. She is fortunate to have been taught and guided by her to learn the ancestral wisdom of herbs and everyday life traditions. With four generations alive, Tyrese is surrounded by family values and traditions of old. She has created folk products for healing by producing and growing the local herbs used in her tinctures. The inspiring true story of Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould, a Lenape matriarch, and the Native way of life will be remembered through the book "Strong Medicine" Speaks: A Native American Elder Has Her Say by Amy Hill Hearth, 2008, which also mentions Tyrese.

Panelist: Dr. Lauren M. Seyler

Dr. Lauren Seyler is an assistant professor of microbiology in the School of Natural Sciences Biology Program at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ, and an affiliate research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. She received a B.A. in Biology from Rutgers University in 2008 and a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from Rutgers University in 2015. She held a postdoctoral research position at Michigan State University, in which she developed a metabolomics approach to characterize dissolved organic carbon pools in serpentinite-hosted aquifers, and at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she used metagenomics and meta transcriptomics to determine how microbes cycle carbon and other nutrients in ocean crustal fluids. Dr. Seyler’s current research describes microbial activity and biogeochemical cycling in a variety of environments- including bog iron seeps, estuarine/marine sediment, and serpentinite-hosted aquifers- using DNA and RNA sequencing, metabolomics, laboratory culturing, and stable isotope probing techniques.

Moderator: Ian Marshall, Ph.D.

Dr. Ian H. Marshall is Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Stockton University. He is also a Professor in the Literature Program, where he specializes in Cultural Rhetoric, Modern American Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition. He has been in higher education administration for 32 years serving as a writing program coordinator, department chair, associate Dean and Dean. He continues to keep an active publication agenda. Most recently he was a guest editor for the Hemingway Review where he edited a collection of essays focused on Race and Racism in Ernest Hemingway’s writings. The collection appeared in fall 2023.

Panelist: Mee Na Ko

moaw! is a game developer based in the United States. They have worked with Newgrounds, Microsoft, and various indie teams as freelance pixel artists. They work to build creative communities through game development, bridging dialogues between STEM and art. They design open-source game development assets and organize workshops to make education more accessible. You can see some of their artwork in educational resources such as Microsoft’s MakeCode Arcade. They have also presented lectures and workshops with the Processing Foundation, The New School, Playcrafting, and various other organizations to spread their love of pixel art.

Panelist: Jed Morfit

Jedediah Morfit received his MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005, where he was awarded the Sylvia Leslie Herman Young Scholarship and the Award of Excellence. He was a Fellow at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists from 2007-2009 and received a New Jersey Council on the Arts Fellowship for sculpture in 2009. He received the Louise Kahn Award for Sculpture from the Woodmere Art Museum in 2006 and was awarded the Dexter Jones Award for Bas Relief from the National Sculpture Society in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, he was commissioned to create a series of new work for Artlantic: Wonder, which was named one of the fifty best public art projects in the Public Art Network’s Year in Review. His work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and featured in The New York Times, Sculpture Review, Artnews and American Craft Magazine, as well as on NJTV’s State of the Arts. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and three (count ‘em, three) children.

Panelist: Bill Horin

Bill’s love of art began when at the age of twenty-eight he visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the first time and exclaimed,’ Wait…how long has this been here?.’ He then traveled frequently visiting galleries and museums across the country and in Europe before realizing he did not have to leave South Jersey to find great art. Bill has been a professional photographer for over 35 years. Since 2001 he has published two magazines, hosted weekly radio and TV shows, produced numerous documentaries, and founded two organizations, ArtC and Strobe, all dedicated to shining a light on the arts and artists of South Jersey.

Moderator: Michael Cagno

For the past eighteen years, Michael has served as the executive director of the Noyes, providing curatorial, development, and community engagement leadership. In 2002, they received his MA from Seton Hall in Museum Management and, in 1997, a BA from Rowan University. Currently, he is a candidate for the Ed.D. in Organizational Leadership. Michael currently serves on the Cumberland County Cultural and Heritage Commission and Ducktown Neighborhood Community Development Corporation and has served as a board member for the New Jersey Association of Museums, Art Pride NJ, Mid-Atlantic Associations of Museums, and the South Jersey Cultural Alliance as Vice President. He also shares this passion as an adjunct arts professor at Stockton University.

Panelist: Phoebe Farris

Phoebe Farris, Ph.D. (Powhatan -Pamunkey descent) has intertwined careers that embrace the concept of interdisciplinary and transnational research. As an independent curator, documentary photographer, art therapist, author, and Purdue University Professor Emerita, Farris explores issues such as race, gender, indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous Studies, the environment, and social justice from multiple perspectives. 

Her books, Women Artists of Color: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook to 20th Century Artists in the Americas, and Voices of Color: Art & Society in the Americas, create dialogues about the intersection of social activism and the arts.

Phoebe Farris is currently the Contributing Arts Editor for Cultural Survival Quarterly and serves on the board of Stockton University Noyes Museum of Art. She has also written for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Magazine, taught at the Corcoran School of Art-George Washington University, and participated in several traveling art exhibitions as an artist, catalogue essayist, and curator. Dr. Farris’s most recent curatorial project “Still Here: The Powhatan-Renape and the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape of Southern New Jersey” was on view at the Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University from October 9,2024- January 5, 2025.

Ralph Hunter

Ralph Hunter, founder and president of the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey (AAHMSNJ), has dedicated over 30 years to preserving and sharing African American culture. His passion for collecting cultural artifacts led to the museum’s opening in Newtonville, NJ, in 2002, showcasing rare memorabilia from figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dr. J. Hunter expanded the museum’s reach through a traveling exhibit that educates students across New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Among his notable discoveries is the “Portraits of a People” exhibit, featuring restored 19th-century African American portraits. A former entrepreneur and lifelong Atlantic City resident, Hunter has been a respected historian of the city's Northside community. His collection, now in the thousands, is displayed at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center and Stockton University’s Noyes Arts Garage. Recognized for his contributions, he has received numerous accolades, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the South Jersey Cultural Alliance, and has served on multiple cultural and arts boards.

Panelist: Dan Swern

Dan Swern is the co-founder and producing director for coLAB Arts in New Brunswick, NJ, engaging artists, social advocates, and communities to create transformative new work. Swern commissions new multidisciplinary creative work and artist residencies and facilitates and commissions public art projects from mural and sculptural installation work to creative place keeping efforts with local government and advocacy organizations. Swern’s verbatim theater projects have included two collaborations with journalist Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg: Life, Death, Life Again: Children sentenced to die in prison and Banished: Children on the sex offender registry. Swern is the creator, director, and designer of the Drama Desk-nominated culinary-theater project Shake & Bake: Love’s Labour’s Lost which ran off-Broadway in 2018. Swern teaches Creative Engagement for the master’s in communications and media graduate program at Rutgers University’s School of Communications and Information.

Patron of the Arts – $10,000
(Tax-Deductible Amount: $9,300)

• Title sponsor for 2nd Annual Arts and Culture Summit
• Sponsorship announced in event press release, website and program-related print communications
• Speaking opportunity and ten tickets to Arts Garage Reception
• Five tickets to Arts & Culture Summit
• Private On-Campus Arts Tour with ARHU Dean Ian Marshall (to be scheduled separately from event)
• Lunch for two with University Leadership (to be scheduled separately from event)
• Four tickets to a show of your choice at the Stockton Performing Arts Center (PAC)*
• $5,000 scholarship established in your organization/family name

Visionary Benefactor – $5,000
(Tax-Deductible Amount: $4,390)

• Sponsorship announced in event press release, website and program-related print communications
• Podium recognition and Arts Garage Reception and Summit
• Eight tickets to Arts Garage Reception
• Five tickets to Arts & Culture Summit
• Four tickets to a show of your choice at the Stockton Performing Arts Center (PAC)*

Cultural Champion – $2,500
(Tax-Deductible Amount: $2,060)

• Sponsorship announced in event press release, website and program-related print communications
• Podium recognition and Arts Garage Reception and Summit
• Six tickets to Arts Garage Reception
• Four tickets to Arts & Culture Summit
• Two tickets to a show of your choice at the Stockton Performing Arts Center (PAC)*

Humanities Hero – $1,000
(Tax-Deductible Amount: $720)

• Sponsorship announced on website and program-related print communications
• Four tickets to Arts Garage Reception
• Two tickets to Arts & Culture Summit
• Two tickets to a show of your choice at the Stockton Performing Arts Center (PAC)*

Fine Art Friend – $500
(Tax-Deductible Amount: $340)

• Sponsorship announced on website and program-related print communications
• Two tickets to Thursday evening cocktail reception
• Two tickets to Arts & Culture Summit

*pending ticket availability

Sponsor commitments and logo must be received by March 10 for guaranteed inclusion on event printing and signage.

All event net proceeds benefit ARHU student scholarships.