Laura Stein
Interim Executive Director

Laura joined Material Institute in June 2025 to steer a two-year process of organizational transformation synthesizing our cross-disciplinary vision, strategies, and operations. A seasoned nonprofit leader, she was the founding Executive Director of Dancing Grounds and the founder and principal consultant of Rooted Evolution LLC. Laura finds joy and inspiration from teaching dance and facilitating embodied practices with community groups.

Aimée Toledano
Strategy & Communications Director

Aimée loves thinking about art, design, history, and philosophy — synthesizing ideas to articulate who we are, what we do, and how we do it. As a filmmaker and photographer, her work has been shown at The New Museum, MSN Warsaw, and Serpentine Galleries, and published in the New York Times, Artforum, and Rolling Stone. As a New Orleans native, she comes to Material Institute with a personal stake in imagining the city as a vital center for contemporary thought and practice.

Jaohn Orgon
Sites & Campus Director

Jaohn leads the design and development of our campus creating a beautiful space for New Orleans artists. His innovative real estate developments combine art, architecture, community, and sacred space. Jaohn’s projects have appeared in Vice, New York Times, Arte, Art Forum, Atlas Obscura, Artnet, and The Guardian.

François Boudreaux
Fashion & Textiles Program Director

François develops atelier-based learning experiences that bridge creative education and professional practice. He holds an MA in Womenswear from Central Saint Martins and an Associates in Menswear Design from FIT. As the founder and creative director of the luxury brand, FLYSÓN, he explores the intersection of fashion, textiles, culture, craftsmanship, and systems thinking. François enjoys helping students expand their aesthetics through the design process to elevate their professional growth.

Angel Chung Cutno
Community Programs Director

Angel directs our community programs and supports mentorship opportunities for youth. She’s a certified Louisiana Master Naturalist and native plant professional and has gardened with youth since her college days at LSU. She was named one of Gambit’s “40 Under 40” for her community contributions. Angel is a rock-climbing, wheel-riding, reptile caretaker and artist. She dreams of opening the world’s first Afro-Asian led climbing facility.

Andy Gross
Lead Engineer & Music Program Manager

Andy guides our musicians through a process of creative transformation managing our music programs and lead engineering all music projects. He has well over a decade of studio experience as a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer and has worked with Hovvdy, Lil Uzi Vert, YG, Pell, Charlie Martin, and hundreds of others. Outside of audio, he loves baseball and going to art museums.

Delise Hampton
Garden & Culinary Manager

Delise manages our culinary program and cultivates culturally-relevant, community-centered opportunities connected to the restoration of relationship between land and its inhabitants. Born and raised in New Orleans, she returned home after graduating from Howard in 2015 to affect change in her community. Delise is a mother, doula, multimedia creative, educator, healer, and poet.

Lucia Honey
Communications & Brand Manager

Lucia documents our programs, curates Material Institute’s unified public presence, and manages our brand assets. He has a background in film, photography, writing, and music and loves getting to learn applied material processes onsite. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, learning languages, and travel.

Amani McCutchen
Operations Manager

Amani is our resident policy princess working closely with the entire team to develop, coordinate, and implement our operational infrastructure. She loves supporting people and programs to catalyze organizational success. Beyond her role in operations, Amani channels her passion for creativity into her fashion brand St. Miraj — bringing collections and accessories to life inspired by the rich culture of New Orleans and a vision for timeless fashion.

Ilse Wolbank
Fashion & Textiles Program Manager

Ilse introduced knitwear design when she joined our team. She continues to grow the department introducing donation-based resources that open access to textile education. Her classes dance across art and science teaching sustainable design practices and material experimentation using analog knitting machines.

Kirsha Kaechele
Founding Creative Director & Board Member

Kirsha Kaechele’s projects are based at MONA in Tasmania and New Orleans. In addition to art curation, her projects include: feasts as living art installations – temporal exhibitions in which every element of a feast is sculpture or performance; 24 Carrot – a project that creates kitchen gardens in low income areas of Tasmania and New Orleans; Heavy Metal – an art-science project focused on the mercury contamination of Tasmania’s River Derwent; Trascism – Mona’s zero-waste initiative, now implemented across their festivals and events; and Material Institute.

John Norwood
Board Chair

Annette Garozzo
Board Treasurer

As a Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA, CGMA) with over two decades of experience, Annette has cultivated a robust career in financial leadership across diverse industries, including energy, digital health, and the arts. Currently, she serves as the Chief Financial Officer at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Hobart, Tasmania, where she oversees the group financial strategy and operations. Her role involves steering financial planning, ensuring fiscal responsibility, and contributing to the museum’s innovative cultural initiatives.

Hugh Lambert
Board Secretary

Beth Lambert
Board Member