Announcing Jerome Foundation’s New Program Associates

Lara Mimosa Montes is the author of THRESHOLES (Coffee House Press, 2020). She holds a PhD in English from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, Fence, Futurepoem and elsewhere. She is the recipient of artist residencies from Marble House Project, Storm King: Shandaken, and Headlands Center for the Arts. In 2018, she was awarded a McKnight Fellowship in Poetry. Previously a senior editor of Triple Canopy, Lara currently teaches editing and publishing at the University of Minnesota. Most recently, she is coeditor of the artist monograph Darrel Ellis (Visual AIDS, 2021).

Melissa Levin is a values-driven arts administrator, artist-centered curator, and steadfast advocate for just and equitable practices in the arts. For more than 12 years, Melissa worked at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) where she was the Vice President of Cultural Programs. Her role encompassed wide-ranging institutional and artistic leadership, overseeing LMCC’s major artist-centered and public-facing initiatives including the River To River Festival, the Arts Center at Governors Island, and LMCC’s artist residency programs. Recently, Melissa led the newly formed Artists, Estates, and Foundations division at Art Agency, Partners in its inaugural three years. Starting in 2016, with collaborator Alex Fialho, Melissa has stewarded the legacy of and curated critically acclaimed exhibitions dedicated to the late artist Michael Richards, including Michael Richards: Winged (LMCC, 2016; Stanford University, 2019) and Richards’ first museum retrospective, Michael Richards: Are You Down? (MOCA North Miami, 2021).

Melissa additionally serves on the boards of the Artist Communities Alliance and Danspace Project. She holds a B.A. with honors in Visual Art and Art History from Barnard College.