STAFF

TransCultural Exchange’s Staff is resourceful, forward-thinking and deeply committed to TransCultural Exchange’s mission to foster a greater understanding of world cultures through the arts.

Mary Sherman, Executive Director.
Mary Sherman is an artist, curator and the director of TransCultural Exchange, which she founded in Chicago in 1989. She also teaches at Boston College and Northeastern University and, recently, served as the interim Associate Director of MIT’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology. Additionally, for two decades, she worked as an art critic for such publications as The Chicago Sun-Times, The Boston Globe and ARTnews. She has received numerous grants and awards, including three Fulbright Specialist Grants (Taipei, Istanbul and Trondheim), and been an artist-in-residence at such institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cité Internationale des Arts and the Taipei Artist Village. Among the shows she’s curated, two received awards from the Northeast Chapter of the International Art Critics Association. Her own works, which push the definition of painting into the realm of space and sound, have been shown at numerous institutions, including Taipei’s Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing’s Central Conservatory, Montreal’s International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN) and New York’s Trans Hudson Gallery.
Photo (©) Winfried Denk.

Jeelan Bilal-Gore, TransCultural Exchange’s TV Host and Social Media Manager.
Jeelan Bilal-Gore is TransCultural Exchange’s TV Host, an arts administrator and visual researcher for media projects. She has worked in digital collections management, interpretation and curation in the US and UK, including the Dallas Museum of Art, Great North Museum: Hancock, Hatton Gallery and Matt’s Gallery London. Additionally, she founded and ran an international contemporary art initiative from 2013-2018. Jeelan holds master’s degrees in art history and museology from SOAS University of London and Newcastle University.

Janelle Giuliani, TransCultural Exchange TV’s editor.
Janelle Giuliani is an editor, videographer and Assistant Camera. She has worked on numerous feature films, commercials and corporate projects within the New England area. Janelle attended New England School of Communications within Husson University, where she completed her Bachelor of Science in Video Production with a minor in Graphic Design and a minor in Marketing Communications. She owns Purple Prince Productions, a self-run company, which creates online content and visual marketing for local musical artists.

Megan Holleran, Assistant to the Director, Intern
Megan Holleran is an undergraduate student studying at Boston College, majoring in Psychology with a minor in Management and Leadership. Through study abroad programs in Paris and Barcelona, she developed a great passion for other cultures. She is working towards fluency in Spanish, having completed a Spanish-immersion program this past semester. Her interest in art began at an early age, as her mother was an artist and encouraged her to be creative. Alongside this passion, she is pursuing a career in management which she will build upon this summer through an internship at Bank of America. Her position at TransCultural Exchange is supported by the Boston College Undergraduate Research Fellows program.

Xin Huang, Marketing Assistant, Intern
Xin Huang is an undergraduate student at Northeastern University, majoring in Economics and Business Administration. Professionally, he sharpened his marketing and customer relationship skills at Hong Kong Happy Gold Toys Company, Ltd. Outside of the classroom, he enjoys being involved in community activities and organizing charity events for disabled children and the elderly, suffering from cataracts. Academically, he has been on the Dean’s List for several semesters. His internship at TransCultural Exchange is part of his co-op experience at Northeastern University.

Ellen Markovich, Webmaster
Ellen Markovich is a Web Designer and Developer. She has worked over the past 25 years, developing and launching over 200 websites, ranging from local shops and restaurants to hospitals, biotech companies, and non-profit organizations. Her skills include expertise in WordPress, WooCommerce, page builders Elementor & Divi, HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and MySQL.

Dhriti Nijhawan is the youngest member of the TransCultural Exchange team. Fluent in three languages, she is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology and Business Management at UMass Boston’s Honors College. She has a strong interest in the performing arts and international youth initiatives, twice serving as an intern for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in New Delhi, and having represented several nations on her high school’s esteemed Model UN team, where she earned three Best Delegate titles from 2019 to 2021. Additionally, she is a recipient of the President’s Gold Award for Educational Excellence as well as various other academic accolades.

Veronica Redlitz, Intern.
Veronica Redlitz is an undergraduate student at Boston College pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics, with a minor in Hispanic Studies. She is fluent in Spanish and will be studying at the Granada Institute of International Studies in Granada, Spain for a semester in 2024. Veronica has a strong interest in different cultures and languages around the world, and she intends to pursue this interest professionally. She is also passionate about working with children and has held multiple volunteer and teaching positions centered in childhood education and development. At Boston College, she earned the Dean’s List First Honors for several semesters and was named a Sophomore Scholar in 2023. Her position with TransCultural Exchange is kindly supported by Boston College’s Undergraduate Research Fellows program.

Siyi Wang, Graphic Designer.
Siyi Wang is a graphic designer based in Los Angeles. She also continues to serve as a volunteer for TransCultural Exchange, building on the branding she established for us in 2010, when she served as our intern during her graduate studies at Boston University. Her expertise includes brand identity, print, advertising, and exhibition, web, motion graphic and product design.

In Remembrance: Rudi Punzo, TransCultural Exchange’s Webmaster, 2007 – 2021.
Proficient in Web editing softwares, Punzo worked for over 6 years designing and maintaining websites for visual artists and musicians. Rudi was also a sculptor, sound artist and performer. He was interested in metamorphosis and its symbiotic relationship with artistic transformation – the transformative act of making art out of discarded, abandoned and cast-off refuse. Similarly Punzo teased music out of his marvelously kinetic art works to produce magical sculptural/aural hybrids – wonderfully ever-changing, renewing and surprising and has presented his artworks and performances worldwide. We greatly mourn his passing on September 6, 2021.