Creative Pathfinders 2024

Nick Larsen is an artist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He studied at the University of Nevada, Reno and the Ohio State University, where he received his MFA in sculpture. Larsen has had over a dozen solo and collaborative exhibitions and been a part of a number of notable group exhibitions, including Tilting the Basin, a survey of contemporary art in Nevada (Nevada Museum of Art), and several editions of New American Paintings. He currently works as the managing editor at Radius Books, a non-profit art book publisher in Santa Fe.

David E. Yee is a Managing Partner at Cobra, Columbus’ Best New Bar according to Columbus Underground. His book of short stories, Mongolian Horse, was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2022. His writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, AGNI Online, Seneca Review, Gulf Coast Online, and elsewhere. In 2017, he won the New Ohio Review Fiction Contest, judged by Colm Tóibín, as well as the Press 53 Flash Contest judged by Jeffrey Condran. In 2019 and 2023, he was a national finalist for Bombay Sapphire’s Most Imaginative Bartender competition. He was raised in Maryland.

Adelia Gregory is an arts educator and administrator. As the Manager of Public Engagement at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), she advances public and civic engagement initiatives through symposia, workshops, performances, artists’ residencies, and community-led projects that bring artists’ practices and scholarly research to life. Prior to joining MoMA, she held positions in curatorial and educational departments at the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach), the Brooklyn Museum, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Adelia has a B.A. and M.A. in History of Art from The Ohio State University.

Sharbreon Plummer, Ph.D. is a strategist, researcher, educator, and artist with over thirteen years of nonprofit management experience, with an emphasis on the arts. Her practice has involved cultivating resources and programs for communities of creators across the South whose work advances freedom, liberation, and social change. Dr. Plummer has facilitated and presented work at institutions such as Project Row Houses, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, Rhode Island School of Design, Americans for the Arts, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Archive, and several others. A few of her creative projects include her internationally distributed zine Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre and Textiles (2022) and curatorial projects such as Stitching Abolition (Chicago, 2022) and Mirrored Migration (New York, 2017). She has also been featured as an artist-in-residence at Rogers Art Loft (Las Vegas, NV) and Arquetopia (Oaxaca, MX). Dr. Plummer is the author of the forthcoming book Black Quilts: Memory, Method, and Medicine, slated to be published by Chronicle Books in 20205. She applies the intersection of her management and creative experience as the leader of AYA Thought Studio—a creative consulting firm that empowers organizations and individuals to turn their ideas, visions, and values into reality. She also serves as a Co-Director of Programs at Threewalls, a Chicago-based Black arts space. Dr. Plummer earned a Ph.D. in Arts Administration, Education, and Cultural Policy from The Ohio State University.

Alice Grishchenko is a design generalist with experience in illustration, animation, data viz, game design, and virtual reality. She received her MFA in digital animation and interactive media from the Ohio State University. She has previously worked as an interactive media designer at Nationwide Children's Hospital and as a data visualization specialist at the Center for Complex Networks Research at Northeastern University. Alice is currently working on many things, usually as a technical artist or data viz designer. She is always learning something new.

Trevor Marcho has taught music to students from Pre-K through college since 2008. He served as band director at Mattanawcook Academy (9 - 12) in Lincoln, Maine for seven years where he taught band, jazz band, chorus, beginning guitar, World Music Drumming, and music theory. Additionally, he has taught music to elementary-age students in Maine and Ohio. Trevor has served on the music education faculty at the University of Maine and Cleveland State University.

Trevor served as a musician in the United States Navy from 2001 to 2006, where he performed as a trombonist and euphonium soloist with the Fleet Forces Concert Band, Ceremonial Band, Brass Quintet, Fleet Jazz Ensemble, and Dixieland band. He is also a freelance brass musician, and has performed with professional concert bands, big bands, chamber ensembles, jazz combos, and rock bands throughout New England, Virginia, and Ohio.

Trevor earned his Bachelor’s of Music Education and his Master of Music in Conducting from the University of Maine and he earned his Ph.D. in Music Education from The Ohio State University. He currently lives in Columbus with his wife, Lynn, and son, Oscar.

Dr. Aviva Helena Neff is the Director of Youth & Community Learning at Columbus College of Art & Design and a frequent collaborator with Otterbein University Department of Theatre and Dance. An honors graduate of Goldsmiths College (MA, Applied Theatre), Dr. Neff enjoys working in devised theatre and theatre for social change with participants aged 1-100. She is an ensemble member with Teatro Travieso, which premiered her solo performance, Blood, Earth, Water in 2021, written as part of a practice-as-research Ph.D. at the Ohio State University. Dr. Neff has recently published works on mediatized race and identity, mixed-Black women in Reconstruction-era New Orleans, and inclusive theatre pedagogy. Dr. Neff is very fortunate to serve as a freelance intimacy coordinator and director within the incredible theatre community in Columbus.