Ellen McHale

Executive Director

Ph.D. and M.A. in Folklore and Folklife, University of Pennsylvania 

B.A. Music and American Studies, Wesleyan University 

Ellen McHale has served as the CEO of New York Folklore, since 1999.  Her role includes being the managing editor of “Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore,” working with the New York Folklore Board of Directors, communicating with funders and potential donors and funders, and serving as spokesperson for the organization.  At New York Folklore, she oversees a statewide network of folk cultural specialists, community experts, and artists.  Partnering with Local Learning, New York Folklore maintains and supports a growing network of teaching folk artists.

Ellen has conducted fieldwork and written about the occupational life and lore of workers at Thoroughbred Racetracks in the United State, for which she was awarded an Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress in 2012.  This work resulted in the monograph, Stable Views: Voices and Stories of the Thoroughbred Racetrack, Mississippi Press, 2014.  With Libby Tucker, she is the co-editor of New York State Folklife Reader: Diverse Voices, Mississippi Press, 2013. Her research interests include responses to climate change and flooding caused by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, refugee and immigrant inclusion and adaptation, and the intersection of culture and the environment and she has written numerous articles and produced exhibits that reflect these interests.

Ellen McHale is a Fulbright Fellow (Sweden/Senior Fellow)  where she served as a guest lecturer for the University of Stockholm.  In 2024, Ellen McHale was elected to the Fellows Group of the American Folklore Society at their Annual Meeting held in Albuquerque, NM. Established in 1960, the Fellows of the American Folklore Society is an honorary body of folklorists, whose election to the Fellows signifies their outstanding contributions to the field.

Ellen McHale is the President of the Board for Catskills Folk Connection, an organization dedicated to supporting and encouraging folk and traditional culture in the Catskills Region of New York State.  She currently serves on the board of the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corporation and she is an elected town board member for the Town of Charleston, Montgomery County, NY, where she serves as the Chair of the Youth Commission. Along with her husband, John McKeeby, she co-founded the Schoharie River Center, an organization dedicated to cultural and environmental sustainability. 

Prior to her work at New York Folklore, Ellen McHale worked as a public sector folklorist in several locations in New York State. She initiated folk arts programs at Arts Mid-Hudson and the Arts Center for the Capital District, and served as a consulting folklorist for many cultural organizations. Ellen served as Executive Director of the Shaker Heritage Society and later as the Director of the Schoharie County Historical Society. She has served as an adjunct instructor in cultural geography at Utica College, and she has provided folklore courses through Empire State College, and Hudson Valley Community College.

Laurie Longfield

Gallery, Administration and Publications Manager

A.S. in Advertising Design & Production

Laurie was born and raised in Schenectady, New York, and has also lived in Seattle, Washington, New York City, Brooklyn, Colorado, and Burbank, California. Laurie joined New York Folklore in 2009, bringing with her years of experience in the arts, banking and finance. Laurie is Manager of the Gallery of New York Folk Art and enjoys working with the gallery folk artists. She coordinates the gallery inventory and maintains artists’ records in that capacity. Laurie is also the Administrative Manager, tracking membership activity, and the administration of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. Before she joined New York Folklore, Laurie worked at EF Hutton, European American Bank, and Manufacturers Hanover Trust on Wall Street, as well as the Aspen Art Museum and Chase Manhattan Bank in Colorado. She has extensive experience as a manager and human resources liaison. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking (and has had several recipes published, most notably in the Seattle (WA) Times, and the Vidalia Onion Cookbook), and visiting her family in New York City and New England. Laurie is a licensed New York State Notary Public.

Anne Rappaport

Staff Folklorist

B.A. State University of New York at Potsdam
M.A. Folk Studies, Western Kentucky University

Anne Rappaport Berliner holds a master’s degree in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University. She conducts fieldwork and folklore programming throughout the greater Capital Regional. Anne also provides services to artists in the form of grant writing, marketing assistance, and program production. Anne serves as New York Folklore’s social media manager. Her research interests include foodways and belief. Communities she has worked with include Mohawk Valley Beekeepers and Albany’s Jewish community.

Edgar Betelu

Folklorist

Edgar Betelu has over 25 years of experience as a public sector folklorist in New York State. A fluent Spanish speaker, he is a record producer and owner of Sunnyside/Circular Moves, a music label that produces world music and jazz recordings. Edgar is a public folklorist for New York Folklore, conducting fieldwork and working with artists and community-based organizations in the Capital District and Hudson Valley.

Ladan Nikravan

Community Fieldworker

B.A. – Theater, State University of New York at Albany
M. Ed. – Educational Administration from the State University of New York at Albany.

Ladan Nikravan has been a resident of the Capital Region since the 1980s, when she arrived in the region as a student. In 1989, she began employment with Centro Civico. At this time, she was hired to coordinate the Liberty Partnership Program (LPP), a program serving youth at-risk of dropping  out of high school. Ladan succeeded in making LPP a statewide, community-based model program with over a ninety-five percent rate. Within six months of her employment, she was promoted as Deputy Director, and three years later, became the second person to hold the title of Executive Director for the organization.
After thirty years of service as the Executive Director of Centro Civico, Ladan retired in 2019. She continues to serve the community through her work as a volunteer and/or board member of many organizations. A former board member of New York Folklore, she continues to be involved in folk and traditional arts and culture. Ladan lends her expertise and her long-standing work with community as a New York Folklore community fieldworker in the Capital District and the Mohawk Valley.

Elinor Levy

Regional Coordinator, Mentoring and Professional Development Program

Ph.D. in Folklore, Indiana University

M.A. in Anthropology, California State University

B.A. in Performing Arts Management, University of California

Elinor Levy, Ph.D. was raised in a family dedicated to art patronage in Oakland, CA. She earned a bachelor’s in Performing Arts Management, a self-designed major, at University of California, Riverside and worked briefly in the field in San Francisco. In 1995 she received her master’s in anthropology from California State University, Sacramento after completing a thesis on Vietnam Veterans Memorials as religious shrines. Following the advice of her mentors, who thought she was too funny for anthropology, she pursued a doctorate in folklore at Indiana University, Bloomington which she completed in 2003. Her dissertation focused on the use of folklore in collaborative methodologies using Habitat for Humanity as a case study.

Elinor has bounced around the country from California to Indiana, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and now New York. Previously, she worked in Las Vegas as the folklorist for Clark County Parks and Recreation and as executive director of the Northwest Jersey Folklife Project. She loves working in the culturally rich Mid-Hudson Valley.

Elinor is a folk artist in her own right as a third generation knitter on her mother’s side. She has added spinning her own yarn to her skills and looks forward each year to helping a friend shear a small flock of Jacob sheep.

Divena Ramessar

Community Fieldworker

Divena is is a first generation Guyanese American raised with a strong connection to her Guyanese heritage. She has been attending festivals, concerts, performances and community events since she was a child. Divena has become a tradition bearer in her own right, absorbing the sights of Guyanese culture; jewelry, clothing, household items etc. A visual artist in her own right, Divena is currently carrying out fieldwork in the Guyanese community of Schenectady and working as a teaching artist in the Schenectady School District.

Akilah Briggs-Melvin

Community Fieldworker

A.S. in Health Sciences – in process. Broome Community College

Akilah Briggs-Melvin is a dancer and teaching folk artist who has over ten years of experience in
various styles of dance. In 2020, she created a community step and dance team for k-12 th grade
youth, called “Diverse Destiny.”
She has experience as a youth development specialist and she currently works in the field of
community rehabilitation. As a community fieldworker, Akilah is working within the African
American community within Broome County to identify artists and cultural traditions.

Nada Odeh

Community Fieldworker

M.A. Museum Studies, Syracuse University

B.A. Fine Arts, Damascus University

Nada Odeh is an artist, activist, humanitarian, and a modern-day poet. She was born and raised in Damascus and lived in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates before coming to the U.S. in 2013 due to the conflict and revolution in her country. She is currently working to build Arabesque, a center to facilitate cross-cultural understanding by promoting the work of Middle Eastern artists, performers, and folklorists by hosting them in conversation, and connecting them with American counterparts.

Mira Johnson

New York Folk Arts in Education Network Coordinator

Mira Johnson, D. Ed., is the New York Folklore and Education Network Coordinator–a joint position of Local Learning and New York Folklore. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at Bronx Community College in the English Department and the First Year Seminar Program. She holds a doctorate in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning from Penn State University and an M.A. in folklore from the University of Oregon. As a regional culture specialist for Pennsylvania’s state folklife program she conducted fieldwork with rural and urban folk artists and tradition bearers, and served as the program coordinator at FolkArtPA, Pennsylvania’s statewide folklife program. She later served as the Folk Arts and Education Coordinator at the Pelham Arts Center in Pelham, New York, where she oversaw the folk art performance and workshop series and worked to integrate folk art education into the center’s studio art curriculum. She is currently board member and board secretary in the New York Folklore Society. Her research addresses the role of traditional knowledge and ecological relationships in community-based education, as well as regional belief practices.

Todd DeGarmo

Editor and Chair, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore

A.B.D. American Studies with an emphasis on Folklife Studies, George Washington University

M.A. in Anthropology, and Archives coursework, SUNY Albany

B.A., Colgate University

Todd DeGarmo is the founding director of the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls, New York, an award-winning program known for its research collections, gallery exhibits, and innovative public programming that showcase the cultural traditions of the lower Adirondacks and upper Hudson valley. Todd cut his professional teeth in folklife studies with the Smithsonian’s Festival of American Folklife, came back to eastern upstate New York in the mid-1980s, and has been active in public sector folklore ever since. He has taught a variety of courses to various students, including corporate Tokyo, Skidmore and Empire State Colleges, Massachusetts Audubon, and BOCES Gifted and Talented. He has served as President of the New York Folklore Society and as a Folk Arts panel member to the New York State Council on the Arts, is an advisor to the Documentary Heritage and Preservation Services for New York, and has provided professional services to many organizations throughout the Northeast.

Todd grew up in the mid-Hudson valley (rural Dutchess County) with family ties to his father’s family farm in Saratoga County, and his mother’s homeplace on the north shore of Long Island. He currently lives a stone’s throw from the Batten Kill in Washington County, near the Vermont border.

Patti Mason

Associate Editor, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore

Patti joined New York Folklore in 1997, working in its Ithaca office through May 1999. She developed and administered New York Folklore’s first website before assuming editing responsibilities for VOICES in 2012. She has worked as a typesetter, a laboratory technician, a dietitian, a database manager for a commodity trader, a processor of university research proposals, and a substitute teacher/school librarian. She has BS degrees in Biochemistry and in Nutrition from Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin, respectively. Since 1999, she has been assisting Dr. David Sahn in the Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program, including editing of papers and books, while also taking cultural history and literature classes at Cornell. Working remotely since 2002, she continues her work at Cornell with Dr. Sahn and with other Cornell professors, as well as editing books for other authors on a contract basis.

Ellen La Que

Galley Assistant

B.S. Studio Art, The College of Saint Rose

Gallery assistant Ellen La Que is from Glenville, NY. A local artist and former NYF volunteer, Ellen has most recently enjoyed being the knitting and crochet instructor for the Scotia-Glenville Central School District Continuing Education Program from 2008 through 2020.