Officers
Jonathan F. Bell, President
Jonathan Bell is an architect and educator in Providence. His firm, DUAL LLC, does a range of work, including adaptive reuse, commercial, and residential projects. Prior to co-founding DUAL in 2015, he was an associate at KITE Architects, where he worked with many not-for-profit, university, and residential clients. Jonathan also teaches in the Interior Architecture Department at the Rhode Island School of Design, and has taught at the School of Architecture, Art and Historic Preservation at Roger Williams University. He is a graduate of Wesleyan (BA) and Princeton (M.Arch) Universities. Jonathan has been a member of the Athenæum since moving to Providence in 2000. In 2005, he joined the Buildings and Grounds Committee, and has been a member of the Board since 2007. His wife, Sarah Zurier, grew up in Providence going to the Athenaeum, and their son Zachary is now an active user and participant in the children’s library and its programs.
Jen Gazdacko, Vice 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.
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.
Suzanne Scanlan, Secretary
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.
Board of Directors
Mary-Kim Arnold
J. Scott Burns
Teal Butterworth
Douglas Davis
R. Tripp Evans
Touba Ghadessi
Bradford M. Gibbs
Brian Charles Hayden
Karen Jessup
Peter Lofgren
Cathy Lund, D.V.M.
Cynthia Patterson
John Stephenson
Melvin D. Wesley, AIA
