Maria is a mother, writer, and nonprofit leader with almost two decades of experience working at the intersection of culture, innovation, and social change. She has held leadership positions at a range of institutions that support creative producers from small community-based organizations to large national arts funders, in addition to leading career development training sessions and executive coaching for designers and creative professionals around the country. She was the inaugural Director of Communications at the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, where she developed institutional core values and worked with grantees to promote freedom of expression. She also spent ten years at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) to grow their resources for artists and launch their racial justice initiatives. She lives outside of Philadelphia with her family.