Alana Ryder

2012 Master of Arts in History with concentration in Museum Studies, SUNY Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY. Spring 2013 Master’s Thesis, "By My Side: Charles E. Burchfield’s Letters to Bertha K. Burchfield from 1923 to 1963." Cynthia Conides and Nancy Weekly Graduate Advisors, Alana Ryder received an award for her “Outstanding Master’s Thesis.” https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/history_theses/7

2017-2020 Master of Business Administration, Ohio State University Fisher School of Business, Columbus, Ohio

Experience

2009-2013 Curator for Public & Academic Programs, Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY; Exhibitions include: Charles E. Burchfield: Oh My Heavens, Sisti and Oishei Galleries, April 12 – July 28, 2013, co-curated by Tullis Johnson, Alana Ryder, and Kevin Williams; The Studio (1942), Charles E. Burchfield Rotunda, April 12-August 4, 2013; tondo essay by Tullis Johnson and Alana Ryder; Disclosure: Women of the Burchfield Penney Collection, Wendt and Doolittle Galleries, June 15-December 29, 2013.

August 2013-April 2016 Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Coordinator for Academic Programs, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY; "Gallery Talk: Teaching with the Collection"

June 2016-April 2019 Educator, then Manager for Public & University Programs, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio

April 2021-July 2023 Director, Fellows Program, Art Bridges Foundation, Bentonville, Arkansas

July – December 2023, Director, Fellows and Cohort Programs, Art Bridges Foundation, Bentonville, Arkansas

My career so far has taken me to university museums, and I can’t imagine it any other way! Over the years, I have co-curated and developed interpretive material for exhibitions on painter Charles E. Burchfield, composer John Cage, and women artists from western New York. Some of the most memorable collaborations I’ve initiated have been ones that might be considered a bit unusual for museums—those created alongside law students, urban farmers, and veterans, for example. Most recently, I taught at Cornell with an encyclopedic collection that spans dozens of fields.