People

STAFF

Dan Schimmel took over as Director of the Esther Klein Gallery in 2001. Before that he was curator of EKG,  working closely with  founding director, Libby Newman.  As director, Dan implemented new program initiatives to compliment the annual Art-in-Science exhibition series.  He brought  innovative exhibits to the flexible public space of 3600 Market St., including Scent is Life and Odor Limits, two scent-based exhibits in partnership with Monell Center. He also initiated an ongoing partnership with Sabin+Jones Lab Studio , a seminal  group exploring synergies between scientific research and creative design.

In 2009, inspired by the growth of innovation and a vibrant do-it-yourself arts scene in Philadelphia, Dan and newly hired EKG curator David Clayton spearheaded plans to expand the gallery operation into a new non-profit program with a wider remit, called Breadboard.

David Clayton heads Curating and Programs and has overseen recent exhibits such as The FabShow, Ready>Run and Brower Propulsion Laboratory: BPL-003, Moranic Mission To Montana. David’s interests include D.I.Y. culture, open source technologies, cultural geography, and arts education advocacy.

Before coming to Philadelphia, Clayton was the Program Director at The Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, New York; after having received his Masters of Fine Art in 2007 from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. David is also an artists and regularly exhibits artwork nationally and internationally and has been an artist in residence with Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover, Utah and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

ADVISORY BOARD

Maureen Craig is a brand strategists and the engine that drives MoStrategy. Her clients include  WHYY, Sony, CNN, Disney, GPCA, The Philadelphia Zoo, Gore-Tex and Tom’s of Maine. Breadboard worked with Mo in 2010 through a grant by the Nonprofit Finance Fund.

Ian Cross co-founded I-SITE in 1996 with the goal of establishing a  interactive design and marketing firm and he acts as a marketing strategist and design consultant on many I-SITE projects. Ian has served on a number of creative economy advisory groups in the Philadelphia region, most recently Mayor Nutter’s Cultural Advisory Council.

Sarah Drury is a practicing artist and teaches in the Film & Media Arts Department at Temple University. Her website features an overview of projects and exhibition history. She is also affiliated with the international network SIGGRAPH.

Robert M. Hall has extensive knowledge and practical experience with internet technologies and software programming. Robert’s personal website is www.impossibilities.com. He is involved in a number of local community user groups/entities and manages the local Philadelphia Flash Platform Adobe User Group www.pfpaug.org. He helped form the Philadelphia Flex User Group www.phflex.org, is involved in the Philadelphia Area New Media Association and the local Philadelphia AIGA group. He is also an Advisory Board member to the Philly Creative Guide.

Rich Laster is the Deputy Director of Planning & Administration for the Mayor’s Office of Community Services. Laster also serves as Senior Consultant for RBL Consulting, Inc. His firm provides strategic planning and project management for businesses and non-profit entities growth through such tactics as guerrilla marketing and the acquisition of venture capital and/or financing for their real estate investment projects. Rich holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Temple University .

Evan Malone holds a BA degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and Masters of Engineering and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering and systems engineering from Cornell University. He has worked in applied physics at the Fermilab high-energy physics laboratory as part of a proton accelerator conceptual design team. His doctoral research at Cornell focused on developing additive manufacturing systems and materials which allow 3-dimensional printing of complete working electromechanical devices (batteries, actuators, transistors, circuits, sensors), engineered living biological tissues (replacement knee cartilage from CT and MRI scans), and food items. He is a co-creator of the Fab@Home Project which promotes the advancement of personal automated fabrication technology by freely distributing designs and software which allow anyone to build and operate their own multi-material SFF system, Evan is the founder of NextFab Studios

Jeanne Mell is Vice President Marketing Communications at the Science Center. In this role, she is responsible for all aspects of corporate marketing, communications, and public and media relations. Ms. Mell was formerly Senior Vice President, Communications for the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, where she had overall responsibility for print and electronic communications, public relations and media relations. Previously, Ms. Mell was Director of Photography and Design at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. She also worked at the Associated Press, ABC News and Inc. Magazine.

Roxana Pérez-Méndez is a performance and installation artist who received her MFA from Tyler School of Art.  Numerous awards and honors include a residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture;  selection as a 2006 Challenge artist at Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia; and a being a participating artist in the Painted Bride Center’s 4-Sites series. Roxana is an artist/member of the collective Vox Populi Gallery and works as an adjunct Associate Professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill teaching woodworking, sculpture, performance and drawing.

Douglas Irving Repetto is an artist and Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center. His work, including sculpture, installation, performance, recordings, and software is presented internationally. He is the founder of a number of art/community-oriented groups including DorkBot, ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, Organism: making art with living systems , and the music-dsp mailing list and website.

Jenny Sabin’s research, teaching and design practice focuses on investigating the contextual, material and formal intersections between architecture, textile tectonics and biology. Her expertise resides in generative design and design computation, two contemporary trajectories in architectural design research. She is Director of Jenny Sabin LLC, a research and architectural design studio based in Philadelphia. She currently teaches design studios and elective seminars within the graduate Department of Architecture at PennDesign.  Sabin is the first non-scientist member of the Institute for Medicine and Engineering (IME), University of Pennsylvania, where she co-founded and co-directs the Sabin+Jones LabStudio between the IME and the School of Design together with Peter Lloyd Jones. She is also a founding member of the Non-Linear Systems Organization (NSO), a research group at PennDesign started by Cecil Balmond, where she is currently Senior Researcher.

Audra J. Wolfe is a freelance editor and writer who lives in Philadelphia. Previously, she was the associate director of the Roy Eddleman Institute for Outreach and Interpretation at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, where she served as the editor in chief of Chemical Heritage magazine and executive producer of Distillations, a weekly podcast. She holds a Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania, where she is a lecturer. Her book reviews and commentaries have appeared in both scholarly and popular publications, including Science, American Scientist, Chemical and Engineering News, and The Boston Review. She is also an avid home canner and chronicles her food preservation efforts at her blog, Doris and Jilly Cook.

Armon Vincent is a partner of the Vincent Micheal Gallery.  He spent eight years as a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia. Currently he is the Chief Innovation Officer and founder of Wool Labs, a leading edge media technology firm.