Meet the NCECA Board of Directors

Meet the NCECA Board of Directors

2026 NCECA Board of Directors

If you wish to get in touch with a member of the NCECA Board, please email us at helloboard@nceca.net.

  • Past-President 2026-2027
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  • Shoji Satake is a Studio Artist and Distinguished Faculty/Associate Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has previously taught at Indiana University, Hope College, and Central Michigan University. Satake has served as a Director at Large for the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) and was a key on-site coordinator for NCECA’s 2018 conference in Pittsburgh. His career includes national and international workshops, lectures, and exhibitions, with notable highlights such as participation in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, numerous solo and group exhibitions, and induction into the International Academy of Ceramics (an official NGO of UNESCO).

    Satake’s residency experiences span China, Japan, Canada, and the United States. In addition to his teaching, he maintains an active studio practice in West Virginia with his artist partner, Jen Allen. Outside of his academic and creative work, he devotes time to his family and planning his next ultimate fly-fishing adventure in pursuit of giant trout and salmon.

  • President 2026-2028
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  • Steve Hilton earned his MFA at Arizona State University (2005). He also holds degrees in Art Education and Environmental Geology from Missouri State University. He has taught science and art at the secondary and post-secondary levels, and his work has been collected by museums, universities and individuals both nationally and internationally.  He has been juried and invited into over 200 international and national exhibitions in conjunction with both curated and solo exhibitions. Steve is The Fain Professor of Fine Arts in ceramics and art education at MSU Texas and is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and a Fellow of the Council of NCECA (The National Council on the Education for the Ceramic Arts). 


  • President Elect 2027-2028
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  • Beginning in 1990 and retiring in June 2022, JoAnn Schnabel is a Professor Emerita of Art at the University of Northern lowa.

    Schnabel attended New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University (BFA 1981) and Louisiana State University (MFA 1986). She served on the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts Board for 28 years and currently serves as Co-Vice President on the board of Studio Potter journal.


  • Steward of the Board 2026-2028
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  • Holly Hannesian’s dedication to education, creative practice, advocacy, and leadership are inspirational. As former board member Steve Hilton noted, “Holly's professional journey has been characterized by a strong dedication to both artistic practice and education. She holds a deep understanding of the medium of ceramics and its significance within the contemporary art world…. She has been a strong voice for social justice and has actively supported underrepresented artists and perspectives, fostering a more inclusive and equitable environment within the ceramic arts.” Holly formed this Task Force sometime around 2019 with the direction that they help craft a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) statement that articulated NCECAs position and practice. They were charged with making recommendations for the board to consider that would advance DEI efforts within NCECA. This task force provided a foundational shift in many elements of NCECA’s work, leadership, and community.  NCECA benefited from Holly’s capacity to create connective communities and empower NCECA members to be part of the changes in the organization.

  • Treasurer 2022-2025
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  • Rick Rogers holds an MBA from Ohio State University (1979) and a BA in Biology and Chemistry from Hiram College (1977). A consummate entrepreneur with an innate propensity for leadership, Rick began his career in 1980 as founder and president of Tribute, a software company based in Akron, Ohio. He assumed leadership of B. W. Rogers Company, a manufacturing and distribution company founded by his grandfather, in 1994. Over the course of twenty years, Rick expanded the family business from six offices in the state of Ohio to twenty-one offices spanning seven states. He assembled and led a diverse team of over 250 people, and it was through his ability to identify talent and cultivate a sense of creativity and independence in his employees that his company was able to thrive and contribute to the economic vitality of his beloved hometown, Akron, Ohio. Rick continues to give back to the city that allowed his business to flourish through his civic involvement with and contributions to a number of area charities, including Akron Children’s Hospital; the Akron Art Museum; the Intermuseum Conservancy Association, and the Boys and Girls Club of the Western Reserve. Rick is deeply engaged in the arts, and he is a leading collector of contemporary ceramics from Asia and the US and twentieth-century American and European design. In 2017 Rick created the nonprofit Curated Storefront. Through his leadership, The Curated Storefront has successfully secured and managed funds to launch an impressive array of arts initiatives in downtown Akron.

  • Secretary 2026-2029
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  • Stephanie Lanter is an artist-educator who has been working with clay, sculpture, drawing and words for twenty-five years. She has exhibited extensively across the U.S. and overseas, and received a 2025 Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellowship Grant. She has completed residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation, Red Lodge Clay Center, Arrowmont, NISDA, the LH Project, Anderson Ranch and the Mendocino Arts Center, and given workshops and lectures at numerous schools and institutions including NCECA, ArtAxis, CAA, Arrowmont, Peters Valley School of Craft, and the Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts.

    Stephanie is currently an Associate Professor of Ceramics and Chair of Studio Art at the University of Hartford, Hartford Art School. She moved to Connecticut from Kansas in 2020 with her two cats after teaching at Emporia State University, Washburn University and Wichita State. She received an MFA from Ohio University, Athens and a BA from Xavier University in Cincinnati.

  • Collaboration & Engagement Director 2021-2027
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  • Heidi McKenzie is a Toronto-based ceramic artist. In 2009, Heidi left a 20-year career in arts management and production to apprentice in her father’s ancestral home with India’s foremost studio potter, Mini Singh (a student of Bernard Leach). Heidi returned to Canada and completed her Diploma at Sheridan College in 2012 and subsequently her MFA in Curatorial Practice and Art Criticism at OCADU in 2014. In 2011 Heidi received the Emerging Artist Award at Toronto Artists Project, and in 2012 exhibited at the Toronto International Art Fair. In 2013, Heidi was funded by the Ontario Arts Council to create in Jingdezhen, China and in Bali, Indonesia. In 2014 Heidi completed a residency at Guldagergaard International Centre for Ceramic Research. In 2017 Heidi received OAC funding to work in Sydney Australia, to apprentice with Master Mitsuo Shoji. Heidi has exhibited nationally and internationally, including biennales and Romania, Hungary, Australia and at NCECA (Milwaukee, Portland,Cincinnati). Her work is currently touring Europe and Scandinavia as part of the “best of” exhibitions with Cluj Biennial and Guldagergaard. She is the recipient of a 2017 and 2019 Craft Ontario Awards, Best in Show Ontario Artists Association Biennial Award in 2017, Canada Council Explore and Create Visual Artist Grant, and Toronto Arts Council Grant to Mid-Career Artists. In 2020, she was an inaugural recipient of the NCECA Helene Zucker Seeman Curatorial, Research, and Critical Writing Fellowship for Women.

    Heidi’s work, Postmarked, on growing up at the margins in the Maritimes, was recently acquired by Global Affairs Canada to be placed in embassies internationally. Heidi curated/exhibited/moderated on ‘Decolonizing Clay’ at the Australian Ceramics Triennale in 2019, and recently presented at the World Indian Diaspora Congress in Trinidad August 2020. Heidi’s work seeks to reinvigorate modernism through abstraction and engages issues of race, identity, belonging, as well as body and healing. She is an advocate for BIPOC and marginalized artists, an active arts journalist and ceramic arts reviewer.

  • Programs Director 2024-2027
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  • PJ Anderson is an early career ceramic artist from Thompson, Manitoba, Canada. She is an artist of both Afro-Jamaican and Metis heritage that she references during her explorations of Multi-Cultural identity, Canadian Identity, Environmental Issues, and Digital Social Justice. She is currently a Graduate Candidate at the University of Manitoba. Pj has explored Ceramics internationally as Resident Artist at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, where she had previously visited as a Zulu ceramics’ researcher, and New Mexico where she studied both ceramics and weaving. Her work has been shown in South Africa, in China as a finalist in the International Ceramic Magazine Editors Associations (ICMEA) Emerging Artist Competition and the United States. Pj has lectured at the University of Manitoba, the University of Kwazulu Natal, National Clay Week and others.

  • Exhibitions Director 2023-2029
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  • Adam Chau works primarily in ceramics and operates a studio in Cold Spring, NY. After receiving a BFA degree (MECA, 2010) in studio ceramics, he decided to pursue more industrial ways of production while keeping traditional craft paradigms by receiving a Masters in Design (SAIC, 2013). His main body of work, Digital Calligraphy, investigates the hybridization of handcraft and digital technology. He has exhibited and lectured internationally including the Salone di Mobile at Rossana Orlandi in Milan, Italy and the NADA art fair in New York City. Publications on his research into ceramic technology include Ceramics Monthly, Studio Potter, and Ceramics Technical. In 2018 he was awarded the NCECA Emerging Artist Fellowship and in 2019 became a member of the International Academy of Ceramics.

    Photo credit: John Reuter


  • Director at Large 2026-2029
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  • Alex Ferrante is a faculty member at Dallas College. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Toledo and Resident Artist and teaching fellow at Midwestern State University (Texas). He was the recipient of the Zeldin Fellowship from The Clay Studio. Alex holds an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

  • Director at Large 2024-2027
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  • Grace Han is a ceramic artist originally trained in South Korea. She received her BFA from Dankook University, where she specialized in traditional Korean ceramic techniques and skills. She received her MFA from the University of Manitoba, where she currently teaches ceramics as an Assistant Professor.


  • Governance, Advocacy & Policy Director 2021-2027
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  • MaPó Kinnord grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She received her first training in ceramics through Cleveland’s Quaker-founded alternative high school, the School on Magnolia. She apprenticed with several production potters before receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1984. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Ohio State University in 1994. Arriving in New Orleans in 1995, she now serves as an Associate Professor of Art at Xavier University. A well-respected educator, Kinnord has taught workshops at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine and the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, as well as the Kambe no Sato Arts Center in Matsue, Japan. She has researched the traditional and contemporary art of Ghana and has produced video documentation of the traditional pottery, kiln building and ceramic architecture of Northern Ghana, West Africa.


  • Student Director at Large 2026-2028
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  • Hadley Wiktor graduated from Kutztown University in 2020 with a BFA in Crafts and a BA in Art History. The pandemic redirected her from pursuing an MA to working as a production potter in Vermont, fostering four years of growth. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Ceramics at PennWest University Edinboro.


  • Student Director at Large 2025-2027
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  • Asma Waheed, a Pakistani-born American ceramic artist and mother of four, resides in Ellicott City, Maryland. She earned her BA in Education from West Virginia University and an MA in Ceramics from Hood College. An MFA candidate at Maryland Institute College of Art, she has exhibited nationally and is an NCECA Graduate Fellowship recipient and Collaboration and Engagement Committee member.


  • Director at Large 2025-2028
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  • Sin-ying Ho earned an  MFA from Louisiana State University in 2001. Ho is an associate professor at Queens College, City University of New York; advisor of Taoxichuan Art Centre, Jingdezhen, People’s Republic of China; and board member of Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts and Museum of Ceramics Art in New York.


  • Onsite Conference Liaison 2025-2027
    2027 Baltimore
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  • Matthew Hyleck received a BFA from Xavier University in 1997. He is a studio potter whose outstanding utilitarian pottery has earned recognition by the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship award in Craft in 2018, 2011, 2007 and 2005. He has completed visiting artist-residencies at Tainan National University for the Arts, Taiwan R.O.C. in 2005, Ohio University's Woodfire Symposium in 2010 and Watershed Craft Center's summer 2012 AIA residency. He serves as the Executive Director for Baltimore Clayworks. His Shino ceramic works are informed directly by his love for natural objects coupled with a passion for utilitarian objects.  Natural shapes, textures, patterns and symbols provide design elements for his artwork as he explores the hand-made object within a defined domestic landscape. He maintains an active home studio in the Beverly Hills neighborhood of Baltimore City, Maryland.


  • Onsite Conference Liaison 2025-2027
    2027 Baltimore
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  • V Walton is a multidisciplinary artist and educator in Baltimore. They have an MFA in Ceramic Art from Alfred University and a BFA with a focus in ceramics from Towson University. Walton explores the wonder and complexity of Black identity, creating sculpture and video works that center the narratives of women and gender-expansive people. V draws from her own life: reflecting on the intersection of her identities, their chronic illness-disability and queerness. Their work illustrates the societal and interpersonal dynamics that build and break us down simultaneously, making multi-layered connections between clay[terra], nature, and the body.


  • Onsite Conference Liaison 2026-2028
    2028 Spokane
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  • Tybre Newcomer received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Missouri State University and his Master of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology-School for American Crafts in Ceramics and Ceramic Sculpture. He has taught at several institutions before joining the faculty at Spokane Falls Community College in 2016. Previously, he was an Artist in Residence at the Tainan National University of the Arts in Tainan, Taiwan and at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, TX. In addition to teaching, he maintains an active studio and exhibits his work nationally.