Lena Sze is a program associate on the Creativity and Free Expression team, responsible for building out programs and conducting research and analysis that advances the team’s strategy across the foundation’s arts and culture, documentary film, and journalism program areas.

Prior to joining Ford, Lena consulted with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, A Blade of Grass Fund, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and worked at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, among other cultural organizations. She has been published in exhibition catalogs, oral history collections, and peer-reviewed scholarly journals, and has taught at the City University of New York and Parsons School of Design at The New School.

Lena received a PhD in American Studies from New York University and a BA in classics from Swarthmore College.