Staff

Ellyn Toscano

Before coming to Hawthornden Foundation, Ellyn Toscano was the Senior Director for Programming, Partnerships and Community Engagement at New York University, where she worked to foster new intersections of technology, media and the arts through programming, strategic partnerships and outreach to Brooklyn's civic, business, educational and cultural organizations.

Before assuming this position, she served as Executive Director of New York University Florence, the Director of Villa La Pietra, a 15th century villa, historic garden and collection of six thousand objects dating from the Etruscans to the 20th century, the founder of La Pietra Dialogues, a year-long series of conferences and talks and the founder and producer of The Season, a summer festival that assembled artists, writers, musicians and public intellectuals to produce new works or reinterpretations of classics in the Villa’s expansive Renaissance revival gardens. 

Prior to arriving at New York University Florence, Ms. Toscano served as Chief of Staff and Counsel to Congressman Jose Serrano of New York for two decades, was his chief policy advisor on legislative, political and media concerns and directed his work on the Appropriations Committee. Ms. Toscano also served as Counsel to the New York State Assembly Committee on Education for nine years.

Toscano is a member of the Board of Federal Hall National Memorial (the National Parks of New York Harbor Conservancy) and the Advisory Council of the John Brademas Center. She has served on the boards of several prominent arts and cultural institutions in New York City and in Italy. She served on the boards of the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (as the representative of the Brooklyn Borough President) , the Brooklyn Book Festival , and Friends of FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano).  She was a member of the Honorary Board of the Museo Marino Marini in Florence, the Italian Advisory Council of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and a Board member of the Studio Arts College International in Florence. In New York, she served as a Commissioner on the New York City Commision on Gender Equity.   

A lawyer by training, Ms. Toscano earned an LLM in International Law from New York University School of Law.