Tressa Berman, Ph.D.

Project Coordinator – Midtown Arts & Design Alliance

505.424.5050 ext

tberman@sfai.org

As a cultural anthropologist that works in the arts, Tressa brings more than 25 years of cross-sector experience as an educator, community-based curator, author, non-profit specialist and active contributor to global and local arts and cultural forums.

Prior to moving to Santa Fe, she was faculty at the California College of the Arts, where she co-created its Diversity Studies program, and served as founding faculty of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. As Executive Director of BorderZone Arts in San Francisco, she worked with universities, museums, and non-profits arts organizations to create platforms and programs in collaboration with under-resourced creative communities. As a consultant to philanthropy, she has created arts and community initiatives, including the Mel and Leta Ramos Art Education Initiative, funding scores of need-based scholarships and programs since 2020. Her consultancy, the Institute for Inter-Cultural Practice, is dedicated to the same principles and practices that brought her to SFAI in support of the Midtown Arts and Design Alliance—a commitment to arts and cultural planning informed by “design anthropology” from standpoints of social equity and cultural resilience frameworks.

Tressa is the recipient of a Judy Chicago Art Education Award, Mellon Fellowship for Indigenous Digital Knowledge Sharing, Rockefeller Fellowship and was Legal Rapporteur for UNESCO’s International Document on Cultural Heritage. She currently serves as an advisory to ATALM’s Native Arts and Culture Councils (Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums), Wordswell online journal of literature and art, and is a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of New Mexico.