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Jess Berlanga Taylor
Director and Curator
Jessica Berlanga Taylor is a Mexican-British curator, writer, and cultural leader working across exhibitions, site-specific commissions, and institutional strategy. She is Chief Campus Curator at UC San Diego, a globally recognized university and leader in science and technological innovation, where she leads the Stuart Collection, a site-specific commissioning organization and one of the most significant public art programs in the United States, and is founding director of The Strauss, a new museum dedicated to art, science, and technology.
In 2026, she was selected by the Government of Mexico as Curator of Mexico’s Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, where she presents the work of RojoNegro (María Sosa and Noé Martínez), a project that interrogates dominant definitions of intelligence through embodied, relational, and more-than-human forms of knowledge.
Her work unfolds through both realized and in-progress collaborations with artists including Anicka Yi, Precious Okoyomon, Jeppe Hein, Max Hooper Schneider, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Nancy Baker-Cahill, Entangled Other, Tania Candiani, Pedro Reyes, Mariana Castillo Deball, Carlos Amorales, among others.
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Irene Ramirez
Irene Bio
Chief Campus Curator's Office
Stuart Collection
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Jane Zwerneman
Senior Art Project Manager
Jane Zwerneman has been a member of the Stuart Collection team since 2001. She has planned and executed over 40 domestic and international trips for the Friends of the Stuart Collection; managed logistics and budgets for the commissioning and installations of READ/WRITE/THINK/DREAM/, Bear, Another, Fallen Star, The Wind Garden, What Hath God Wrought, Same Old Paradise, and KAHNOP•TO TELL A STORY; assisted in the publication of two editions of Landmarks: Sculpture Commissions for the Stuart Collection at the University of San Diego California; plans an ongoing calendar of events to engage donors and the broader arts community; produced a series of online conversations between Stuart Collection artists and Director Mary Beebe; recruits, trains and manages a wonderful team of volunteer docents; and oversees the maintenance and conservation of the all the artworks in the collection.
A professional musician since the age of 14, Jane earned a bachelor of music degree from Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, IN and master and doctorate degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. She has performed internationally and recorded extensively throughout her career.
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Megan Theriault
Community Engagement Manager
Megan comes to the Stuart Collection with 12 years of experience in higher education and non-profits as an event manager. With UC San Diego since 2016, she has had the pleasure of working with different departments engaging with students, staff, faculty and community in a variety of ways. Primarily interested in telling stories, be it through the lense of a strategically planned event or through engaging on social media, Megan loves using her creative side to share the Stuart Collection with various audiences and connect with everyone's personal experience of the sculptures.
Megan went to Dominican University of California for her Bachelors in Humanities, focusing on Art History, Religious Studies and Photography.
The Strauss
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Joey Herring
Joey Bio