Scholarship for BIPOC Museum Administrators

Zulmilena Then, Preservation Manager, Weeksville Heritage Center

As a native Brooklynite, grassroots organizer and activist, Zulmilena Then works in various capacities to preserve her home community. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute and currently serves as the Preservation Manager for the Weeksville Heritage Center (WHC). In this capacity, she ensures the integrity and long-term preservation of the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses, the only remaining domestic structures of 19th-century Weeksville. Before WHC, while working with the Black-owned architectural firm Michael Ivanhoe McCaw Architect, P.C, renovating historic buildings throughout Brooklyn, mainly in Bed-Stuy, she realized the power historic buildings have in anchoring our communities. In 2015, this inspired her to form, Preserving East New York (PENY), an organization focused on celebrating and elevating the voices of the predominantly Black and Brown East New York community to make a real social and political change to protect the neighborhood through historic preservation.

Zulmilena Then, Preservation Manager, Weeksville Heritage Center this years inaugural recipient of the Scholarship for BIPOC Museum Administrators

Cassetti Annual Conference Scholarship

Ran Yan, Executive Director, Lewis Latimer House Museum

As the Executive Director of Lewis Latimer House Museum (LLHM), Ran Yan works to engage diverse audiences throug hinclusive programs rooted in African American inventor and humanist Lewis H. Latimer’s legacy. In the first 3 years of her tenure as Executive Director, Ran more than doubled the museum’s attendance and budget. She builds partnerships with community stakeholders in Flushing, Queens and various organizations across New York City. At LLHM, now a city landmark, Latimer’s life story is used as a point of departure from which to examine issues of race, class, immigration and contemporary events. Ran is passionate about arts as a public good as well as racial and gender equities. She has presented her work at various conferences and served on teh granst panels for New York State Council on the Arts and Queens Council on the Arts. Before moving to New York City, Ran studied architecture and preservation and Tongji University in Shanghai, and completed her Master’s Degree in Historic Preservation Planning at Cornell University. She is a Beijing native and calls New York City her home.

Ran Yan, Executive Director, Lewis Latimer House Museum is the recipient of the Cassetti Annual Conference Scholarship