Priya Sircar will be joining Knight Foundation this month as director for arts. Priya will develop strategies for our investments in the arts across the cities where they invest.

Priya is a nonprofit administrator and practicing artist with experience in fundraising, grantmaking and strategic planning.

She comes to us from Lord Cultural Resources, where she specialized in strategic and cultural planning for arts, cultural, and heritage organizations and communities across the United States and abroad. In that role, she led community engagement and advised clients on programming, funding and space use, also spearheading Lord’s work with parks, gardens and other urban public spaces, and its film and media projects.

A dancer-choreographer, actor and former musician, Priya has performed around the country, directed movement for theatre in New York, and produced and appeared in films that have screened in festivals including SXSW.

Priya holds a master’s in arts administration from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in the interdisciplinary Plan II Honors Program from The University of Texas. She hails from Texas.

Her first day is Oct. 15; you’ll be able to reach her at [email protected].