Leadership

Board of Directors

The Palo Alto Art Center Foundation is governed by a robust Board of Directors, who are committed to supporting our mission. These community leaders also secure resources to strengthen the art and educational programming of the Palo Alto Art Center and its visibility in the community. Our Board of Directors make vital contributions to the long-term success of the Palo Alto Art Center as a community institution.

Jill Asher

Jill is part of the founding team of Magical Bridge Playground in Palo Alto and co-founder of Magical Bridge Foundation. A seasoned public relations and marketing executive, Jill left a successful high-tech career to run the Magical Bridge Foundation in 2016 and lead administration, community engagement, development, public relations, and marketing. In March 2022, Jill left the day-to-day operations of Magical Bridge Foundation and is now volunteering her time and expertise with a few nonprofits that bring joy and health to the broader community. Jill is helping with development strategies, community engagement, media outreach, and messaging -- intending to make the local community more inclusive, welcoming, healthy, and fun for all.

Sue Chan

Sue Chan leads Consumer GTM strategy at PayPal, with previous brand and campaign marketing roles at Intel, Amazon, and the NBA. Hailing from Taiwan, she has a BA from Wellesley College and an MBA from MIT Sloan. Her passion in art is rooted in her 2 daughters' love of arts and seeing the empowerment and wonder that comes when children unleash their creativity. Since joining the board in 2020, she has been excited to further the mission of how the Art Center can extend these opportunities for children, bringing greater accessibility throughout the community.

Judy David

Judy worked at several start-ups prior to joining the many who exited the fast lane during the earlier days of COVID. Before the allure of Silicon Valley brought her to California, she lived and worked in Hong Kong, Mexico & Japan. With each new adventure, art was the initial connection to the local culture as well as to the community. Moving to California created a similar opportunity. A friend's invite to an event at the Palo Alto Art Center turned into many visits and ultimately an invite to join the foundation board. She previously served as board Co-President, then transitioned to the Emeritus Council and recently returned to the board as Vice-President.

Nilufar Haque

Nilufar Haque is a Tax Director at Frank Rimerman and Company and has been with the company for 22 years. She has served as a board member for the Silicon Valley chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) and the Director of Outreach for BADC, a political organization dedicated to building voter awareness and involvement among the Bangladeshi American community in the political process. Nilufar enjoys working towards building a better community through activities, involvement, dialog, and platforms. A Bay Area resident for the last 40 years, she enjoys reading books on varied topics, enjoying time with family and extended family, cooking, and skiing.

Gurmeet S Lamba

Gurmeet is a ceramics artist and a Board Member at the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation. Passionate about the intersection of art and technology, he focuses on leveraging art to foster cohesive and well-balanced communities in our increasingly technology-driven world.

Gurmeet has held engineering & business leadership roles in Robotics, AI, and Speech at various startups in Silicon Valley, as well as at Bell Labs, where he received the Bell Labs Presidents Award. Today, he dedicates his expertise to advising and mentoring executives in the fields of Robotics and AI.

He holds a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, and has completed the Executive Management Program at Stanford University.

Teresa Lunt

Teresa Lunt, currently retired, has had a long career in computing technology research and research management. She has worked at SRI International, DARPA Information Technology Office, and most recently as a VP at Palo Alto Research Laboratory. She has chaired many technical conferences and workshops and served on many government study panels. She received an A.B. from Princeton University and an M.A. in applied mathematics from Indiana University. Teresa has participated in the Adult Studio programs at the Art Center for many years, including classes and workshops in painting, drawing, collage, and mixed media, and printmaking.

Mary Marsh

Elizabeth McCarthy

Elizabeth McCarthy is a private practice attorney providing on-demand general counsel services to technology companies. Prior to starting her own practice, Elizabeth was VP and Deputy General Counsel at Avaya where she led a large, global team of legal and compliance professionals supporting the global commercial legal and contracting, products and technology, and intellectual property functions. Elizabeth grew up in Hawaii where she enjoyed taking ceramics and jewelry making classes. Her home is now decorated with artwork from Hawaii and her children’s creations from over the years.

Anu Ramamurty

Anu Ramamurty is the founder of Kat Kid Adventure, an eco-educational initiative that gamifies climate education for action for our youngest citizens - elementary school kids. In addition to eco-workshops and fun educational publications, Kat Kid Adventure hosts Climate Chats, guided intergenerational workshops on effective strategies to talk about
climate change. Anu Ramamurty is a climate change communications strategist who has led global campaigns for businesses, NGOs and the United Nations. She was one in an army of climate advocates who helped to achieve the momentous Paris Climate Agreement.

Jason Stork

Jason Stork is a trusted financial audit partner at Frank, Rimerman + Co. He has approximately 20 years of experience providing technical accounting, financial reporting, and advisory services to businesses across multiple industries, including professional services, manufacturing, and technology. Jason’s areas of expertise include assisting clients in raising private and public debt and equity financing, merger and acquisition transactions, and strategic planning, and he has extensive experience working with closely-held, family owned businesses, as well as privately-held, pre-IPO, venture backed companies. Jason is passionate about the Palo Alto Art Center Foundation because of its strong connection to the community and the positive impacts of art in early childhood development. He is excited to share his experience and financial expertise to support the future prosperity of the Foundation.

Heidi Yang

Heidi is a seasoned product professional who has both hardware and software development experiences. Currently, she is a Product Manager at Meta, leading one of their enterprise products and building cool features with the team. Before Meta, she held various positions at Clover Network and HP.

As a Palo Alto resident, Heidi is passionate about ceramic arts and has been taking ceramic classes in Art Center for many years. Making ceramics in the Palo Alto Art Center is her happy Zen moment. She also participates various volunteering events with the Art Center. Heidi is excited to support the Foundation by sharing her expertise and amazing Art Center experience to all in the community.

Emeritus Council

The Emeritus Advisory Council is composed of former members of the Board of Directors. They are advocates and advisors of the Art Center, representing various business, community, education, and artistic perspectives.

Brigid Barton

Pat Bashaw

Bern Beecham

Lucy Berman

Melissa Caswell*

Judith Content

Jeannie Duisenberg

Sid Espinosa

Joanne Gee

Anne Gregor

Mary Kelley

Carol Kenyon

Iris Korol

Gurmeet Lambda

Patty McGuigan

Amelia Norris

Cornelia Pendleton

Marcia Pugsley

Susan Rosenberg

Loren Saxe

Jan Schachter

Carolyn Tucher

Karen Valladao

Lisa Van Dusen

Teri Vershel

Staff

Karen Kienzle
Director of Palo Alto Art Center

Karen Kwan, CFRE
Chief Development Officer

Annabel Koh
Development Associate

Ganga Belman
Operations Manager

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