Staff
Karen L. Farber
Karen Farber has been Director of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts since December 2005, and in August 2009 accepted the additional positions of Special Assistant to the Provost and Community Arts Liaison.
Prior to moving to Houston, Ms. Farber served as Director of Development for Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. She has been a strategic planning and management fellow of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and has worked in administration and programming at numerous New York City cultural organizations including the 92nd Street Y; the Eldridge Street Project, a museum on New York's Lower East Side; and International Production Associates, a production and management company for the performing arts. Before becoming the Mitchell Centers first Director, she served as Major Gifts Officer for Houston Grand Opera.
Ms. Farber is a New York City native, was raised in Los Angeles, and is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with an M.A. in Performance Studies, and a B.F.A. in Experimental Theater. She serves on the boards of the Fresh Arts Coalition and Lawndale Art Center, and is a member of the River Oaks Womens Breakfast Club.
Bree Edwards
Bree Edwards is Program Director at the University of Houstons Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. She is co-founder of Be Johnny, a video design studio producing projects for Entertainment, Art and Architecture. Formerly she was Curator of Public Programs at the Asheville Art Museum and an independent curator organizing numerous exhibitions and events. Her writing has been published by The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Blaffer Museum of Art at the University of Houston and Museu do Chiado in Lisbon. She received her MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and was a Curatorial Fellow at De Appel Center for Contemporary Art in Amsterdam.
Nicole Laurent
Nicole Laurent, Communications and Special Projects Director, started working with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts in April 2010. Previously, Ms. Laurent was Director of Architecture Center Houston, the office of the American Institute of Architects Houston and Project Manager in Civic Art & Design at the Houston Arts Alliance (HAA), previously known as the Cultural Arts Council of Houston and Harris County. Ms. Laurent is a graduate of the University of Southern California M.A. in Public Art Studies, and Colby College with a B.A. in Art History and Painting with a minor in Education. She serves on the boards of Lawndale Art Center and Spacetaker, and is a member of Artable.
Connie Barr
Connie Barr is the Business Administrator for the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston. She received her B.S. from Louisiana State University and a M.A. at the University of Houston. She is glad to be back on campus here at the University of Houston.
