Our Board

Sally A. Van de Water is a folklorist and cultural heritage professional with over 20 years of experience in the public sector. Since 2015 she has served as the consulting coordinator for FolkArt PA, the statewide folk arts program managed by Jump Street on behalf of and funded by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Other professional experience includes work at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, where she managed the Center’s Will to Adorn Youth Access Program, a two-year program facilitating ethnographic education programs for youth at grass roots community arts organizations. She also organized international and domestic events and workshops for the

Smithsonian, including the coordination of the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival program The Will to Adorn: African American Diversity, Style, and Identity and the 2014 symposium Intangible Cultural Heritage: An International Dialogue. Prior to her work at the Smithsonian, Ms. Van de Water managed the folk arts program at Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

She has facilitated national meetings of cultural heritage professionals on behalf of the American Folklore Society, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to her work 2013-2015 at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Ms. Van de Water has managed or facilitated festival programs at the Richmond Folk Festival, the Lowell Folk Festival, (ähts) The Boston Arts Festival, the Kentucky Folklife Festival, and others. In 2012, she was an inaugural participant in the China-US Forum on Intangible Cultural Heritage Professional Exchange, sponsored by the American Folklore Society and the China Folklore Society. From 2009-2012 she was the Co-Convenor of the American Folklore Society’s Public Programs Section, the Society’s largest and most active section, and was a 2012-2014 member of the Nominating Committee of the American Folklore Society. She holds an A.B. in Folklore and Folklife from Bryn Mawr College and a M.A. in Folk Studies from Western Kentucky University.

In addition to her folkore and folklife work, Ms. Van de Water is an active member of USA Weightlifting and serves as a Category 2 referee for the International Weightlifting Federation. She was the first American woman to emcee a Senior World IWF event, at the 2017 World Championships in Anaheim, CA, and in March 2018 became the first woman referee to officiate at a men’s competition in the Islamic Republic of Iran. On International Women’s Day 2018 (March 8), she was named one of the 18 Women Trailblazers of USA Weightlifting. She is co-owner of McKenna’s Gym in Pennsylvania and teaches introductory strength training classes.