Board & Staff

Cecile Chong is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture and installation layering materials, identities, histories and languages. She was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macau. Fellowships and residencies include The Hispanic Society of America, LMCC Creative Engagement, Urban Field Station, The Block Gallery, BRIC Media Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Lower East Side Printshop, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant and the Center for Book Arts among others. Solo exhibitions include Selenas Mountain, ICFAC at Pinta Miami, Smack Mellon, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Five Myles Plus Space, BRIC House, Emerson Gallery Berlin Germany, Honey Ramka Project Space, Figureworks, Praxis, Corridor Gallery and ArtSPACE. Her public art installation EL DORADO – The New Forty Niners has been installed in four boroughs of NYC. She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College. Cecile is a studio member at EFA Studios, an artist member at Tiger Strikes Asteroid and is on the board of Art Yard Bklyn. She taught art in NYC public middle schools until 2019.

Elana Herzog, is a mixed media artist who makes large scale installations as well as intimately scaled work. Elana has exhibited widely, both in the US and abroad. She has been awarded numerous residencies, including at the The Joan Mitchell Center; MacDowell Colony; Yaddo; the Back Apartment Residency in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, to name a few. Elana received various grants, amongst them a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 2017, the Anonymous Was A Woman Award in 2009, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in 2007, and the 1999 Joan Mitchell Award. She holds a BA from Bennington College and an MFA from Alfred University.

Linda Nagaoka is a Japanese-American artist making paintings and ceramic sculpture. She also has a background in performance and modern dance. Linda’s work has been included in shows at Pierogi, Drive-By Projects, Russell Janis, Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery/Salve Regina University, ARENA at Suite 18, Point B Workspace, LABspace, Monya Rowe Gallery, Artist Space and PPOW. She has participated in workshops with the Meredith Monk Ensemble and Eve Sussman’s Madison Color Theory project.  As a parent, she worked with kids at a NYC public grade school, creating and implementing some of their fundraising programs with independent booksellers and Gimme! Coffee. Linda has a BFA from UC Berkeley and was also educated at Alfred University School of Art & Design. Originally from California, she is a longtime resident of Brooklyn.

Paul Yook, Treasurer, founded and manages investment units for LifeSci Venture Partners including LifeSci Ventures, the BioShares exchanged traded funds and LifeSci Index Partners, an SEC-registered investment advisor. Before LifeSci, Paul worked as a healthcare hedge fund portfolio manager and research analyst at Galleon Management. He began his Wall Street career in healthcare investment banking at UBS Securities and at Goldman Sachs. He earned a B.S.E in Economics from the Wharton School and a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Paul lives in New York City and joined Smack Mellon’s Board of Directors in 2006.

Janet Biggs is a research-based, interdisciplinary artist whose work spans video, performance, and installation. She focuses on individuals in extreme landscapes and situations, exploring the territory between art, science, and technology. She has worked with institutions ranging from NOAA and NASA to CERN and collaborated with physicists, Arctic explorers, and a robot named Shimon. Biggs has had solo exhibitions, film screenings, and performances at Jeu de Paume; the Spencer Museum of Art; United Nations Headquarters; Neuberger Museum of Art; Blaffer Art Museum; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; among others. Reviews of her work have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Artforum, ARTnews, and many others. She is the recipient of grants and awards, including a 2018 John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and the 2022 Visionary Woman Award. Biggs is a member of The Explorers Club and lives in NYC.

Photo by Robert Cmar

Gabriel de Guzman is Director of Arts & Chief Curator at Wave Hill, where he oversees the visual and performing arts program at the public garden and cultural institution in the Bronx. Previously, he held curatorial positions at Smack Mellon and The Jewish Museum, New York. As a guest curator, he has organized exhibitions for Site: Brooklyn, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, The Bronx Museum, BronxArtSpace, Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, En Foco, and other venues. His essays have been published in Nueva Luz and in catalogues for the Museum of Arts and Design, Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia, Arsenal Gallery at Central Park, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, and the art institutions mentioned above. He earned an M.A. in art history from Hunter College and a B.A. in art history from the University of Virginia.

Grace Hong is currently an Assistant Director at Galerie Lelong, New York where she works closely with the gallery’s artists and estates on institutional and gallery projects. She received her Master of Arts in Research and Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in English Literature and Art History from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her thesis was titled “Reading Modern Southeast Asian Art History Through Exhibitions” and she has presented her research at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. She has been a regular writer for Vulture Magazine (Singapore) since 2015 and a contributing editor since 2017.

Photo: Daqi Fang

Jennifer McGregor’s practice combines curating and arts planning with ongoing creative projects. She works nationally to activate public spaces and build opportunities for artists to engage audiences through art plans and commissions. She recently curated exhibitions with Hudson River Museum, Stand4 Gallery and Community Center, Korea Art Forum, and En Foco.  She conceived and implemented arts and cultural programs at Wave Hill for two decades. As the first director of NYCs Percent for Art Program she learned about presenting art in the public realm.  She earned her BA in art from Brown University and studied art history at The Graduate School and University Center/CUNY.

Ward Shelley, works as an artist in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in large projects that freely mix sculpture and performance. Ward earned his Masters degree from NYU and has been working and showing in New York since 1994. Shelley has exhibited in more than 10 countries and his work is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Ward received a painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. Before and during his art career he worked in advertising, construction, teaching, special events, theater, rock bands, and built a 37-foot sailing sloop. Ward joined Smack Mellon’s Board of Directors in February 2014.

Niloo Sobhani Steele is the Chief Analytics Officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in NYC where she leads the organization’s enterprise data analytics and data science strategy, helping drive business transformation with data insights and telling stories using data. Prior to HSS she was the Corporate Director of Analytics at New York Presbyterian Hospital and prior to that, a Senior Manager in healthcare technology consulting. Niloo spent four years in higher education at Carnegie Mellon University, advising undergraduate students in addition to developing programming designed to expose students to a diverse range of social, artistic and community service experiences. This included the management of student art exhibitions & sales and coordination of the University Lecture Series. Niloo earned a B.S. in Mathematics as well as a Masters in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University. Niloo joined the Smack Mellon Board of Directors in November 2017.

Christine Trent Parker is Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Regulatory Legal at Coinbase. Prior to joining Coinbase, she was a Partner in the Energy and Natural Resources Group at Reed Smith. Christine’s practice focuses on regulatory, enforcement and transactional matters related to commodities, derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, including trading and exchange-related matters and compliance and regulatory issues relating to the Commodity Exchange Act, CFTC regulations, and CFTC-regulated exchanges and clearinghouses.

Christine has significant experience representing swap dealers, intermediaries, and non-financial end-users in connection with derivatives advisory and regulatory matters under Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act, as well as related SEC, and prudential regulations.

Christine advises market participants in the development digital asset and cryptocurrency technologies including token sales, market infrastructure, trading, clearing, and settlement solutions on distributed ledger technology.

Before entering private practice, Christine was legislative counsel to U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, focusing on defense, energy and foreign policy issues. Christine holds undergraduate and law degrees from Yale. Christine joined the Smack Mellon Board of Directors in November 2017. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and three daughters.

Kathleen Gilrain is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Smack Mellon. She oversees all aspects of program, planning, and organizational development. Kathleen launched the Artist Studio Program soon after her arrival at the organization in 2000 and created Art Ready, a mentorship program for high school students. In 2004 she led the organization through a capital campaign and the renovation of 1880s boiler house to become Smack Mellon’s home. Prior to joining Smack Mellon, she was the Executive Director of Socrates Sculpture Park from 1995 to 2000 where she presented exhibitions of large-scale projects by emerging, mid career and renowned artists. Throughout her career Kathleen has been dedicated to supporting female-identifying artists and artists of color, providing opportunities for a diverse group including our youngest artists, NYC’s teens. Kathleen is also an artist and she is an Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn College. She received a BFA from The Cooper Union, NYC and an MFA from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Rachel Vera Steinberg is the Curator & Director of Exhibitions at Smack Mellon. Her work focuses on science fiction as well as political, historical, and cultural distinctions between facts and fictions. She is committed to the presentation of time-based media and examining the roles of alternative art spaces and artistic agency. Her research on science fiction as an exhibition-making modality culminated in the group exhibition A faint hum at the Hessel Museum at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies, where she completed her master’s degree. She was the 2019-2020 fellow at the Curatorial & Research Residency Program at the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she curated the exhibition JSC ON VIEW: MYTHOLOGISTS (2021). She was the Director of SOHO20 Artists Inc from 2015-2018 and the Assistant Director of NURTUREart Non-Profit Inc from 2010-2015 where she founded exhibition and event-based programs promoting time-based media and gender equity. She is the co-founder of Custom Program (2017-2019), a micro-gallery in Brooklyn focusing on humor, irreverence, and site-specificity. As an independent curator, she has curated exhibitions locally and internationally and spoken at universities throughout the United States.

Maggie Pavao is the Associate Director of Communications and Development at Smack Mellon. An arts administrator, advisor, and writer, Maggie has worked in NYC’s cultural sector for over a decade, including at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and New York University’s galleries. From 2020 to 2025, she supported the founding and operations of the Tusen Takk Foundation artist residency on Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. Maggie holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Museum Studies from New York University.

Javier Maria joined Smack Mellon in 2020 as the Media Systems Manager. He is responsible for maintaining the electronic media equipment in the Artist Studio Program and assisting the studio artists in using the equipment. Javier also installs electronic media equipment for Smack Mellon gallery exhibitions and maintains the office equipment. Javier is a multimedia artist and designer who is interested in privacy, access to information, gender and emotional capitalism. He has also worked for the past 10 years as a network and technology specialist under the CWA Union for HBO, Bank of America, Verizon, and Google, among others. He is particularly interested in structured cabling systems and cross connection in telecommunications to explore aspects of social and power relationships.

Rowan Renee joined Smack Mellon in 2024 as the Shop Manager and is responsible for maintaining the onsite woodshop and fabrication studio. As an artist, they create site-specific installations that are the culmination of months or years of research within communities, landscapes or archives. Their work addresses legacies of violence within the family, the state and the criminal legal system, especially their impact on women, LGBTQ+ and incarcerated people. They have a deep relationship to material across a broad range of processes including printmaking, stone carving, weaving, welding, wood-working and kiln-fused glass. They conceptualize craft as care-work to transform experiences we cannot put into words. Their solo projects have been presented at The Green-Wood Cemetery (2023), KODA (2022), Smack Mellon (2021), FiveMyles (2021), Aperture Foundation (2017), and Pioneer Works (2015), and their installation, No Spirit For Me (2019), was included in Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1. Over the past 10 years they have been renovating a Sandy-flooded bungalow as a living sculpture, conceptual artwork and experimental artist space in the Rockaways. In early 2025, they plan to host their first programs as the KODA x Stilt City Retreat.