Officers

Jen Gazdacko, President
Jen Gazdacko has been a Partner at Hannah Street Consulting since 2011. Prior to that she served as the Executive Director of RISE – Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education for 9 years. Jen holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communications from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Boston University. Jen served for six years (2010-2016) as a board member of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association (WBNA), including terms as Vice President and President. She currently volunteers with Federal Hill House and is a member of the Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA) Development Committee. In addition, in 2017 Jen co-founded the PVD Beehive Giving Circle, with pilot funding from the RI Foundation. Jen, her husband Michael, their cat and two dogs live on the West Side of Providence and Westport, MA. In Providence they have a small urban farm where they grow vegetables and keep chickens and bees.

Suzanne Scanlan, Vice President
Suzanne Scanlan has been a member of the Athenæum since 2009 and is an alum of the inaugural Proust group. After receiving her PhD from Brown University in 2010, she joined the faculty of Theory + History of Art + of Design at RISD where she teaches courses on the visual culture of early modern Europe. She has served as Visiting Faculty at Brown, Stonehill College and Trinity College in Hartford, CT and worked as a Mellon Curatorial Proctor at the RISD Museum for two years. Her first book, Divine and Demonic Imagery at Tor de’Specchi: Religious Women and Art in 15-th Century Rome was published in 2018. Suzanne serves on the Advisory Committee for the RI Arts and Culture Research Fellowship at the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and is currently writing a book on early female graduates of RISD and the art, design and manufacturing landscapes of turn-of-the-century Providence.

Thomas Bryson, Treasurer
Thomas Bryson, a Pawtucket native, is a graduate of Brown University. He was employed in various aspects of wealth management and investment banking in New York for almost forty years. After retiring he returned to Rhode Island and resides in Richmond. He is a member of the board of the Rhode Island Forest Conservators Organization.

Teal Butterworth, Secretary
Teal Butterworth is Co-Executive Director of Annual Giving at Brown University. In her role, she manages the team responsible for Reunion and class based giving. Prior to joining Brown's
Advancement office in 2013, Teal worked in Moses Brown's development office for six years. She is a graduate of Connecticut College (BA). Growing up, Teal's family were members of the Athenæum, and she spent many hours in the Children's Library and later among the stacks of books scouring primary sources for school reports. Teal lives in Providence with her husband Dennis Ballou and daughter Gray, actively using the Athenæum whenever possible.

Board of Directors

Candy Adriance
Jonathan F. Bell, ex officio
John (“Kip”) Brott
J. Scott Burns
Jenica Reed Conley
Douglas Davis
Bradford M. Gibbs
Ryan R. Greene
Brian Hayden
Karen Jessup
Ray Keough
Peter Lofgren
Govind Menon
James Myers
John Stephenson