Josephine Ramirez is Program Director at the James Irvine Foundation with overall responsibility for the Foundation’s Arts program. Last year under her leadership the Foundation launched a new arts strategy, refining and strengthening Irvine’s focus on arts engagement. Before joining Irvine, Josephine was Vice President of Programming and Planning for the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, founding the programming department and launching several groundbreaking initiatives, including Active Arts® at the Music Center. Previously, she was a Program Officer at the Getty Foundation, managing funding in arts leadership development, local cultural organizations, arts education research, and arts policy. Also at the Getty, she was a Research Associate at the Research Institute, creating and implementing a multi-year investigation of the connections between art making and civic participation. She currently serves as Vice President of the Cultural Affairs Commission, City of Los Angeles. She is a Loeb Fellow alumnus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, an award that supported her research on informal, nonprofessional art making and its relationship to individual and community vitality.