SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. ­­— The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College is pleased to announce the following new hires and promotions.

• Megan Hyde, Museum Educator for Public and College Programs, will work with the Skidmore community and the broader region in making the museum an integral place for learning. Formerly, she worked for six years as the museum's Curatorial Assistant.
• Michael Janairo, Assistant Director for Engagement, will oversee our education department, media relations and digital media. He joins the museum after 15 years in journalism, most recently as the arts and entertainment editor at the Times Union in Albany, N.Y.
• Jessica Lubniewski, Assistant Registrar for Collections, will work with Skidmore faculty and students to find ways to make the Tang collection an essential part of the curriculum. Most recently, she worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Berea College Art Gallery in Berea, Kentucky. Lubniewski is also a 2006 graduate of Skidmore College, with a degree in classics.
• Talia Steinman, interim Curatorial Assistant, will work with the curatorial staff in helping to prepare future exhibitions. She is a 2014 graduate of Skidmore College with a degree in art history.
• Cynthia Zellner, Assistant Building Manager/Senior Preparator, will help maintain the facility and work with crews in installing and de-installing exhibitions. She formerly worked in the position on an interim basis.

More about Megan Hyde

Megan Hyde has been a vital part of the Tang for the past six years as Curatorial Assistant. She is a dedicated advocate of the museum’s mission, having worked on more than fifty exhibitions, nineteen exhibition catalogues, and numerous events, including the annual Pro-Arts year-end celebration. Throughout her time, she has been a great mentor to many Skidmore interns who have gained valuable insight about the thinking and process that goes into museum work.

While at the Tang, Megan has also initiated numerous participatory art projects, including For You, Hearing Pictures and Seeing Sounds.  Megan’s past work experience includes the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Art in America magazine, Creative Time in New York City, the Schenectady Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Union College in Schenectady, and a master’s degree in art, history, theory, and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

More about Michael Janairo

Michael Janairo, the former arts editor at the Albany Times Union, took on the duties of the Assistant Director for Engagement earlier this year, replacing Museum Educator Ginger Ertz, who had expertly filled in an interim basis during the search. As a journalist, Michael has earned national recognition from the Society for Features Journalism, the Poynter Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts, in which he was an arts journalism fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. As a fiction, he has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and his most recent short stories have been published inVeterans of the Future Wars, Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History and Bartleby Scrivener.

Michael has also taught courses and been a guest lecturer at University at Albany, College of Saint Rose, Hudson Valley Community College and the University of Pittsburgh. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh and a BSJ from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. His wife is a faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design, and his stepson is a junior at Skidmore College.

More about Jessica Lubniewski

Jessica Lubniewski, who most recently worked as a Curatorial Assistant at the Berea College Art Gallery in Berea, Kentucky, is returning to Skidmore as the Tang’s new Assistant Registrar for Collections.  Jessica, who earned a bachelor’s degree in classics at Skidmore in 2006, earned her master's degree in 2012 in museum studies at John F. Kennedy University in California. Her master’s thesis focused on faculty and student use of collections at academic museums.

In addition to the Art Galleries at Berea College, Jessica also worked at the Monterey Museum of Art and the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History. She assisted with projects at the Mexican Museum, the Magnes Museum of Jewish Art and Life, and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Before attending graduate school, Jessica spent three years teaching Latin and Ancient Greek at a Montesorri school in Palo Alto, Calif. 

More about Talia Steinman

Talia Steinman, a recent grad with a BA in art history from the Class of 2014, has worked with the Tang as an exhibition assistant over several semesters. She will serve as interim curatorial assistant (filling the vacancy left when Megan became the Museum Educator for College and Public Programs) from August 25 – December 19.  

More about Cynthia Zellner

Cynthia Zellner, before becoming the Assistant Building Manager/Senior Preparator, worked in the position on an interim basis after many years as a member of our installation crew. Cynthia holds a BFA from Syracuse University in Studio Art and an MFA from SUNY Albany in Studio Art with a concentration in Sculpture.  She has also taught art to 2nd – 6th graders at BOCES and has been a part of Ginger's team here at the Tang giving school tours and working with the suitcase program.

About the Tang Teaching Museum

The Tang Teaching Museum, located on the Skidmore College campus in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., is open noon–5 pm, Tuesday–Sunday, with extended hours through 9 pm on Thursdays during the academic year, and is closed on Mondays and major holidays. The Tang hosts some 40,000 visitors annually, ranging from local students who visit through school programs to museum-goers from around the globe. For more information call 518-580-8080 or visit www.skidmore.edu/tang.