Our Board of Directors

Tamara White, Ph.D.
Founder and President
Tamara White is a visual activist, an artist, and a researcher examining the intersection of healthcare management and incarceration. Dr. White holds a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies and certificates in Museum Studies and Design Thinking. Her book Incarceration and Health Care: A Visual Journey Through the Lens of Activist Art is under contract with Brill Publishing. Tamara has established the Bader+Simon Empowerment Grant to support emerging, underrepresented artists. Furthermore, she serves as a board member for Words Uncaged, a Los Angeles-based entity, Space on Ryder Farm, an art residency and farm in Brewster, NY. She has previously served on the acquisitions committee at the Cincinnati Art Museum and on the local community theater Shotgun Players board in Berkeley, CA. 

Anu M. Mitra, Ph.D.
Secretary
Dr. Mitra is a museum trustee and independent scholar. Her previous work includes thirty-five years of teaching at the doctoral level in Interdisciplinary Studies and facilitating a Museum Studies and Design Thinking Certificate program at the Union Institute. She has also taught at the University of Rochester, Yale University, Sichuan University, and Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She has won multiple teaching and research awards including the Gopman Excellence in Research Award at Union Institute and the Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges’ Celebration of Teaching Award in 2011, 2018, and 2021. Her intensive training in museum studies and art history/interpretation continues as a docent at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Contemporary Arts Center. She is also a board member at the Cincinnati Art Museum; the National Advisory Board of the National Museum for Women in the Arts; the Program Support Committee of the Weston Gallery; and the Board of the Bader + Simon Foundation in Cincinnati. Anu is the proud parent, along with her husband, of three adult children. In her spare time, she loves to wander museums, read memoirs, watch films, and travel wherever the road will take her.

Kathryn Turley-Sonne, Ph.D.
Treasurer
Dr. Turley-Sonne has a Ph.D. in Humanities with a certificate in Museum Studies, a master’s degree in Literature, and a bachelor’s degree in English and Composition and Rhetoric. She teaches a variety of honors and regular English and Interdisciplinary Studies courses at Cypress College, where she is a full professor. Turley-Sonne is also the Director of the Campus Honors Program, the Service-Learning Center, a Puente faculty, Study Abroad faculty, and a faculty contributor at the campus art gallery. In addition to her work on the Bader + Simon Gallery board, she is working on exhibits in London, NYC, and Westport, CT, where she is also the head of the MoCA Gives Back Program.

Bruce Maggi, Ph.D.
Dr. Maggi currently teaches art history at Coastal Carolina University. Maggi’s teaching focus is American Indian art and how it has influenced and still influences the art of the Euroamerican culture. This influence can be seen throughout the history of The United States and Canada. Although his ancestry is not from an indigenous background, his history has been steeped in interactions with American Indian cultures

AC Panella, Ph.D.
Very few people have two Ph.D.s. AC Panella holds a Ph.D. from Union Institute & University, as well as, a Professor of Hot Dogs (Ph.D.) from Vienna Beef University. His research sits at the intersections of trans/gender, museum, and communication studies. He is a tenured communication professor, part of the Union Institute & University Museum Studies Collective, the Georgia State Trans Oral History Project, and other public history projects. He believes if life is a story, to make it a good one.