Sarah Herda is the director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation is the oldest foundation in the United States committed to awarding project-based grants to individuals and institutions to foster the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. Herda is credited with transforming the Foundation’s headquarters, the historic Madlener House, into a significant exhibition space, with an active program of talks, performances and other events that explore the forefront of architecture, art and design. She served as the co-artistic director of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015, the largest international exhibition of contemporary architecture in North America, visited by over 500,000 people. Herda was also director and curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City and the director of the Center for Critical Architecture/Art and Architecture Exhibition Space in San Francisco. She serves on the Illinois Arts Council, for which she was appointed by Governor JB Pritzker and the Architecture and Design Committee at the Art Institute of Chicago. Herda is also a founding board member of the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Association of Architecture Organizations.