Ella Baff was the Senior Program Officer for Arts and Cultural Heritage at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York City until 2018.
Baff was born in New York City and grew up there. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976. Following graduation she held multiple jobs including teaching in juvenile prisons and on an island in the Aleutian Islands.[1]
Until 1997 Baff was the director of education and community programming at Cal Performances, an arts organization at the University of California, Berkeley.[2]
Starting in 1998, Baff was the executive and artistic director of Jacob's Pillow,[3] a 225-acre historic site that encompasses an international dance festival, professional school, archives, exhibits, artist residencies, public venues, and education and community programs. Under her leadership, the organization was designated a National Historic Landmark and was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama at the White House.[4]
In 2015 Baff joined the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as a senior program officer,[3][5][6] a position she held until 2018.[7]
Baff has been a moderator for the Works & Process series at the Guggenheim Museum. She has served on the board of directors of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) and MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). She is a member of the Advisory Council of the American Friends of the Batsheva Cultural Center in Tel Aviv, designed by Sir David Adjaye, opening in 2023.[8]
Baff received several awards in the cultural field including the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the Ministry of Culture of France and the Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence from the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. She has received Honorary Doctorates from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and the College of the Holy Cross.[9]