CAA News Today

Over the summer of 2010, CAA made four new hires—two full-time and two part-time positions—and benefited from the help of several interns who worked across CAA departments. We warmly welcome the new staff members and thank the interns for their hard work.

New CAA Staff

Teresa Lopez has been CAA’s chief financial officer since June 2010. Before coming to the organization, she was controller at the Dia Art Foundation in New York and held the same position at David Zwirner and Zwirner and Wirth, two Manhattan-based art galleries. After studying engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, she took up accounting at Hunter College, City University of New York. A certified public accountant in the state of New York, Lopez has an interest in both art and art history. She succeeds Robert Wayne, who is now chief financial officer at the Palm Springs Art Museum in California.

As the new CAA office coordinator, Roberta Lawson helps route information, acts as liaison with vendors, and manages the general functioning of the office. She previously held positions at Art Crating and Crozier Fine Art, two top firms in New York’s art shipping and storage industry. Lawson has taught studio art at Rutgers University’s Newark campus and on the high school level, at Hunter College High School in New York. After completing a BFA at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, she earned an MFA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Both programs were invaluable for her development as an artist, providing strong foundational and conceptual perspectives. A longtime figurative painter, Lawson is investigating the nude in an imaginative landscape in her current work, referencing myth while using color as a psychological force. She replaces Anitral Haendel, who is now pursuing an MFA at the California Institute of Arts in Valencia.

Cecilia Juan joined CAA’s Publications Department in July as data collection coordinator, where she is the primary contact for universities participating in the 2011 editions of the Directories of Graduate Programs in the Arts. A former intern at Exit Art and the New York Council for the Humanities, Juan is pursuing an MA in visual-arts administration at New York University, researching online fundraising strategies for alternative and community-based arts organizations. Before moving to New York last year, she spent two years traveling and teaching English in Japan and the Czech Republic. Juan has a BFA in photography and a BA in English from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Her position at CAA is a new one.

Elizabeth Donato is CAA’s new programs assistant, helping with various aspects of planning and preparing for upcoming annual conferences. Prior to joining the Programs Department, she was a research assistant for scholars and curators in New York; she also interned in curatorial departments at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. With a BA in art history from the University of Richmond in Virginia, Donato has begun work toward a PhD in art history at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is focusing on modern and contemporary Latin American art, with an emphasis on art from the Southern Cone of South America and on socially engaged aesthetics. Donato succeeds Jeanne Jo, who is now in the doctoral program in media arts and practice at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

CAA Summer Interns

Grace Paik and Maureen Ragalie worked in the Membership, Marketing, and Development Department. Paik, a fall intern at Horton Gallery in New York, recently double-majored in art history and English at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Ragalie is currently at New York University, earning an MA in museum studies. She is also interning at the New York Public Library and Independent Curators International.

Tom Carr, a junior at Rutgers, interned in the Publications Department. In addition to studying art history, he is an accomplished viola player who performs in his school’s orchestra.

Two recent high school graduates, Amanda Morton and Tyroo Tyler, worked in CAA’s Finance Department. They participated in the Summer Youth Employment Program in New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development before heading to college this fall. Morton is enrolled at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and Tyler is attending Alfred State College, State University of New York College of Technology in Alfred.