People
-
Nicole Pollard is an artist, curator, exhibition designer and yoga teacher. She is passionate about creating experiences that speak to her interests in both rest and play as core needs for individual and collective wellbeing. In the past she has worked as Curator of Lived Culture at Philadelphia Contemporary, where she also worked as Associate Curator and Program Coordinator. Nicole's other former roles include Project Manager at Temple Contemporary, Curatorial Assistant at No Longer Empty, and Exhibit Designer for Museum of Impact and the Leeway Foundation. She holds an MFA in Museum Exhibition Planning + Design from the University of the Arts and a BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University.
-
Sheryl Oring is dean of the School of Art. As an artist, she investigates social issues through projects that blend old and new media as a way to tell stories, explore public opinion and invite an open exchange of ideas. Oring’s work has been shown at Bryant Park in New York City, the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Jewish Museum Berlin, the 01SJ Biennial in San Jose and the San Diego Museum of Art, as well as in major festivals, such as Encuentro in São Paulo, Brazil, and the Art Prospect Festival, St. Petersburg. Her artist books are in numerous collections, including the Library of Congress; the Tate Modern, London; and the Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg.
-
James Claiborne is senior vice president of exhibitions and programs at the Charles H. Wright African American Museum History in Detroit. He is a program and visual arts curator and educator with more than 17 years of experience in the nonprofit cultural sector, and most recently served as the Barnes Foundation curator of public programs, where he shaped the vision and strategy for inclusive cultural programming. Before joining the Barnes Foundation, James served as the director of programming at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. Claiborne also recently served as an adjunct professor in Drexel University’s Westphal College of Media Arts Design, where he taught audience development in the arts, with a focus on program creation, community engagement and marketing.
-
Jenn Joy is a writer, scholar and surfer. She is currently working on a new book, Sensate Metabolics, and is in training as a psychoanalyst at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. She taught in the graduate Sculpture department at Yale School of Art (2016–2020) and at Rhode Island School of Design (2005–2016). She founded collective address, a choreographic research space in Brooklyn (2014–2016), and jennjoygallery in San Francisco (1998–2000). She has published visions (2018) and The Choreographic (MIT Press, 2014).
A contributing editor in performance for BOMB magazine and an assistant editor for Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Joy edited Planes of Composition: Dance, Theory and the Global with André Lepecki (Seagull Press, 2009) and co-edited the catalogs Diary of an Image and JUDSONOW with Danspace Project. Other writing has been published in Sentient Archive: Bodies, Performance, Memory (Wesleyan, 2018); DANSE: An Anthology (Les Presses du Réel, 2014); DANCE (Whitechapel/MIT Press, 2012) and BOMB. She is thrilled to have joined the Board of Triple Canopy recently.
Nicole Pollard is the newly named curator of lived culture at Philadelphia Contemporary, where she has also worked as associate curator and program coordinator. In the past, she has worked as project manager at Temple Contemporary, curatorial assistant for No Longer Empty and exhibit designer for Museum of Impact. She holds an MFA in Museum Exhibition Planning and Design from University of the Arts and a BFA in Art Education from Virginia Commonwealth University.
-
Jessica Hamilton Hardy was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where she spent most of her youth. Always having a passion, drive and talent for art, she knew her future would focus on every discipline the arts had to offer. Jessica graduated from Proctor Academy in 2008 and furthered her artistic passion at the University of Tampa, where she earned her Master’s in Art in 2013. When she joined her family’s foundation, Hamilton Family Charitable Trust, in her early ’20s, Jessica was not only inspired, but also able to further her passion of helping today’s youth.
Jessica’s grandmother, Dorrance Hill Hamilton, was a lifelong board member of University of the Arts. Her love, commitment and major contributions to the school is a part of her legacy. That has inspired Jessica to continue supporting the Hamiltons’ decades-long relationship with University of the Arts, and she hopes to continue where her grandmother left off. Jessica is also connected to the university through her brother and brother-in-law, who are UArts alumni. Though she is not an alum herself, Jessica has focused her efforts on working to promote and expand the art education of young artists. She is fortunate enough to be able to help bring this new vision of the iLAB Artist-in-Residence program to University of the Arts.
Today, Jessica lives in Florida with her husband. She is finally grasping her passion of being an artist and working to pursue that dream. In addition, Jessica has focused on early education and the arts in the Philadelphia area and her surrounding community in hopes of making a difference.
-
As chief of staff, Franklyn works across the university community (and with external partners) to connect, amplify and realize the strategic vision of the president into actionable steps. He is a member of the senior leadership team, serves as the assistant secretary for the Board of Trustees, supervises the University Centers, and manages the staff and budgets in the President’s Office. Across all of his work, Franklyn seeks to advance the university’s mission, advancing human creativity, and the institutional commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.
Before joining UArts in March 2022, he worked at Haverford College as the assistant chief of staff and assistant secretary of the board, and previously held other roles in Haverford’s President’s Office and Dean’s Office. He received his BA in History of Art (a department housed at Bryn Mawr College) from Haverford in 2012.
-
Raúl Romero started his teaching career at Yale University’s School of Art, while earning an MFA in Sculpture. After joining UArts as a media resources film coordinator in 2018, Romero also taught The Art of Sound and Image/Time. Raúl joined the President’s Office in early 2022 as the director for special projects.
Raúl is from Valrico, Florida, and earned a BA in Communication from University of South Florida in Tampa. While there, he worked at the Institute for Research in Art’s Contemporary Art Museum and began his career as an artist.
Since Raúl relocated to Philadelphia, he has worked with many local artists and institutions, such as the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Pentimenti Gallery and Vox Populi.
Raúl has been awarded grants from the Velocity Fund, an Andy Warhol regional regranting program at Temple’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture and an art fund award by the National Association of Latin Arts and Culture. He is a member of Vox Populi Gallery and has been a resident artist at RAIR (Recycling Artist in Residence) program in Philadelphia, where he resides and keeps an active studio practice.