About

An innovative educator and accomplished art historian, administrator, and author, Thom Collins, a Philadelphia native, has more than 20 years of experience at some of America’s top arts institutions, including the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM); the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York; the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore; the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati; the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Collins earned his MA in art history from Northwestern University and his BA with honors in art history and the history of religion from Swarthmore College. He serves on the Board of Trustees at Swarthmore College and is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Association of Art Museum Curators, and the College Art Association.

Aileen Roberts is a philanthropist and civic leader in Philadelphia. For more than 20 years, she has advocated for organizations dedicated to arts and culture, education, health care, and conservation—including as president of the Aileen K. and Brian L. Roberts Foundation, where she supports initiatives that address equity in education. She has been a member of the Barnes's Board of Trustees since 2005 and was elected to serve as Chair in 2020. Roberts has also served on the boards of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute, the Avenue of the Arts, the International House, William Penn Charter School, and Sheriff's Meadow Foundation in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Chair, Executive Committee

John R. Alchin retired as executive vice president and co-chief financial officer at Comcast Corporation in 2008. Before joining Comcast in 1990, he was managing director of Toronto Dominion Bank, and he was active in the founding of the bank’s US Communications Finance Group in 1980. Alchin was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2017. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of Ralph Lauren Corporation and is a trustee on the boards of BNY Mellon Funds Trust and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

David A. Fleischner is the chief operating officer of Asplundh Tree Expert LLC. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Fleischner has been involved in Asplundh’s operations in vegetation management, utility construction, and landscape businesses in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since joining the firm in 1998. Fleischner serves on the boards of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. In the Philadelphia area, he and his family support many civic and charitable organizations, including MANNA, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2022, he is also a Trustee Co-Chair of the Ambassadors Board.

Chair, Finance & Audit Committee

Jacqueline F. Allen served as a judge of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for more than 25 years before retiring in January 2024. Throughout her distinguished career, she has served the Philadelphia community through several civic and charitable organizations, including the Barnes, to which she was elected a Trustee, and Secretary of the Board, in 2002. She served as chair of the scholarship committee of the National Bar Association Women Lawyers Division, Philadelphia Chapter, for 15 years and is on the board of the Presbyterian Community Ministries of the Delaware Valley. Judge Allen is a graduate of Lincoln University and Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Chair, Nominating and Governance Committee

John J. Aglialoro was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Temple University. He is an entrepreneur who has owned and operated a variety of public and private businesses throughout the US for over 40 years. He currently serves as chairman and cofounder of UM Holdings Ltd. of Haddonfield, New Jersey, which included Cybex International and EHE International, and is the former mayor of Tavistock Borough in Tavistock, New Jersey. Aglialoro was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2014 and also serves on the boards of the Atlas Society and the Museum of the American Revolution.

Armando I. Bengochea is senior program officer for Higher Learning and director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) of the Mellon Foundation. Previously an academic dean at Brown University and Connecticut College, he helps oversee Mellon’s higher education grantmaking for faculty development, curricular enhancement and innovation, undergraduate research, and other purposes that improve access to scholarly and other humanities careers. Previously, he headed the Mellon Foundation’s grantmaking program in diversity. Bengochea was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2019. He is also a trustee of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he chairs the principal board committee for faculty and student affairs.

Sheldon M. Bonovitz is chairman emeritus of Duane Morris LLP, having stepped down as chairman in 2008 to resume full-time practice. During his tenure as chairman, he led the firm from a regional to a national and international platform. Bonovitz is also chairman emeritus of the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia. He was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2005 and also serves as a trustee for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation. Bonovitz is a trustee emeritus of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Philadelphia Orchestra; he was also a board member of the Free Library Foundation. Bonovitz and his wife, Jill, are avid art collectors who have made major gifts of art to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which were shown in three exhibitions there; their gift of American outsider art was shown in the 2013 exhibition Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection. Jill Bonovitz is an acclaimed ceramist and wire sculptor with works in museums throughout the world.

Chair, Investment Committee

Pamela D. Bundy is the founder, president, and CEO of Bundy Development Corporation, an urban real estate development firm in Washington, DC. An entrepreneur and former real estate appraiser, she graduated from Lincoln University and currently serves on the board of directors of Lincoln University Foundation of Pennsylvania and the board of advisors of the Lowe Economic Development Corporation. Bundy is also an appointed board member of the Executive Committee of the District of Columbia Building Industry Association. Elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2016, she is also a Trustee Co-Chair of the Ambassadors Board.

Emily A. Cavanagh previously worked for Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Thompson Financial, specializing in domestic and international tax law. She assisted numerous tax-exempt organizations with incorporation, tax exemption, governance issues, and restructuring, including the YMCA of Rye, New York. Cavanagh is a partner and vice chair of the board of VIA Art Fund and a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Rosenbach, and the Community Partnership School. Cavanagh is a trustee emeritus of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and served on the boards of Publicolor, Let’s Get Ready, Renaissance Society, and the Medical Research Institute of Chicago. She received a BA from Brown University and a JD from Columbia University. She and her husband, Michael J. Cavanagh, president of Comcast Corporation, live in Philadelphia and are parents to three children. She was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2023.

Gregory E. Deavens is the president and chief executive officer of Independence Health Group, parent company of Independence Blue Cross. Previously, he served as Independence’s executive vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer, and held senior financial roles at MassMutual, New York Life, Cigna, and GE Capital. Deavens currently serves as chair of the board of directors of Hartford HealthCare and is engaged in various local civic and charitable activities in Philadelphia, including his service on the boards of the African American Museum and the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Florida A&M University. He was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2022.

Jeffrey A. Honickman is a principal of the Honickman Companies, which includes Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of New York, Pepsi-Cola & National Brand Beverages, Ltd., Canada Dry Delaware Valley Bottling Company, and Canada Dry Potomac Corporation. He currently serves on the board of directors of Comcast Corporation and as a director of the American Beverage Association. Additionally, Honickman serves on the Advisory Council of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2019.

Cathy Hughes is an entrepreneur, radio and television personality, and business executive who founded the media company Radio One—now Urban One—in 1980. When the company went public in 1999, Hughes became the first African American woman to head a publicly traded corporation. Urban One has become an urban radio market leader with more than 60 stations across the country comprising hip-hop, R&B, gospel, and talk radio formats. Hughes’s philanthropy, dedicated to empowering minority communities, includes support of the Piney Woods School in Piney Woods, Mississippi, and service on the Board of Trustees at Creighton University in Omaha. Hughes was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2014.

John H. McFadden is founder and partner of the international law firm McFadden, Pilkington & Ward LLP. A graduate of Harvard University (BA), Columbia University (MBA), and Fordham University (JD), McFadden has practiced law since 1978. Active with various cultural organizations in Greater Philadelphia, he serves on the boards of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc., the Academy of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music. McFadden also serves as a director of the Ongava Game Reserve in Namibia, Africa. He was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2018.

Joseph Neubauer was chairman of the board of Aramark Corporation, a leading global provider of professional services including food, hospitality, facility, and uniform services, from 1984 until 2015. Neubauer is chairman of the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders. He was formerly chairman of the University of Chicago’s board of trustees and a director of Mondelez International, Verizon Communications, Macy’s, and Tufts University. Recognized throughout his career for civic and professional achievements, he received the prestigious Philadelphia Award in 2012 and the William Penn Award in 2013. In 2023, he and his wife, Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer, were awarded the Pennsylvania Society’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement for their commitment to youth, education, community safety, and the arts. Neubauer was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2005 and served as Chair from 2015 through 2020; he continues to serve as a Trustee and as Chair of the Barnes’s Second Century Campaign.

Chair, Advancement Committee

Christine Poggi is the John L. Loeb Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Before joining NYU in 2017, she taught for 30 years in the History of Art Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Poggi is a published writer and author, and is currently working on a book addressing the nexus of immigration, border crossing, mapping, and labor in contemporary performance, photography, and film. She was elected to the Barnes’s Board of Trustees in 2018.

Chair, Program Committee