team

Krissy Ponden is the Visual Arts Department Chair at Unquowa School in Fairfield, Connecticut, where she has taught middle school visual arts for 20 years and coordinates the school's DEI efforts. Krissy is a 2019 graduate of the National Art Education Association's School for Art Leaders and she was chosen as NAEA’s Monthly Mentor in June 2020. She served as the inaugural Middle Level Commissioner of NAEA’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commission from 2019-2024 and as a member of the 2023-2024 Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes ARTEFFECT Ambassadors cohort. Krissy has given workshops, presentations, and participated in panel discussions on equity and antiracism for a variety of local and national organizations. She was selected as the 2021 Independent School Art Educator of the Year by the ISAE Interest Group of NAEA, the NAEA 2022 Connecticut Art Educator of the Year, and the 2023 NAEA Middle Level Art Educator of the Year. She is also the recipient of Unquowa's 2022 Jean Carpenter Winton Distinguished Alumni Award and two Virginia F. Birdsall grants for summer travel that took her to Bali, Indonesia and Oaxaca, Mexico to support curricular development. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Art Education at Indiana University.