Staff

Executive Director - Ingrid Zimmer

Managing Director - Shelley Brown

Director of Education - Shannon Quinn

Production and Administrative Manager - Carter Sligh

Director of Development - Patricia Ruane

Inspired Child Program Manager - Dwayne Jeffrey

Inspired Child Program Associate - Melissa Strova-Valencia

Inspired Child Senior Advisor - Dr. Jessica Phillips-Silver

Graphic Designer - Jennifer Frink

Board of Directors

Chair - Kelvin Coleman

Vice Chair - Anya Grundmann

Vice Chair - Debra Kraft Liberatore

Treasurer - Virginie Carey

Founding Director - Constance S. Zimmer

Kelvin Coleman, Chair

Dumbarton Arts and Education announced Kelvin Coleman, as the newly-elected Chair of the Board of Directors, as of the new fiscal year July 1, 2022.  He succeeds Charles A. Miller who held the position since 1990.  Ingrid Zimmer, Executive Director says “We are thrilled to welcome Kelvin as board chair. His new leadership will provide us with a fresh perspective, expertise in technology, commitment to education equity, and firm belief in the transformative power of the arts.”  

Coleman currently serves as an Executive Partner with IBM Consulting in the Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence Unit. Prior to this role, he worked with the world’s most recognizable technology and financial services companies to build strong public/private partnerships as Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.  Coleman has served in several roles in the private and public sectors including in the Obama Administration where he joined the White House National Security Council – Cyber Directorate as the director of State Engagement. He also served as the Cyber Policy Executive at the National Defense Information Sharing and Analysis Center and as Strategic Director at FireEye where he managed National Security Agency and Department of Defense issues related to protecting government intelligence networks. Coleman spent several years with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security where he was the staff director for the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and the Branch Chief for Intergovernmental Affairs – Stakeholder Engagement for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications.  

Kelvin Coleman has served on several boards in the Washington Metropolitan area including the Mayor’s Homeland Security Advisory Commission, the Beauvoir School (board vice-chair), and the National Cathedral Foundation (cybersecurity/emerging technology chair). He also served as a board member of Fair Chance, the Black Student Fund, and the National Child Research Center.  He is a proud resident of Washington, DC. 

Meet Our Staff

Ingrid Zimmer  |  Executive Director

Born and raised in Washington, DC, Ingrid Zimmer has dedicated her career to advocating for arts in education for DC’s most disadvantaged students. On the vanguard of learning through the arts, trained by the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning, Ms. Zimmer is a master teaching artist who has brought arts integration to schools serving low-income neighborhoods for the last two decades. In 1994, Ms. Zimmer started at Inspired Child as a teaching artist. After over 20 years of commitment to Inspired Child’s innovative programs, as Executive Director, she continues to oversee and develop arts-rich literacy programming that empowers early childhood teachers to become inspired educators who prepare their students to become motivated and successful learners. Recognized as a thought leader in arts integration, Ms. Zimmer presents workshops at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education Project Zero conferences. 

Ms. Zimmer led the dance program at the National Cathedral School and St. Albans School for 10 years. After graduating from Pomona College with a degree in Dance/Theater, Ms. Zimmer moved to Europe where she performed, toured, and studied under the auspices of Pina Bausch, the creator of Tanztheater in Germany. Performing with the premiere modern dance companies of Washington, DC, Ms. Zimmer has appeared on stages in Mexico, Greece, and China, as well as in prestigious national venues such as Jacob’s Pillow, the Kennedy Center, and the 92nd St. Y in NYC.     

Shelley Brown | Managing/Artistic Director

Since 2015, Shelley Brown has managed the administration of Dumbarton Arts & Education. In her thirty years of arts administration in the Washington, DC area, she has worked for two other non-profit organizations: The Kennedy Center and Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc.

For 12 years until 2015, Shelley served as the Vice President for Programming and Artistic Director for Strathmore Hall Foundation, Inc., where she oversaw the planning and implementation of Strathmore presentations in the Music Center (1800 seats) and the Mansion at Strathmore. Her producing credits include: Free to Sing: The Story of The Story of the First African American Opera Company; Washington Area Timeline Concert Series; Tribute to Ella Jenkins concert for the Strathmore/Smithsonian Folkways DVD; The Celebration of the Piano; The Guitar Festival; and the 2012 Celebration of the American Violin. In recent years, Shelley has led concert hall programming nationally by connecting innovative concerts, experts, and students in thematic programs that have captured national attention. Examples include Strathmore’s 2010 Interpreting Stravinsky and 2011 Ives Project, which were broadcast nationally by WFMT and XM Sirius. In 2012, she developed and produced Strathmore’s acclaimed Discover Ellington Festival. In 2014, Shelley produced The Appetite Festival. She joined Strathmore in 1998, first as the Rental Coordinator, then was promoted to Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs. 

Prior to Strathmore, Shelley was at the Kennedy Center From August 1988 to December 1997.   Shelley was Festival Manager at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she oversaw the implementation of expanded international festival programming, including the 1994 Australian Festival, 1992 German Festival, 1998 Israeli Festival, and annual Japanese events. She devised the initial program concepts for the nightly free Millennium Stage Series, which she launched and booked. Shelley was also responsible for the programming and management of the Open House Arts Festival, the Kennedy Center's largest outreach project, and the Holiday Celebration. She began her career as a press agent at the Kennedy Center. She holds a B.A. from Connecticut College and an M.B.A. from George Washington University.

Carter Sligh | Production and Administrative Manager

As the Production and Administrative Manager, Carter serves as the operational base of Dumbarton Arts and Education. He is the Production Manager for the Dumbarton Concerts series, as well as the chief administrative support for the organization at large, including Inspired Child. Carter comes to Dumbarton with a background in arts operations and logistics, working for 7 years in the concert touring industry. He planned and led dozens of tours ranging from children’s choirs to symphony orchestras, at home in Washington, DC and around the world.

Carter is also an active professional musician, and as a working singer and pianist, he brings his love of and lifetime experience in the classical music world to work every day. He is a bass-baritone in the professional choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, and is collaborative pianist for the Cantate Concert Choir, in addition to other piano and singing engagements locally and nationally. He has worked as a private piano and voice instructor, as well as a high school choir and voice teacher, and has an educational background in stage directing and production.

A native of central Florida, Carter is a proud graduate of Oberlin College, with a BA in Theater, and of the University of York (UK), with an MA in Ensemble Singing.

Patricia Ruane |  Director of Development

Patricia leads Dumbarton Arts & Education’s development efforts, which includes conducting grant research, grant writing and reporting, and cultivating relationships with organizational and individual donors. She has eight years of experience in PreK-12 education with nonprofits and as a consultant, and she has worked closely with large urban districts around the country to meaningfully improve student outcomes. She previously worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. Patricia earned her B.A. from the College of William and Mary and serves as a volunteer with Reading Partners, a national nonprofit that offers individualized reading support to children between kindergarten and fourth grade.

Dwayne Jeffrey | Education Program Manager

Dwayne serves as the Education Program Manager for Inspired Child. Raised in Brooklyn, NY, Dwayne brings a plethora of experiences from the city that helped raise him to Washington D.C. Prior to Inspired Child, Dwayne worked at a few education nonprofits throughout D.C. most pertaining to the literacy development of students. Dwayne is excited to be focused on this new area of development for students, as the performing arts helped to shape his development. Studying music along with his core subjects from grades 6-12; music helped him to stay grounded, focused, disciplined and of course made school more fun. It’s a full circle experience to aid in bringing arts education to youth, to enrich the student experience, because that’s exactly what the arts do. 

Currently Dwayne is also working on completing his Masters in Education Policy and Leadership at American University (Class of 2022). He hopes to continue to work in the education field to inspire, change and improve the overall education experience for students, with the arts as a core subject/tool. 

Melissa Strova-Valencia | Education Program Associate

Meli is an Abya Yala’s artivist, actress, storyteller, dancer, musician and educator, native of the occupied territory of the Chibcha, Caribes and Arawak people (Colombia). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from San Buenaventura University in Colombia, a masters degree in Advanced Theatre Studies from La Rioja International University in Spain, and a diploma in Art in the Early Childhood from the Ministry of Culture and San Buenaventura University in Colombia. Currently based in Washington DC, she has studies in neurobiology, is pursuing studies in Art-theraphy and works as a teaching artist for early childhood at Children’s House of Washington, Sitar Arts Center, Caritas Felices, Word Dance Theatre, Gala Hispanic Theater, Inspired Child, Musitodo and Teatro La Bolsa which she co-founded and works as the Education Director. Her research approach is developed in Latin American theater with social focus and collective creation and in art therapy with a greater depth in drama therapy and music therapy, using theater and music as a therapeutic tool to work with community victims of violence.

Jessica Phillips-Silver | Senior Advisor, Inspired Child

Jessica Phillips-Silver, Ph.D., is a researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical Center and served as adjunct professor in the Faculty of Music, where she developed Georgetown's first course on Music and the Brain. Jessica is also the founder of the company Growing Brains®: A brain-based approach to raising children and communities. The mission of Growing Brains is to empower families and institutions with a model for raising children and educating communities, integrating evidence from brain science with core values from the arts, medicine and advocacy for social justice.

Jessica earned a Bachelor of Humanities and Arts in Cognitive Psychology and Music from Carnegie Mellon University, a Ph.D. in auditory development and music perception at McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind in Ontario, and she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the International Laboratory of Brain, Music and Sound in Montreal.

Jessica's original research examines how 'feeling the beat' in music is a multisensory experience from infancy through adulthood, and she documented the first case of the musical disorder 'beat deafness'. She currently studies the musical processing and cortical plasticity in blindness, and the development of musical rhythm and executive functions in Deaf and hearing children. Jessica’s work has been featured in USA Today, Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, the Atlantic, NPR and The Discovery Channel, and in popular books including The Body has a Mind of Its Own, and Welcome to Your Child’s Brain.