Steering Committee members get to decide the direction that RALSD takes in its efforts to provide new and valuable programming and resources to its members. Becoming a member of the RALSD Steering Committee is a two-year commitment and you will be expected to lead a subcommittee and attend monthly Steering Committee meetings. You are granted a yearly professional development stipend as well as numerous opportunities to attend conferences and networking events, both in San Diego and across the U.S. The work is not always easy but the opportunity to meet and be met by some of the biggest players in the San Diego Arts Community as well as the leadership opportunities pay dividends.
Shayla James
2021 Chair, Executive Committee
Professional Musician, Teaching Artist
Shayla James balances her time as an educator, performer, arts administrator, and researcher in the non-profit sector. She is a multi-instrumentalist who believes in being an advocate for accessible arts education and programming for all ages. She is the owner of Sempre Music Studio, an energetic and creativity focused studio that offers high quality music education. Her work is rooted in community empowerment and collaboration across disciplines. She co-leads an online forum for San Diego Teaching Artists, called Teaching Artists Circle. As a researcher, her interests include arts education, cultural policy and equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility practices. She was previously the Membership Co-Chair for Young Nonprofit Professionals Network San Diego. She is on the Arts, Culture, and Design Committee for the Port of San Diego and Arts+Culture: San Diego Community Advisory Council through the Rise Up for the Arts Coalition. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and putting together jigsaw puzzles.
Katie Lorge
2021 Vice Chair, Executive Committee
Katie Lorge (she/her/hers) has spent the past 10 years working in the arts, education, nonprofits, and philanthropy. In her current role as Creative Youth Development Programs Manager at the Clare Rose Foundation, she supports field-building and grantmaking initiatives that serve CYD practitioners, organizations, and young people and is a key thought partner in growing the Foundation’s work in the field of CYD.
Katie graduated summa cum laude from UCSD in 2009 with a BA in Dance. She has created, performed, and curated dance works in San Diego and New York City.
Katie has completed continuing education coursework in Dance/Movement Psychotherapy with Infants and Children at the 92nd Street Y and Blogging and Copyediting at UCSD, and has served on the Steering Committee of Rising Arts Leaders of San Diego since 2019, holding the roles of Membership Co-Chair and Vice Chair.
Yvette Roman
2021 Treasurer, Executive Committee
Art Coordinator, La Maestra
Yvette Roman is a bi-national artist, curator and arts educator. She holds a B.A., from UCSD in Visual Arts and Cultural Anthropology. Yvette is passionate about making art accessible through community-organized collaboration. Her artwork is an exploration of simplicity and chaos. Disciplines include photography, painting, and collage. Her artwork weaves memories of loss, self-discovery, and personal insecurities. Her artwork has been exhibited in the US, Mexico and Egypt.
Most recently Yvette was selected by the Mint House Project to create a public mural on the topic of immigration, titled “Haciendo Linea”. Her series, “Fragments”, was displayed through Hanalei Artwork in San Diego, and at Alternate Roots in North Carolina.
Yvette is the Art Coordinator at La Maestra- Generations Center for Youth Advancement. She is an Artist Advocate for RALSD- Rising Arts Leaders in San Diego, a Curator at Amigos del Rep, and a member of the Core Team for the SDAC- San Diego Arts Community. From 2018-2019 she was the Vice President of Art Unites.
Leah Firebaugh
2021 Secretary, Executive Committee
Arts Marketer
With a lifelong passion for the arts, Leah Firebaugh has dedicated much of her personal and professional time to working with leading arts organizations in marketing and fundraising/development roles. Leah is a member of San Diego Leadership Alliance, is a Board Member of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network San Diego, and serves on the Steering Committee of Rising Arts Leaders San Diego. In her free time, Leah can be found playing the piano and ukulele, screening films for the San Diego International Film Festival, cooking, and hiking San Diego’s beautiful scenery.
Chinanshu Arun Sharma
2021 Steering Committee
Chinanshu Arun Sharma (she/ her/hers) is an artist, jewelry designer and an entrepreneur. She is an ex-banker and ran a small-scale, for-profit jewelry business in India employing economically weaker women and showcased her collections in various arts and crafts shows and design events including prestigious crafts council show-Vastrabharna. She has been featured in national and regional dailies- like The Times of India, Indian Express, Telegraph, T2, and magazines including Femina India, San Diego Voyager.
Apart from making jewelry and teaching jewelry making she is actively volunteering and her volunteering experiences range from Mammomobile India, The Friday Convent in the past to currently working with Dragonflies Everywhere and Rising Arts leaders, San Diego.
Frankie Alicea-Ford
2021 Steering Committee
Frankie is a San Diego based, New York City trained actor, deviser, and educator who has been performing and teaching professionally since 2012 – graduating from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he trained in the Experimental Theatre Wing with a focus in training in devised theater techniques, arts integration and trauma-based theater practices. He has created and taught Devised Theater programs at multiple locations across the country. He is currently working as an actor and educator throughout San Diego and is the Artist-In-Residence at New Village Arts.
Yari De Jesus
2021 Steering Committee
Artist, Arts administrator
Yari (she/her/hers) is a San Diego based artist and arts administrator. Receiving her B.A. in Art History in 2018 from CSU Fullerton, Yari went on to not only explore arts and culture within local museums but also interned as the programs assistant at Elsewhere , Living Museum, in North Carolina. In 2019 as the programs assistant she lived within the museum itself as part of a collaborative space along with two other interns and six artists in residence amongst the numerous exhibitions and growing installations. For sixteen weeks she ran tours of the space, helped problem solve artist’s installations, assisted in facilitating a fundraiser,and painted a mural within the museum. Excited to bring back these new cultivated skills she hopes to use these to help facilitate what art, art spaces, and art events look like in a world navigating the current Covid pandemic.
Wendy Gracia
2021 Steering Committee
Contemporary Painter, Museum Worker
Wendy Gracia is an oil painter working out of San Diego. She received her BFA in 2018 from Laguna College of Art + Design, majoring in Studio Arts. She has spent the last three years working and volunteering with arts & culture in San Diego. Currently, Wendy is showing some of her paintings in Barrio Logan, and has also recently exhibited in Orange County and LA. This is her second year serving on the committee for the Rising Arts Leaders, where she just last year co-created the Artist Toolbox.
Alyssa Junious
2021 Steering Committee
Alyssa Junious is an Artist, Educator, and Wellness Advocate. She received her BFA in Performance & Choreography and certificate in Arts Management from the University of California, Irvine. For the past 10 years, she has worked professionally in the concert dance, commercial and theater industry. She is the founder of Continuum Arts & Pilates and provides services in movement training, artist development and performance production. Her choreographic style blends her background in music, theater and dance while exploring the intersection of culture, identity, spirituality and social justice. She found a way to combine her love for arts & wellness and co-founded Soultry Sisters, where she empowers women of color to lead conscious, holistic and creative lives. Alyssa is committed to investing back into the San Diego arts community and is excited to be a part of the Rising Arts Leaders steering committee. She is also a part of the William Male Foundation grant selection committee and serves on the advisory board for The Hubbard Collective. To learn more visit AlyssaRJunious.com or follow @continuum.sd
Camille McPherson
2021 Steering Committee
Dancer, San Diego Ballet
Camille is currently in her ninth season with the San Diego Ballet, where she has been featured in leading and soloist roles in the company’s diverse array of repertoire. Her performances have earned her press features in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Jazz Blues News and the San Diego Reader as well as television features on KUSI and PBS.
Prior to joining the San Diego Ballet, Camille danced in professional productions with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as a member of the company’s prestigious Graduate Program and with California Ballet as an Apprentice. Camille teaches extensively throughout San Diego and has served as a Ballet Exam Juror at the San Diego School for Creative and Performing Arts. She has danced as a guest artist with San Diego Dance Theater and Teatro San Diego.
In addition to performing and teaching, Camille enjoys working in arts administration, serving as San Diego Ballet’s Educational Outreach Coordinator and Summer Intensive Administrative Director. She recently joined the board of Teatro San Diego, where she serves as Director of Development. Camille is thrilled to work alongside her fellow Rising Arts Leaders in order to add to the vibrancy of San Diego’s arts and culture sector.
Heather Sweeney
2021 Steering Committee
Heather C Sweeney, she/her/hers, lives in San Diego where she writes and creates visual art. She is the Director of the Creative Mind Academy at San Diego State University and serves on the Steering Committee for Rising Arts Leaders, San Diego. In 2016, she earned her M.F.A. from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics where she was the Allen Ginsberg Fellow. She published two full-length poetry collections in 2020 and has published several chapbooks. Her artwork has been commissioned by private clients across the country. Her hope is to uplift others through her work and practices. You can find her at https://www.heathercsweeney.
Elizabeth Tobias
2021 Steering Committee
Elizabeth Tobias, MA, is an Expressive Arts Therapist, Artist, Educator and Community Organizer. Elizabeth draws upon multiple art disciplines to create socially engaged immersive installations. As a facilitator and educator, she works with schools, museums and non-profits to create customized expressive arts programs, performances, workshops and events.
Elizabeth currently serves on the steering committee of Rising Arts Leaders, San Diego as well as The Arts+Culture San Diego Community Advisory Council. She is the recipient of numerous awards and has exhibited her films and work at museums and galleries throughout the world including Harvard University, Utah MOCA and Ping-Pong at Art Basel. She received her MA in Psychology from USM and her Professional Diploma from The Expressive Arts Institute.
In 2019, Tobias received awards for her short documentary, “Survivor! 98 Second Stories, an advocacy project bringing awareness to the sexual assault epidemic. In 2014, she was awarded a Learning Innovation Fellowship from The National Science Foundation as part of a collaborative project to combine art and science to combat climate change. In 2012, she earned a Durfee ARC Grant for The Cupcake Project, a traveling exhibit about the hunger epidemic in America.
She has worked with organizations including Vista Hill Parent Care, The San Diego Unified School District Department of Student Advocacy, La Jolla Elementary School, La Jolla High School, The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, The Expressive Arts Foundation and Arts for Learning.
Nicole Verdes
2021 Steering Committee
Nicole Verdes (she/they) has been serving as Board President for Lambda Archives since August of 2018 after serving as Board Treasurer since 2017. She is a passionate arts advocate and political activist and has spent several years involved in local Queer organizations serving as co-chair of the San Diego LGBT Community Center’s Young Professional’s Council and as Board Treasurer for Volunteer With Cheli. In 2020, Nicole was a panelist for the California Arts Council’s pilot program–Administrators of Color Fellowship, which seeks to bolster opportunities for BIPOC in arts administration, with the intention of creating the deserved opportunity for people of color across and throughout the arts sector. Originally from San Bernardino County, Nicole holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Sociological Practice from Cal State San Marcos.