Our Team

  • Bree Nieves Robert

    Marketing and Communication Associate

    Bree is a creative and communications lead with deep experience in unscripted series, digital, and documentary content, bringing her commitment to community-driven storytelling to every project. With previous roles at CNN, Hulu, VICE, and PBS, she uses her understanding of art and narrative to explore themes of family, community dynamics, and urban and rural life. Bree’s work has earned recognition from the Sundance Uprise Fellowship.

  • Chad Coerver

    President

    Chad believes deeply in art’s capacity to transform our perceptions of the world and inspire new ways of thinking, and he has dedicated his career as an arts leader to exploring creative approaches to public programming, digital outreach, and community building. He has served as Executive Director of The Contemporary Jewish Museum and led content strategy, education, and community engagement in multiple roles at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

  • Jennifer Edwards

    Senior Director of Brand and Digital Strategy

    Jennifer is a multifaceted creative guided by a deep love of listening and learning paired with an innate ability to hold space for complexity. She is passionate about projects that center equity and make the intangible, visible. She’s toured North America, Europe, and China as a spoken word artist, performer, facilitator, and choreographer. Jennifer has built programs and platforms with communities across the country and for Georgia Tech, Jacob's Pillow, NCCAkron, and The New Museum / NEW INC.

  • Karla Centeno

    Director of Education

    Throughout her career, Karla has sought experiences that allow people to see the world as it is while imagining what it could be. She has had the privilege of working in arts at all levels as a museum educator, writer, curator, director of education, and grantmaker. She also co-founded allofus, an artist-run collective and online gallery.

  • Maritza M Tapia

    Education Associate

    Maritza grew up in California’s Central Valley and has long been drawn to the many ways people learn, reflect, and grow. Prior to joining the team, she facilitated a program to distribute educational models through community venues across the country. Now, she applies that background in workforce development to making learning feel expansive and accessible to all. Maritza incorporates themes of community and care in her artwork and is currently working on a personal archival project that celebrates her friends, family, and everyday life.

  • Rubi Alcazar

    Administrative Manager

    A Bay Area native, Rubi studied economics and sociology at Santa Clara University. Passionate about education, cultural/social structural systems and community, her career began with working with marginalized students in both public schools and private institutions. After several years of operational and administrative support at an investment bank focused on sustainable technology and infrastructure, Rubi is happy to turn back to more community-oriented work.

Our Founder

Founding Director

As a newspaper reporter in the ’90s, Jane Gottesman was one of the few journalists at the time covering the broader systemic implications of girls and women having fair access to school-based athletic opportunities. Jane’s interest in women’s sports can be traced to the day, in 1973, when she was 7, and with her mom watched the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis spectacle on TV when Billie Jean King triumphed over Bobby Riggs. The circle was complete by 2001, when Jane created the exhibition, book, and education project, Game Face: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like? It won a Billie Award for Innovation from the Women's Sports Foundation, the organization King launched after her 1973 victory. Building on Jane’s sports-informed insights about the interplay between women’s bodies and women’s public authority, she went on to found Working Assumptions. Currently Jane is the Founder and CEO of Earlystone Management, through which she invests in property, community-engaged projects, and women’s sports.

Jane Gottesman

Key Contributors

It truly takes a village to do this work, and Working Assumptions has had the good fortune to collaborate with amazing partners, colleagues, and advisors over the years. We would like to extend special gratitude to the following individuals, who have made vital contributions to this organization and shaped it for the better.

Alice Proujansky
Annika Tubito
Apollonia Morrill
Barbara Filion
Belinda Schwartz
Eve Biddle
Geoffrey Biddle
Jay Hughes
Kate Sigrist
Kelly deMarrais
Tracee Worley
Trudy Wilner Stack
Virginia Rutter