Eva Buttacavoli
Eva has been Executive Director of The Contemporary Dayton since December 2011. Most recently she served as the first executive director of FilmDayton for the past two years, where she promoted Dayton and it's filmmakers as a resource for the industry through fundraising and marketing–including the presentation of the popular annual FilmDayton Festival–and doubled its operating budget.
Previously, she served as director of exhibitions and education at the Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) for eight years where she developed the Museum's lively, experimental and accessible programmatic identity. During her tenure at AMOA she oversaw the merge of the curatorial, collections and education divisions; organized the Museum's top-10 most well-attended exhibitions in its 15 year history; designed its award-winning permanent interactive gallery, the FamilyLab; and produced innovative education programs including a site-specific, 3-acre community land drawing and the country's first-ever museum cell phone guided exhibition tour.
Prior to that she co-founded the education department at the Miami Art Museum (MAM) and served as the assistant director, then the director of education for five years. At MAM she originated the docent corps, a teacher institute, family festivals and the popular art and music program for young professionals, "Jam at MAM."
A passionate art educator, she subsequently taught art for several years and was part of the founding group of teachers that developed the Miami Dade County Public Schools museum partnership, which subsidizes teachers to work in museums to connect curriculum to museum education programs. She served as chair of the Florida Art Education Association and was awarded Educator of the Year for both Texas and Florida. She has also served on numerous grants, city planning and conference panels including for the Texas Association for Museums, the City of Austin Art in Public Places program and The Miami Dade County Board of Cultural Affairs. She received her B.A. and M.S. degrees in art history and art education from Florida International University, Miami, FL and began her career as the curator of education in the university's museum, now the Patricia & Philip Frost Museum.