JANET INSKEEP BENTON
Lead Donor
A longtime supporter of the museum’s programming, Janet Inskeep Benton (Pomona ’79) is a member of the Pomona College Board of Trustees. A history major at Pomona, Benton went on to earn an MBA at Harvard Business School. After working in product management at General Foods Corporation in the mid-1980s, she left the workforce to raise her family and serve on various not-for-profit boards in her Westchester County, New York, community.
She is currently board chair of the Jacob Burns Film Center, a not-for-profit art house theater complex and media arts education center. In 2000, Benton founded the Frog Rock Foundation, a philanthropy focused on improving outcomes for underserved children.
G. GABRIELLE STARR
President, Pomona College
G. Gabrielle Starr, a highly regarded scholar of English literature whose work reaches into neuroscience and the arts, took office as the 10th president of Pomona College in 2017. Starr grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and she set off for Emory University as an undergraduate at the age of 15. At Emory, she received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in women’s studies before going on to Harvard University to earn her doctorate in English and American literature. Starr is a national voice on access to college for students of all backgrounds, the future of higher education, women in leadership, and the importance of the arts.
Recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and author of two books, Starr offers a compelling case for working across academic disciplines to spark intellectual discovery. Her research looks closely at the brain, using fMRI, to help get to the heart of how people respond to paintings, music, and other forms of art. Starr serves on the boards of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cedars-Sinai, and the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE), and on the executive committee of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU).
VICTORIA SANCHO LOBIS
Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel '23 Director
Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College
Victoria Sancho Lobis, PhD, assumed the Benton’s directorship in January 2020 after six years at the Art Institute of Chicago in a range of curatorial and administrative roles, including interim chair of the Department of Prints and Drawings. She recently completed a multi-year project related to the Art Institute’s holdings of Dutch and Flemish drawings, culminating in a scholarly catalogue and exhibition, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age. Prior to her time at the Art Institute, Lobis was the inaugural curator of the print collection and fine art galleries at the University of San Diego. In 2018, Lobis was a fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, one of the most prominent programs teaching managerial skills and values of effective leadership to outstanding museum curators. She has also held fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum, and she has taught at the University of Chicago, the University of San Diego, Columbia University, New York University, and Williams College. In addition to her role as the director of Pomona’s museum, Lobis holds a coterminous appointment in the Art History Department. She received her BA from Yale University, her MA from Williams College, and her MPhil and PhD from Columbia University.
MACHADO SILVETTI
Design Architect
Machado Silvetti is an architecture and urban design firm known for creating, revitalizing, and expanding distinctive buildings and spaces in the United States and abroad. The firm’s work, diverse in location, scale, and type, merges contemporary agendas and aesthetics with specific cultural and historic contexts. Machado Silvetti’s research-based approach explores and celebrates that which is unique and important within each project, expressed through designs that are original in their conceptual clarity and visual intensity. Founded in 1985, Machado Silvetti is led by four partners: Rodolfo Machado, Jorge Silvetti, Stephanie Randazzo Dwyer, and Jeffry Burchard.
Jorge Silvetti
Principal
Jorge Silvetti is a founding Principal of Machado Silvetti. He formed the practice with Rodolfo Machado in 1974, formally incorporating in 1985. Since then, their firm has won numerous prestigious awards, is widely published, and is the subject of many monographs such as the recently published The Work of Machado & Silvetti (ORO Editions, 2018). Jorge has received ten Progressive Architecture awards—many in collaboration with Rodolfo—and was the first person to receive awards in all three categories (architecture, urban design, and research). Jorge is the Nelson Robinson Jr. Professor of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he chaired the Department of Architecture from 1995 to 2002.
Jeffry Burchard, AIA
Principal
Burchard is an architect and Principal at Machado Silvetti. He leads and collaborates in the design, management, and implementation of architecture and master planning projects throughout the world. In addition to his broad portfolio of project types, Burchard has special expertise in the reuse and transformation of existing buildings, contextual investigations, material fabrication, and formal analysis. Burchard is a recipient of the 2020 AIA Young Architects Award. He is an Assistant Professor in the Practice of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and serves on the Board of Directors at the Boston Society for Architecture.
GENSLER
Executive Architect
Gensler is a global architecture, design, and planning firm with 50 locations and more than 6,000 professionals networked across Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East, and the Americas. Founded in 1965, the firm serves more than 3,500 active clients in virtually every industry. Gensler designers strive to make the places people live, work, and play more inspiring, more resilient, and more impactful. For more than 50 years, Gensler has been a pioneer in creating great places that enhance the quality of work and life.
David Pakshong, AIA
Senior Associate – Project Director
As an architect and Project Director, Pakshong brings a comprehensive skill set of design advocacy, management oversight, and technical expertise to all his projects. His architectural work aligns realistic problem solving with thoughtful, responsive design. He played a major role in setting the conceptual direction for the Arts and Culture Studio at Gensler and collaborated with Machado Silvetti on the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College; with Diller Scofidio on the Broad; and with Renzo Piano on the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Prior to this, as Senior Associate at Gehry Partners, he was Project Architect for the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Jessica Tracey
Senior Associate – Project Architect, Project Manager
Tracey brings more than 15 years of professional experience to Gensler as a leader in Arts & Culture. Her diverse portfolio fuses her background in architecture, visual art, and art history with a keen understanding of the construction process. At Gensler, she co-organizes firmwide Arts & Culture practice area communications, as well as heads an office research initiative into evolving best practices for museums and display architecture. She has taught seminar courses on Building Systems at both USC and Woodbury University and has served on numerous student design reviews at USC, Woodbury, and Sci-Arc.