Casandra Hernández Faham

Casandra Hernández Faham is a senior program associate for Arts and Culture.

Prior to Mellon, Casandra served as the first executive director of CALA Alliance (Celebración Artística de las Américas), a Latinx arts organization based in Phoenix that organizes creative collaborations with artists in Arizona, México, and Latin America. Through a joint appointment, she also served as curator of CALA Initiatives at the Arizona State University Art Museum. Previously, she worked as artist programs coordinator at the Arizona Commission on the Arts, where she managed artist grants and created the AZ ArtWorker program to provide accessible and culturally relevant professional development for artists across Arizona. Throughout her career, Casandra has organized artistic and cultural collaborations in the US-Mexico borderlands. Among other honors, she was the recipient of the 2014 40 Hispanic Leaders Under 40 Award. Additionally, she completed the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program in 2020 and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Leadership Institute in 2014.

She holds a BA in cultural anthropology and an MA in museum anthropology from Arizona State University.