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Biographies

Staff

Janine Tursini is AFTA’s Director & CEO and the leading force behind the organization’s pioneering directions and its national recognition for best practices, program design and outcomes: Under her tenure Arts for the Aging has been named a Model Program in Lifelong Learning by the National Endowment for the Arts, a Trailblazer by the Maryland Department of Aging and One of the Best D.C. Area Small Charities for Excellence, Impact and Cost-effectiveness by the Catalogue for Philanthropy. AFTA has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, on CNN News, and in the award-winning national PBS documentary film Do Not Go Gently. Janine is on the Applied Health Equity Education Council with the Rodham Institute of George Washington University (GWU), Maryland’s Age-Friendly Montgomery (County) Advisory Group, the Smithsonian Institution Dementia Programming Advisory Committee. She consults nationally on best practices in the growing field of creative aging. She has served on advisory boards for the GWU Center on Aging, Health, and Humanities, and the National Center for Creative Aging, and she is a member of Leadership Greater Washington class of 2018. Her article, A Person Who Is Becoming, is published in the Creativity & Human Development International e-Journal, and she has contributed to seminal industry resource guides including Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit and Bringing the Arts to Life: A Guide to the Arts and Long-Term Care.

Sarah House is AFTA’s Program Director as of May 2020. Biography coming soon.

Kristen Engebretsen with Capacity Partners is AFTA’s Development Consultant. She is a nonprofit leader with 16 years of experience in the field of arts and education. In 2019 she joined Capacity Partners, a firm specializing in consulting with nonprofits. Additionally, Kristen serves as the Director of Strategic Operations and VP at CRE Outreach, a small theatre company in Los Angeles. Prior to her work with CRE Outreach, Kristen served as the Arts Education Policy Manager at Americans for the Arts. There she was responsible for promoting public policies to advance arts education throughout the country. She was a prolific blogger, frequent speaker at national conferences, and was the mastermind behind the brand of publications, videos, and toolkits called the Arts Education Field Guide and the Arts Education Navigator. Before her stint in DC, she served at several arts organizations in Los Angeles, including the Music Center and the LA County Arts Commission. She has also been a teaching artist with several education organizations. She holds a Master of Education from Harvard and a Bachelors Degree from the University of Southern California. She works remotely for all of her current clients from her home in Takoma Park, Maryland with her daughter and dog, where she is an active volunteer with the Girl Scouts and an avid explorer of the U.S. National Parks. 

New Staff in the Administrative Manager position for AFTA is coming soon.

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Associates

Chris and Maureen Carr are AFTA’s accountant-bookkeepers. They live in Kensington, MD and work together performing services for area non-profits in bookkeeping and taxes. Chris is a licensed C.P.A. and graduate of University of Maryland who has spent most of his career in financial and management positions for prominent non-profits in the D.C. area. He is currently C.F.O. and Treasurer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and has held previous financial, operations or development roles at Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, Vital Voices Global Partnership, the Brady Campaign, and Defenders of Wildlife. Maureen Carr has specialized in marketing and membership with non-profit organizations including at the Autism Society of America, the Career College Association, National Grain and Feed Association and the National Association of Life Insurance Advisors.

MARCUM, LLP brings an award-winning technology practice to AFTA through their Nonprofit and Social Sector Group, RAFFA. A team of dedicated professionals specifically focused on helping mission-based organizations and socially directed businesses achieve their full potential. The group’s portfolio of covers a full range of operational and strategic functions, including managed services in accounting, technology, and human capital; as well as business, succession, and sustainability planning.