Officers

Suzanne Scanlan, 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. Her most recent book is Esther Pressoir: A Modern Woman’s Painter (2024).

Candy Adriance, Vice President
Candy Adriance graduated from Endicott College in 1969, has been the President of Yankee Travel for twenty-five years, graduated from Leadership Rhode Island in 2000 and was on their program committee for three years (2001-2004). In 2002, Candy attached a fundraiser to a climb to the top of 19,364’ Mt. Kilimanjaro – the money raised went to a school in Mwea, Kenya. In 2003, she founded the Mwea Fund, which supports a number of schools in the village by paying teachers’ salaries, feeding about a hundred children a hot lunch each school day and finding sponsors for children unable to afford high school. In 2010, The Mwea Fund completed construction of a six-classroom building and a library for the Mwea Primary School. She has been a member of the Athenæum since 2005 and was appointed to the Board in 2011. She served as President of the Board from 2013 to 2016.

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.

Jennifer Becker, Secretary
Jennifer Becker is an illustrator, painter, and cartoonist who lives and works in Providence. She earned her BFA in 1985 and subsequently a Certificate of Advanced Study in Painting and Printmaking from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1986, after which she moved to Providence in order for her husband Jeffrey to earn an MFA from RISD. Volunteering and later teaching at Dorcas Place Adult Literacy Center in the 1980s piqued Jennifer’s interest in learning and the brain and inspired her to pursue training as a reading and learning specialist. She maintained a private practice, teaching children of all ages, and later joined the faculty at The Gordon School in East Providence, ultimately directing their middle school program of Academic Support. Since 2016, Jennifer has devoted herself to painting and drawing full time. She draws inspiration from the natural world and spends much of her free time in the garden. After years of teaching students who think and learn in atypical ways, she is fascinated by the endlessly strange human brain. You can find her quirky cartoons on instagram and in The Providence Eye.

Board of Directors

Candy Adriance
Jennifer Becker
Jonathan Bell
Edward “Ed” Biddle
John “Kip” Brott
Thomas Bryson
Douglas Davis
R. Tripp Evans
Jen Gazdacko
Bradford M. Gibbs
Ryan R. Greene
Brian Hayden
Ray Keough
Peter Lofgren
Cathy Lund, DVM
Govind Menon
James Myers
Denis Roche
Suzanne Scanlan
John Stephenson