The Arthur M. Blank Foundation has announced that TODD GRAHAM joined the foundation on September 16 as the acting managing director of the newly created Environment program, which will be focused on conservation and climate. He also will serve as head of the foundation's Montana office. A Wyoming native, Graham has more than twenty years of experience helping convert operations on nine million acres of working ranch lands in the western U.S. from traditional practices to conservation-oriented approaches.

The Arthritis Foundation has announced that its president and CEO ANN M. PALMER, who has led the foundation since 2013, plans to retire effective January 31, 2022. During her tenure, Palmer spearheaded the organization's transition from a federated to a volunteer-led entity with a consolidated structure; helped shape its strategic approach to mission delivery, with a focus on impacting arthritis patients and caregivers through pathways to a cure and a better quality of life; and advanced its commitment to the juvenile arthritis community and scientific research. Prior to joining the foundation, she held leadership roles with the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

The Democracy Alliance has named PAMELA SHIFMAN as its next president, succeeding GARA LAMARCHE, who is stepping down after seven years in the role. Until the end of 2019, Shifman served as executive director of the Novo Foundation, where she oversaw a grantmaking budget of up to $200 million annually, strengthened the foundation's infrastructure, and helped cultivate an organizational culture based in anti-racist and feminist principles, elevating the leadership of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.

The Executive Leadership Council, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of global black executives in C-suites, on corporate boards, and in global enterprises, has announced the appointment of three executives to senior leadership roles. HANNIBAL L. BRUMSKINE II will serve as vice president and chief financial officer, GAIL COLES JOHNSON will serve as vice president and chief human resources officer, and PENELOPE THORNTON TALLEY will serve as senior vice president and chief experience officer. Brumskine previously served as CFO for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Johnson comes to ELC after more than thirty years at AT&T, where she most recently held the position of assistant vice president, human resources. And Talley was the first COO for the Office of the Attorney General of the District of Columbia; she previously served as interim chief of staff to the deputy mayor of education for DC before being recruited to the Maryland State Department of Education to serve as chief performance officer.

The Frick Collection has appointed APRIL KIM TONIN to the newly named post of the Ayesha Bulchandani Head of Education and Public Engagement, effective October 18. Tonin joins the Frick from the Museum of Arts and Design, where she served as the education department's Maude and Rodney Starkey Deputy Director and was pivotal in leading efforts to adapt to virtual programming in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. She previously served for fourteen years as the director of visual education at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City and, prior to that, in various roles at the Museum of Modern Art.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has announced the appointment of LESLIE B. VOSSHALL as vice president and chief scientific officer, effective March 1, 2022, succeeding DAVID CLAPHAM. An HHMI investigator since 2008, Vosshall currently is the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor, head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior, and director of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute at the Rockefeller University. Her work to establish the Aedes aegypti mosquito as a genetic model organism for neurobiology — with a focus on how mosquitoes hunt humans and the design of small molecules to block mosquito biting behavior — holds promise for combating the spread of yellow fever, dengue, Zika, and other viruses that are transmitted to humans through the bite of a female mosquito. Vosshall will lead and manage HHMI's Science department portfolio, which includes the HHMI Investigator and Hanna H. Gray Fellows programs.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art has named KRISTY EDMUNDS as director, succeeding JOE THOMPSON, who announced in August 2020 that he would step down after thirty-two years in the role. Edmunds has served as executive and artistic director of the University of California, Los Angeles's Center for the Art of Performance since 2011. Her previous roles include artistic director for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, head of the School of Performing Arts and deputy dean at the Victorian College of the Arts at the University of Melbourne, founding executive and artistic director of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and inaugural consulting artistic director for the Park Avenue Armory in New York.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced that NEIL COX, a distinguished professor of modern and contemporary art at the University of Edinburgh, will join the museum in December as the head of the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art. An authority on Cubism, Cox brings to this role a deep knowledge of the fields at the heart of the center's mission as well as decades of experience in the public sphere, collaborating with museums, leading institutional research projects and educational initiatives, and mentoring graduate students.

The Wikimedia Foundation has announced the election of three new members to the Wikimedia Endowment board: former board member PHOEBE AYERS, who currently serves as librarian for electrical engineering and computer science, IDSS, and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; former board chair PATRICIO LORENTE, general secretary of administration of the National University of La Plata in Argentina; and DORON WEBER, vice president of programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The foundation also announced that the endowment has reached its initial $100 million fundraising goal ahead of schedule.