We are a group of volunteers who are passionate about our environment, the arts and our community.
OUR VOLUNTEER LEADERS
WANT TO VOLUNTEER? feel free to contact any one of us via OUR email BELOW!
JIE HUANG | LAND SPECIALIST | j.huang@svilleartsandnature.org
Jie is co-leading the SCAN Land project.
She is a licensed Architect and Interior Designer. She has practiced in various urban centers around the country, but has found the allure of rural landscapes and the outdoors to be much more resonant.
She also enjoys photographing places, spaces, and their people. Her current interests lie between the natural and built environments.
In her spare time, Jie enjoys spending time outside - traveling for rock climbing, trail running, hiking, and backpacking - and is always happy to discuss anything related to travel or the great outdoors!
KRISTIN FRESHWATER | ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THEATRE | k.freshwater@svilleartsandnature.org
Kristin is a writer, director and designer currently living in Scottsville, Virginia. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia’s Department of Drama, where she earned the William Demoville Pettway Prize for her work within the department. In addition, she has completed Graduate work at the University of Virginia in Scenic Design. While a student, she designed the sets for multiple productions, including Waiting for the Parade and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, both of which were nominated for a KCACTF Award.
Kristin has designed, directed, wrote and acted in productions with the UVa Department of Drama, Wolfbane Productions, Appomattox Courthouse Theater and SCAN. During her final undergraduate year at UVA, Kristin wrote, produced and directed a theatrical adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces. In the summer of 2007, she traveled to Prague to shadow producer Mark Johnson on the film set of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
She is currently the Artistic Director and founder of SCAN’s educational community theatre program, Victory Hall Players. In this role, she works to engage the community through performance art, sparking community growth and conversation. Kristin’s most recent productions have been “theatre-in-place” projects; fashioning already existent spaces to the needs of a production, as opposed to using the traditional stage space.
Kristin’s passion for history, visual art and storytelling fuels her creative process and brings a unique perspective to her work within the theatre. She is currently writing a full length play exploring the personal journey of Civil War soldier and spy, Sarah Emma Edmonds.
ERIN ROOT | LAND SPECIALIST | e.root@svilleartsandnature.org
Erin is a former SCAN Board President. She manages her own studio in Architectural and Landscape Architectural design. She received a Masters in both disciplines from the University of Virginia in 2013, and a Bachelor in Fine Arts, from the Corcoran School of Art and Design in Washington, DC in 2002. Following graduation, she sat on the board of the “Washington Sculptors Group” and worked at “Red Dirt Studio” while teaching Middle and High School Art practice, history, and theory at The Washington International School, in addition to an inaugural course in parallel with the exhibition ”The Uncertainty of Objects and Ideas” at the Hirshhorn Museum. After leaving DC, Erin completed a Ceramics Residency at the Cub Creek Foundation in Appomattox, VA.
In graduate school Erin found ways to overlap her love of making and designing and apply them to her interest in social justice and environmental advocacy. After graduation, she received a Postdoctoral fellowship, from the Center for Global Health at UVa (funded by the NIH), to continue her research in flexible water infrastructure that is adaptable to the landscape and the needs of the communities in the Limpopo region of South Africa. After returning from South Africa, Erin begin teaching Architecture and Design Thinking courses at the University of Virginia. Erin was brought up in a household full of art, and attended courses outside of school that formed her Art and Design skills today.