Jennryn Wetzler leads a team of organizational effectiveness specialists at Guidehouse, a global consulting firm. Previously, she was the Director of Learning and Training at Creative Commons, launching the nonprofit organization's revenue-generating training program as well as global training partnerships to increase open access to knowledge and culture. Prior to Creative Commons, Jennryn worked at the U.S. Department of State, piloting using open educational resources (OER) for public diplomacy and global partnerships. She’s also enjoyed gaining a different perspective of education through studies and international development work in Egypt, Niger, and Thailand. Jennryn has a Masters in ‘Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs’ from American University’s School for International Service.

Lauren Hendry Parsons is a communications and digital rights leader with a background spanning technology, advocacy, community engagement, and the arts. She currently works at Mozilla Foundation, where she helps shape public narratives around technology and its impact on society.

Her connection to Curationist brings together several longstanding interests: digital rights, access to knowledge, and a fascination with how we preserve, interpret, and make sense of history. An Australian who spent a decade in Asia and is now based in London, Lauren has also worked extensively with US-based organizations and audiences. An accredited mediator with a degree in Ancient History and Philosophy, previous experience in the music industry, and an enduring love of arts and culture, she brings a strategic communications lens, an international perspective, and plenty of curiosity to the board.

She is particularly interested in how technology can expand access to culture, preserve knowledge (and its nuance), and foster richer, more inclusive understandings of history.

Grace is a product policy lead at Google. She previously served as the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), lead of the Trust and Governance lab at Element AI (acquired by ServiceNow in January 2021), and policy manager for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Grace volunteers her time as a visitor experience guide at the National Gallery of Art and at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art.

Dr. Patricia Akhimie is the director of the Folger Institute, which supports research at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is also Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University and program director of the Mellon-funded RaceB4Race Mentorship Network. With Paul Werstine, she is the general editor of the Folger Shakespeare Library Editions. She is also the editor of the Arden Othello (fourth series), a landmark edition. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters as well as the monograph Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World (Routledge 2018), editor of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, and To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare, and co-editor, with Bernadette Andrea, of Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World. Dr. Akhimie’s public facing work includes working with Reconstruction.us, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Public Theatre, and the PBS series Great Performances, and she is the curator of the Folger’s first major temporary exhibition, To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare. Her research areas include Premodern Critical Race Studies, Early Modern Literature, Shakespeare, Textual Editing, Travel Writing, and Comics and Graphic Novels. Dr. Akhimie holds a Ph.D., a M. Phil., and a M.A. in English from Columbia University, as well as an M.F.A in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. in English from Princeton University.

Nancy E. Weiss is a lawyer, scholar, and public-sector leader whose work has focused on advancing cultural engagement and access to information. Across government, academia, and the nonprofit sector, she has worked at the intersection of law, culture, information policy, and civic engagement. Nancy served as the first General Counsel of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Senior Advisor for IP and Innovation at the White House, and Counsel for the U.S. Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program (promoting international and domestic cultural exchange). As the Fifth Kaminstein Scholar in Residence at the U.S. Copyright Office, her research focused on Indigenous cultural expression and emerging approaches to supporting Indigenous voice, agency, and authority.

Nancy's international work has included drafting and negotiating landmark international agreements, including the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled; the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art; UNESCO conventions; and United Nations frameworks concerning Internet governance, digital access, and inclusion. She has also helped shape U.S. laws, policies, and strategies in these areas.

Nancy is currently a Senior Fellow with the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law, where she teaches Cultural Heritage Law and works with students in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. Earlier in her career, Nancy practiced law at Williams & Connolly and clerked for the Honorable William W. Schwarzer (N.D. Cal. and Director of the Federal Judicial Center).