Americans for the Arts | Washington, D.C. and New York, NY

Rena Cohen is a rising senior in Cabot House at Harvard College concentrating in Statistics with a secondary in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. As an avid musician, she hopes to dedicate her life to making opportunities to participate in the arts accessible for all communities, a goal that guided her work last summer as a government affairs intern at Americans for the Arts (AFTA). She is delighted to return to AFTA as a Presidential Public Service Fellow, where she will be researching, writing, and publicizing an updated version of federal resource guides to help arts organizations navigate the federal funding landscape.

On campus, Rena is the Senior Choir Secretary of the Harvard University Choir, where she sings at daily morning prayers services for the MemChurch community, organizes service projects for the choir, and serves on the Memorial Church Grants Committee. In addition to her ongoing role with the University Choir, she has worked at a variety of cultural institutions, including the Harvard Art Museums, Strawbery Banke Museum, the Smithsonian Organization and Audience Research department, and the Boston Camerata. After graduating from the College, she aspires to make a career in arts administration, working with local governments or cultural institutions to develop equitable and engaging public programming.

When she’s not at rehearsal, Rena enjoys costume designing for theater at Harvard, writing stories, baking, and volunteering at the Cambridge Women’s Center.