Staff



Director, Arts Research Center

Beth Piatote
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and English

Beth Piatote is a creative writer, playwright, and scholar. She is the author of two books, including the mixed-genre collection, The Beadworkers: Stories (Counterpoint 2019), which was long-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the PEN/Bingham Prize, and short-listed for the California Independent Booksellers Association “Golden Poppy” Prize for Fiction. The Beadworkers was named the winner of the 2020 Electa Quinney Award for Published Stories. Her full-length play, Antikoni, was selected for the 2020 Festival of New Plays by Native Voices at the Autry, and has been supported by readings with New York Classical Theatre and the Indigenous Writers Collaborative at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Her short play, Tricksters, Unite! was featured in the 2022 Native Voices Short Play Festival at the Autry and the LaJolla Playhouse.  Her short stories and poems have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Epiphany, and numerous other journals and anthologies. She is currently completing a poetry collection, Nez Perce Word for Shark; and a novel. She is an Indigenous language activist and a founding member of luk’upsíimey/North Star Collective, a group dedicated to using creative expression for Nez Perce language revitalization. She is one of the co-creators and current Chair of the Designated Emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization at Berkeley.  Her current scholarly projects include articles on Indigenous language revitalization, with a focus on Nez Perce literature and language; and a book manuscript on Indigenous literature, law, and the senses. She is an associate professor of Comparative Literature and English. She is Nez Perce, enrolled with Colville Confederated Tribes. (Image: Kirsten Lara Getchell)


Associate Director, Arts Research Center

Laurie Macfee
macfee@berkeley.edu

Laurie Macfee (she/her) is a poet, artist, art administrator, and educator. She joined the Arts Research Center in 2018 and was named Associate Director in 2021; she manages ARC’s Poetry and the Senses initiative, oversees all programs and day-to-day operations of the center. Macfee has over 15 years of arts administration experience––she managed the Writing Program, as well as grants, at Vermont Studio Center; served as Curator of Education and Museum School Director at the Nevada Museum of Art; directed the Sheppard Contemporary Gallery at University of Nevada, Reno; and co-founded a non-profit art apprenticeship program for at-risk youth. Her poems have appeared in Washington Square Review, Ninth Letter, Forklift, OhioTupelo Quarterly, and Rattle among others; her photos for Project 929: Mapping the Solar have been published widely, including hyperallergic.com & contemporaryperformance.com; over 200 reside in Nevada Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Macfee earned her M.F.A in Creative Writing/Poetry from Sierra Nevada University. She holds a B.F.A Fine Art/Photography and studied in the M.F.A. Fine Art program at University of South Florida.

 


 

Interim Program Coordinator (PT)

Lily Summer Gee

Lily Summer Gee (she/her) is a hapa movement artist and Bay Area native. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College in Science, Technology, and Society as well as correlates in both Dance Performance and Mathematics. For three years, she served as head/co-head of ViCE Weekly, a student organization that produced underground concerts and platformed developing musical artists. While at Vassar, she debuted over ten dances including two long-form works. Her piece “Mine, Yours, Ours.” was shown at Battery Dance Festival. Since graduation, she has danced with the NYC-based 46 Minutes Collective, Blind Tiger Society, and dNaga Dance Company. She began training at Shawl Anderson Dance Center. Lily believes in the integrity of a dancer’s personhood and creates art guided by both the heart and gut.

 




Communications Assistant, Arts Research Center

Eva Whitney

Eva Whitney is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying comparative literature. Born and raised in San Francisco, she attended Ruth Asawa School of the Arts for creative writing and has been immersed in the city’s art scene her entire life. She has led poetry workshops at 826 Valencia, been a gallery assistant, and currently runs a creative writing publication through the Comparative Literature Department at UC Berkeley as well as works as ARC’s communications assistant. Her work has been featured in NYU’s brio Literary Journal and BAMPFA’s Student Committee Film Festival. Having just returned from a study abroad program in Barcelona, Eva is using her final year at Berkeley to write a senior honors thesis.

 


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Communications Assistant (Fall 2023), Arts Research Center 

Gloria Rodas

Gloria Rodas is a Media Studies undergraduate student at UC Berkeley where she will graduate in Fall 2023. Gloria is a Bay Area native and has spent her life both fascinated, and inspired, by how multifaceted her hometown is. She has spent her undergraduate career exploring as many of her interests as possible. From working with the Latinx Research Center, where she had the chance to travel abroad with the aim of developing a research paper, to co-founding an outdoor club for BIPOC on campus, and now spending her last semester working with the ARC. She hopes to continue pursuing as many of these interests as she can following her undergraduate journey.