Catherine Anchin
Executive Director
Catherine joined the museum in 2021 as Executive Director, where she leads the direction of the museum and works closely with the Board of Directors to deliver strategic objectives. She brings extensive experience in museum fundraising and nonprofit arts management, as well as a commitment to contemporary visual arts.
Her career includes tenures at major national and regional museums, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, Ohio.
She also serves as a Board Director for the National Landing BID and as arts faculty for the Leadership Center of Arlington.
She holds a BA in Art History and an MA in Museum Studies from Syracuse University, as well as a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University.
Jon Breeding
Development Director
Jon joined the museum in 2024 as Development Director, where he leads fundraising and partnerships connecting individuals, corporations, and foundations with museum programs.
Jon brings a diverse background to the museum, with over three decades of expertise in financial risk management, fourteen years of experience in the visual arts, and twelve years of strategic fundraising for non-profit initiatives. Jon delights in bringing financial resources and contemporary visual arts together to achieve mutually beneficial relationships. Additionally, Jon served on the museum’s Board of Directors from 2010-2015.
Jon is also an artist and poet with a passion for creating works and poems of beings in the LGBTQ+ community who lived prior to the Stonewall riots. Jon holds a BBA in Finance from Middle Tennessee State University.
Amber Cruz
Education Program Manager
Amber joined the museum in 2022 as an Education Program Manager, where she develops and manages education programs, including art-making classes, summer camps, and birthday parties.
Previously, Amber worked as an administrator and arts educator at American University where she taught studio art and supported the Department of Literature.
Amber is also an artist and works predominantly in drawing and sculpture, creating with materials such as domestic objects and food as a way to examine memory and labor within the home. As someone who works with unconventional materials, Amber enjoys introducing her students to nontraditional materials and conceptual approaches to making art. Her work has been exhibited at the Katzen Arts Center, Chesapeake Arts Center, Nefarious Contemporary and with other arts organizations in the Washington, DC metro area.
Amber holds a BA in Visual Arts from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and an MFA in Studio Art from American University.
Lia Ferro
Education Program Manager
Lia joined the museum in 2018, first as an Art Instructor and then as an Education Coordinator in 2019. As an Education Program Manager, Lia develops and manages education programs, including art-making classes, summer camps, workshops and enrichment activities in the greater Arlington community, such as Arlington Public Schools and nonprofit organizations.
Lia is a life-long artist with a passion for arts education being accessible to everyone. In her personal art practice, Lia works exclusively with repurposed materials to create more environmentally responsible art.
Lia holds a BS in Sociology and Gender, Sex, and Women’s Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Amanda Jirón-Murphy
Curator & Residency Program Manager
Amanda joined the museum in 2020, first as a contract curator then as Curator & Resident Artist/Collector Liaison in 2022. In her role, Amanda curates the resident artists’ exhibitions, manages the artist residency program, and the museum’s collectors’ program, a public program sharing knowledge about art collecting and supporting artists careers.
In addition, Amanda organized the museum’s 2021 exhibition We Can’t Predict Tomorrow, which explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on artistic practice within the regional contemporary arts sector.
Amanda has served as the Gallery Director at Hamiltonian, where she directed and curated exhibitions, art fairs, and projects for an international roster of over forty emerging and mid-career artists and as the Coordinator of Public Programs and Adult Interpretation at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. She also interned with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy.
Amanda has also served as a guest speaker and panel moderator at cultural institutions and schools around the Washington, DC area and has written for many publications including: The Rib and DIRT DMV.
She holds a BA in Art History from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy and an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art and Connoisseurship from Christie’s Education in London, England.
Lisa Landres
Business Manager
Lisa joined the museum in October 2025 as the Business Manager where she oversees business operations and vendor relationships for the museum, including management of financial transactions, customer relationships and administrative contract management. Lisa brings more than 10 years of senior-level experience in program management to her role. Most recently Lisa led strategic planning and organizational performance management at the U.S. Department of Labor. Prior to that Lisa spent 15 years leading large-scale IT modernizations and software integration projects.
Growing up with a father who was a painter and parents who were art enthusiasts, Lisa developed a lifelong passion for the visual arts. Her personal connection to the arts fuels her commitment to supporting the museum’s mission to connect communities with contemporary art and artists.
Lisa holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, a Master’s in Information Systems, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).
Johnerick Lawson
Visitor Services & Media Coordinator
Johnerick Lawson joined the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington in 2024 as a Visitor Services Associate and became a full-time staff member in 2025. In his current role, he oversees the Visitor Services desk and supports exhibitions and curatorial design projects.
In addition to his work at the museum, Johnerick is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, animation, and publishing. He is the creator of Who Cares LOL, a free zine documenting Arlington’s art scene and history, and his work has been presented in galleries regionally and internationally.
Johnerick holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Sarah Loden
Public Programs Manager
Sarah joined the museum in 2022 as a yoga teacher and arts instructor, and in 2023 as the Public Programs Manager. Her role coordinates programs and activities to creatively serve and engage the community. She focuses on building partnerships and the reach of the museum.
Sarah is a seasoned community-based educator, artist, and project coordinator with over ten years experience crafting and delivering programs for arts and cultural organizations. Her work includes performing in book festivals and building grant-funded community artworks across the world, as well as five years leading a Montessori classroom. She holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology and a B.S. in Communication Studies from The University of Texas at Austin, and an M.ED from Loyola University Maryland. She is a mixed media artist, storyteller, yoga instructor, and conscious dance facilitator, as well as a traveler, bicycling enthusiast, and a dog mom.
Blair Murphy
Senior Curator & Director of Exhibitions
Blair joined the museum in 2018 as Curator of Exhibitions. She shapes the vision for the exhibitions program and curates group and solo exhibitions. Previous exhibitions include: Take a Number: Artists and Bureaucracy, Stretched, Applied Forces, Transitional Objects, Over, Under, Forward, Back, and By Proxy, the museum’s first virtual exhibition. In addition, she launched the museum’s biennial exhibition series, Assembly, in 2019 and Global Spotlight, a new series focused on international artists, in 2022. She also served as Acting Executive Director of the museum from October 2020 to May 2021.
Previously, Blair served as the Managing Director at DC Arts Center, Adjunct Faculty at George Mason University, and Program Director at Washington Project for the Arts.
Her previous curatorial projects include exhibitions at The Kitchen (New York, NY), Washington Project for the Arts (Washington, DC), Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Field Projects (New York, NY), VisArts Rockville (Rockville, MD), and with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Blair has served as a guest speaker and panel moderator at cultural institutions around the Washington, DC area and New York, including the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. She has also written for many publications including Hyperallergic, Bmore Art, and DCist.
She was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow of the Whitney Independent Study Program. She holds a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and an MA from Georgetown University.
Rachel Piering
Events Manager
Rachel joined the museum in 2022 as Events Manager, where she manages the Space Rental program and the Corporate Creativity program, a team-building private event opportunity where companies can explore art-making and other team facilitation activities at the museum.
Rachel has fifteen years of event experience in the non-profit and corporate sector where she plans both small and large events including: annual fundraisers, galas, golf tournaments, marketing events, and private receptions.
As an entrepreneur, she has grown her business, Tempo Event Consulting, over the past six years representing clients in the Washington, DC area. As an artist, she has both planned and participated in many art exhibitions as a semi-abstract painter and event planner.
Rachel holds a BFA and an MBA from Stetson University with a focus on Marketing.
