Passionate about craft, design, and fashion in a global context, Annie Carlano is an art historian and curator who has worked in museums and universities in the United States and Europe. She began her career at the Museo degli Argenti, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, studied historic decorative arts and textiles there, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and in archives throughout Europe, especially France. In the US, she worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of New Mexico, and is now Senior Curator of Craft, Design, & Fashion at the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina where she oversees one of the largest collections of international craft and design in the country. Carlano taught graduate seminars in both the Fashion and Textile Studies at FIT, SUNY, and the Parsons New School of Design/ The New School, New York, as well as Parsons Paris, and continues to lecture widely. In 2022, Carlano was a participant at the Making In symposium in Cork, Ireland, about Craft and Time, and most recently led a session at the Home Sargassum symposium at FSU about Biodiversity in Craft, Design, and Fashion. Writing on a broad range of design topics, her recent publications include Craft in the Laboratory: The Science of making Things and Craft Across Continents: Contemporary Japanese and Western Objects. She is the curator of the upcoming Mint Museum exhibition, Designing Dynamism: Kuba Textiles from the D R Congo, opening February 2026 and designed by Stephen Burks Manmade.

Tony Chavarria (Santa Clara Pueblo) has over 30 years of experience collaborating with tribes and curating Native material culture. As curator of ethnology at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, he has curated many exhibitions of historic and contemporary Native Art including: Comic Art Indigène, A New Century: The Life and Legacy of Cherokee Artist and Educator Lloyd “Kiva” New and Diego Romero vs. the End of Art. He served as the Community Liaison and co- curator for the inaugural Pueblo exhibition at NMAI, and was co-curator for the first Native exhibition at Epcot Center. He has co-curated exhibitions at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and Chicago’s Field Museum and is part of the Pueblo Clay Collective which curated the traveling exhibition, Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery. He continues to engage on matters of Native art and culture.

Royce Epstein is a 30+ year veteran in the commercial Architecture and Design industry, with experience practicing in design firms and product development for carpet and textiles. She is currently the Senior Director of Design Insights for Mohawk Group. As both historian and futurist, Royce shares design insights and the meaning of materials in a broad context, finding significance in cultural shifts and how they shape the language of design. Royce feeds this into our industry’s touch points as a designer, trend forecaster, educator, lecturer, and writer. Her interests are in environmental and social sustainability for positive impacts.

Scott Kravet is the Chief Creative Director of Kravet LLC, overseeing all aspects of product development for Kravet LLC and its brands. An alumnus of Emory University and the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, Scott was a member of the fourth generation to join the family business, which was founded by his great grandfather in the early 1900s. As head of product development for Kravet LLC, Scott manages creative teams in five design studios in New York and worldwide. He has a near encyclopedic knowledge of textiles, and he travels the globe sourcing products from the finest craftsmen and best mills.

Marybeth Shaw is Chief Creative Officer, responsible for product design and marketing, at Wolf-Gordon. She has led the creative team and strengthened the brand from 1997 to 2003, and from 2011 to the present. Shaw has been recognized for her selection of out of house designers who contribute their unique, emerging voices to Wolf-Gordon’s collections. Her curation of exhibitions—PROJECT HI > AI, El Muro and Binya | Comya—which situate pattern and mural design in a political, economic and social context, have positioned Wolf-Gordon as a thought leader in the commercial interiors industry. From 2004 to 2011, Marybeth was Founding Principal of Shaw Jelveh Design, an award-winning branding and design studio that, among its significant portfolio, completed over 80 print, 3-D and digital projects for the U.S. Green Building Council. Shaw received master’s degrees from NYU Stern School of Business, the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and, a bachelor’s degree from Smith College. She was the 2023 recipient of the Wallcoverings Association’s Allman Award.

Kimberle Frost is an award-winning textile designer and colorist with over 30 years of experience in the industry. Frost is recognized for her broad range of design and technical expertise along with her strong color sensibility in woven and coated textiles, rugs and hard surface finishes. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with leading contract and residential textile companies, including Maharam, Designtex, Robert Allen, Wolf Gordon, Arc Com and Mayer Fabrics. As the Director of Merchandising at Ultra Fabrics, she bridges product development, marketing, and sales to ensure that products and colors align with the company’s brand identity and business objectives. Passionate about color and its impact on design, Kimberle integrates color theory and trend research into her approach to merchandising. Beyond textiles, she is dedicated to educating emerging designers on craftsmanship and process. She is an active member of the Association for Contract Textiles [ACT] and is on the advisory board for the Museum of International Fork Arts bi-annual design summit.

Charlie Lockwood serves as the Executive Director of the Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) in Santa Fe, NM and has nearly two decades of experience as an arts administrator, public folklorist, and scholar. He holds an MA in Ethnomusicology from UC Santa Barbara, where he played the oud with the UCSB Middle East Ensemble and did research with the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans. As the Executive Director of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) state-designated public folklife program Texas Folklife, Lockwood oversaw public programming initiatives focused on preservation and disseminate of the organization’s rich archival holdings. At Texas Folklife Lockwood directed programs examining the intersections of folk and traditional arts and health, including an initiative featuring military veterans’ folklore and storytelling. Since 2012 Lockwood has produced several music albums, a documentary film about the Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte, and in 2015 was honored with a Community Sabbatical Research Award from the University of Texas at Austin Humanities Institute to research historic and contemporary Texas regional music recordings. Lockwood served as Vice President (2018-2019) and President of the Society for Ethnomusicology Southern Plains Chapter (2019-2020), Journal of Folklore in Education 2019 The Art of the Interview Advisory Committee, is a member of the American Folklore Society and Society for Ethnomusicology.

Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota) is Executive Director of the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture in Santa Fe, NM. She was the first Indigenous Executive Director of the Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe and previously led development at the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts and the Institute of American Indian Arts. Earlier in her career, she managed major projects at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York. Means serves on the boards of 516 Arts in Albuquerque as well as the Joan Mitchell Foundation and serves on the advisory committee for the Queensborough CC-CUNY Gallery and Museum Studies Program.