Maria Freda Email & Phone Number

Hamden, Connecticut, United States

Hamden, Ct

▶ SCOPE: Oversee residential services department with $450K budget, managing team of 30 (18 direct reports) working in reception area, security, and transportation. Identify and monitor KPIs to advance program development, resident services, events, and care. Launch events to highlight special interests, with emphasis on artistic outlets (musical performances, films, playwriting, and museum visits), exercise, nutrition, spiritual mindfulness, and social opportunities. Serve as direct liaison, facilitator, and communications advocate to residents and their families, meeting regularly with operations staff, volunteers, and interest groups to ensure success in engagement, sponsorship, and events execution. Partner with marketing to coordinate assimilation into community.● Orchestrated Whitney Center Wellness Festival, offering venue for residents that highlights special interests in exercise, nutrition, spiritual mindfulness, and social opportunities. ● Facilitated launch of multiple events to foster engagement in the community. Featured contributing writers to Whitney Center’s Staytainment newsletter.● Devised creative ways for residents to stay engaged during COVID-19 pandemic. ● Improved performance, productivity, and impact of team. Initiated 30-60-90 coaching and performance evaluations for staff. Expanded opportunities for growth on individual level with focus on skill, culture, and personal approach to work. ● Enhanced on-campus communications networks through the use of print and digital platforms, offering multiple options for residents to engage. Designed and produced MyWCLife, resident-centric newsletter published weekly. ● Developed, implemented, and maintained operational policies and procedures, identifying outreach potential. Promoted philanthropic and collaborative support of programs. Identified, solidified, and cultivated community partnerships and collaboration. Developed metrics to identify and measure program successes.

New Haven, Ct

▶SCOPE: Promoted from assistant teacher in first grade to head teacher for fourth grade students. Developed lesson plans to empower students, integrating special projects and theatrical productions to engage learning. Strengthened fundamental skills in the classroom, deepening conceptual learning for middle school children through interactive learning, tactile projects, and community involvement. Partnered with teachers and parents to devise curriculum conducive to integrated learning, offering place for students to create, design, think, explore, and problem solve, applying skills learned in various experiential learning day and overnight trips and extracurricular activities including art, music, and technology, among others. ● Produced newsletter, Class/Room/News to encourage communication and engagement, facilitating interdisciplinary planning and programming with academic departments. Designed and produced The First Grade Herald weekly newsletter. ● Facilitated opportunities for parent involvement and community outreach. Fostered Parent Speaker Series and wrote colonial-themed play for fourth grade to encourage engagement. Orchestrated field trips to integrate teaching methods. ● Developed innovative 8-week program for first graders, introducing everyday objects as building components for study of stability, materials, shape, pattern, and form. ● Facilitated rise of students’ standardized testing scores to top 10th percentile within national standing for independent schools. Applied STEAM projects including construction of life-size model of Leatherback turtle and coordinated first-time class visits to Apple Store for iMovie, stop action film, and gaming workshops for differentiated learning styles.

Hamden, Ct

Westport, Ct

▶ SCOPE: Leveraged natural communication ability and people skills in sales and customer experience role as creative liaison. Advanced mission-driven values of the organization by delivering top-notch quality in customer engagement and design services. Offered clients hands-on services, maintaining brand integrity while surpassing sales metrics month-over-month. ● Increased sales 140% in one month. Recognized with RH Hero People Award for outstanding client service. Earned commendations for product presentation style, innovative outreach, and leadership. Offered natural design and aesthetic intuition and functional design solutions to help customers with home renovations.

New Haven, Ct

Author & Researcher of Putting the Classroom to Work: How Does a Classroom Environment Influence Teaching Styles and a Teacher’s Well Being ©2012-2013 Maria Freda• An empirical study of the role design and aesthetic sensibilities play in teachers’ partnerships with the space they in, the objects they teach with and the children they teach to. Program Creator - The Classeum Blueprint: A Teacher’s Guide for Putting the Classroom to Work ©2013 Maria Freda• A workshop series that encourages teachers (PreK thru 4) to welcome the classroom as a collaborating partner featuring topics such as: The Biophilia Effect, The Power of Space, Placemaking, Design Matters and Building an Aesthetic Appreciation

New Haven, Ct

• Proven ability to meet the expectations and needs of a classroom settings • Teaching style influenced by “constructivist” and Reggio Emilia pedagogies • Promotes interdisciplinary infusion of lesson topics• Engages children in block play as a problem solving method• Encourages cause and effect deduction activities• Leads animated storytelling sessions with creative response activities• Considers differentiated teaching approached to met individualized learning needs

New York City

• Taught Salvadori in school, science and math L.E.A.D (Learning through Engineering, Architecture and Design) program for Grades 2 thru 4. • Encouraged students to observe their neighborhoods and living environments to create connections to their learning.• Led B.R.I.D.G.E.S. (Build, Research, Invent, Design Grow and Explore through Science) an After School Program highlighting technology and design found in the built environment for children ages 7 thru 12.• By deconstructing local and global bridges and their components to simple shapes and design, my lessons provided students with a more approachable style of learning something that seemingly at first seems difficult to grasp. • Using the basic tools of design, students in both programs learned the steps of model construction; drafting, scale and proportion, construction and finished 3-D presentations. The result led to inquisitive learners and engaged young designers.• Designed and produced activities and work sheets.• Collaborated with classroom teachers, moderating weekly meetings.• Coordinated final model presentations. Salvadori L.E.A.D and B.R.I.D.G.E.S. sites: January 2011 – May 2012• The Anderson School PS 334 City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks: How Does NYC Measure Up?• Monterey Place, New Haven, CT - (B.R.I.D.G.E.S) • Gary Crooks Memorial Center, Bridgeport, CT - (B.R.I.D.G.E.S)• PS 185, Brooklyn, NY - Learning the Language of Math, One Building Block at a Time• The Noguchi Museum, Bronx, NY - Shapes and the Quest for Strength • The Brooklyn Children Museum - Arch Works Originator of Museum Family Programs at Scandinavia House: The Nordic Center in America NYC • Dragonstile Structures January 2012• Luminous Modernism: Collecting Shapes November 2011• Nordic Models + Common Ground February 2011• Open Spaces / Public Places March 2011• Discovering the Golden Rectangle in Art & Built Environments May 2011

New York, Ny

The Cold Spring School. New Haven, CT, The Edgewood School. New Haven, CT.The Salvadori Center Placements: The Anderson School, NY, NYThe Scandinavia House - The Nordic Center in America, NY, NYThe Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, The Noguchi Museum, Queens, NY

New Haven, Ct

INTERIOR STYLIST.Successful mid-century modern furnishings shop offering award winning design / styling services. An entrepreneurial venture in a resurging downtown urban neighborhood. Created retail concept from the ground up. Developed creative solutions for residential and commercial spaces. Served as an interior stylist of model apartments in New Haven CT for Center Pointe Residential Properties. Designed retail floor and window displays for clients such as The English Building, Caeseus Cheese Shop, Katatin Furniture. Limbo vendors included: Jonathan Adler, Seda France, Global Views as well as individual specialty dealers.EXHIBIT DESIGNER.Conceptualized, designed and coordinated permanent, temporary and traveling exhibits. Planned exhibit calendars. Managed in-house construction and function as project manager. Negotiated loan agreements with national and international museums. Performed copywriting for exhibition graphics, public service announcements and advertising campaigns. Clients included The New Haven Colony Museum, Saint Thomas’s Day School, The Knights of Columbus Museum, and The Elm Shakespeare Company. EVENT COORDINATOR.Clients included The New Haven Symphony Orchestra” Violin Project; Night for Flute and Harpsichord - The English Building, Here Comes the Neighborhood; A community event highlighting small business on New Haven’s lower Chapel Street - New Haven Colony Historical Society Seal of the City Fundraiser and its exhibition, Margaret Fitch Brewster: A Woman of Style and Substance - The Elm Shakespeare Company’s Gala Event and Auction.

New York, Ny

Conceptualized exhibit themes and installations. Managed inter-departmental creative serviceneeds. Recommended/designed museum’s first women aviators exhibit Nobody Owns the Sky. Senior member planning team for high profile events. Broadened museum public awareness by creating successful public programming, such as the SEAFEST waterfront festival. Authored educational funding proposals securing $350,000 in grants. Encouraged and successfully established a collaborative relationship between education and exhibit departments.

Master Of Science - Ms, Museum Education

Master Of Science - Ms, Museum Leadership

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), Communication Design

Degree awarded with honors.

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), Fine And Studio Arts