Our Team

Barbara Tepa Lupack is the grant coordinator for the program series, Making Noise About Silent Film: Conversations About Cinema, Culture, & Social Change and Race Films/Race Matters: Starting Conversations About Race in America, both sponsored in part by Humanities New York. Making Noise About Silent Film is the fourth HNY grant she has coordinated for the Finger Lakes Film Trail, beginning with a Vision Grant in 2018 to launch the FLFT and an Action Grant in 2019 to assist in the implementation of the first full year of program events. From 2015 to 2018, she served as New York State Public Scholar through HNY, in which capacity she lectured on race films, on racial stereotypes, and on race filmmakers Richard E. Norman and Oscar Micheaux. She has also held a number of individual grants and awards, including a travel and research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Diana Riesman, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Wharton Studio Museum and creator of the Finger Lakes Film Trail, is closely and directly involved in all aspects of the Humanities New York grant planning and program implementation. She has led WSM’s partnership in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture, which includes the installation of a permanent exhibit on Ithaca’s role in early film history, and is spearheading efforts to develop the historic Wharton Studio building in partnership with the City of Ithaca and Friends of Stewart Park. She is a founding member and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Friends of Stewart Park, a nonprofit committed to the revitalization of Stewart Park, Ithaca’s main waterfront park, where the Wharton Studio building is located.

Patricia Longoria, Making Noise About Silent Film website manager, researches and writes about the social history of Central New York, with a focus on the built environment. As Deputy Historian of the Village of Cayuga Heights, she researched house histories and traced the transition of the village from agricultural land to suburban development as a part of the American Association for State and Local History-award winning Cayuga Heights History Project. Patricia spread awareness of local historic preservation issues through her role as Events and Community Engagement Coordinator at Historic Ithaca. As a past Board member of the Wharton Studio Museum, she supported efforts to preserve Ithaca’s role in early film history and most recently contributed to “Black History & Culture Destinations in the Finger Lakes: Ithaca Sites” for the Finger Lakes Film Trail and the “Biggest Little Movie City” exhibit at the Tompkins Center for History and Culture.