People & Networks

CREATIVITY AMERICA FOUNDER & INITIATIVE LEAD
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Theo Edmonds, JD, MHA, MFA, is a Culture Futurist®, artist/poet, entrepreneur, and analytics innovator who bridges the creative industries, brain science, and technology with the future of work. With over 30 years of executive, artistic, and research experience spanning healthcare, social innovation, academia, and the creative economy, Theo has led groundbreaking projects for Fortune 100 companies, top-tier cardiovascular programs, city and state governments, family offices, universities, and national arts organizations. His mind-expanding approach to quantum storytelling and wonder as tools for leading systems change has made him a highly sought-after keynote speaker and executive advisor.

A nine-generation Appalachian from Jackson, KY, Theo was named one of Southern Living Magazine’s “50 People Changing the Face of the South” for co-founding the arts-science-business nonprofit IDEAS xLab in 2013. From 2018-2021, he led a National Science Foundation-sponsored team that won the Epic Trailblazer Award for groundbreaking advancements in corporate cultural analytics. Now a Research Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Denver, Theo is an unconventional "pracademic" who leverages his neurodiversity as a leadership advantage, pioneering the integration of cultural data signals, such as loneliness, into strategic foresight modeling.

A serial social entrepreneur, in 2024, he founded Creativity America, a decade-long collaboration with leading creativity research labs, artists, and business leaders across the U.S. This initiative bridges the arts and sciences of cognitive, emotional, and social creativity to drive innovation through a national network of Wondervation™ hubs. With the ambitious goal of increasing America’s Creative Brain Capital by 25% over a decade, Creativity America aims to fuel the Wonder Economy—the human side of technology and the future of work.

CREATIVITY AMERICA | SCIENTIFIC & RESEARCH LEAD
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Dr. Reiter-Palmon is the Varner Professor of Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology and the Director of the I/O Psychology Graduate Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She is also the Director of Innovation for the Center for Collaboration Science, an inter-disciplinary program at UNO. She received her Ph.D. in I/O Psychology from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Her research focuses on creativity and innovation in the workplace at individual and team level, development of leadership and creative problem-solving skills, and leading creative individuals.

In 2024, she was named recipient of the Arnheim Award for Outstanding Achievement in Psychology and Creativity. This lifetime achievement award presented by the American Psychological Association (APA) recognizes outstanding achievement in psychology and the arts.

She is the co-editor of Handbook of Organizational Creativity: Leadership, Interventions, and Macro Level Issues, Second Edition covers creativity from many perspectives in two unique volumes, including artificial Intelligence work, creativity within specific applied domains (e.g., engineering, science, therapy), and coverage of leadership.

She is an associate editor for the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, as well as Frontiers: Organizational Psychology. She is the former Editor of The Psychology of Creativity, Aesthetics and the Arts, the leading journal on the psychology of creativity. She serves on the editorial boards of 10 additional journal in I-O psychology, management, and creativity. She has published four edited books on the topic of creativity, and is the editor of the Palgrave series on Creativity and Innovation in Organizations. She has been President of APA Division 10 (creativity) and fellow Division 14 (I-O) in recognition of her contribution to the field of organizational and team creativity.

CREATIVITY AMERICA | CURATORIAL LEAD
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Kristina Newman-Scott is an award-winning, purpose-driven leader with over 20 years of experience in contemporary visual and performing arts, entertainment, and media. She is Vice President for Arts at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Newman-Scott's awards and recognitions include being named one of the City and State New York’s, Telecommunications Power 50 (individuals shaping New York’s digital future), an Observer’s NYC Arts Power 50, and a Next City Urban Vanguard. She is the recipient of the Selina Roberts Ottum award from Americans for the Arts and was conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by the University of New Haven, Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in 2018.

Her past leadership positions include serving as inaugural Executive Director for The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at New York Public Radio/WNYC, President of BRIC, an arts and media organization in Brooklyn; the Director of Culture for the State of Connecticut; Director of Programs at the Boston Center for the Arts; and Director of Visual Arts at Real Art Ways.

Kristina was appointed to the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission in 2020 and currently serves on the Boards of Americans for the Arts, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Chair of National Arts Strategies.

Kristina was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and worked as a practicing artist and TV/radio host in her home country before moving to the US in 2005. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.