Moira Scott Payne

President

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After a six-month national search, Moira Scott Payne became KyCAD’s first Dean in June of 2017. She was named its President less than two months later. Scott Payne was born in India in 1959, but spent most of her life in Scotland, United Kingdom.

An artist whose research focuses on cultural heritage, Scott Payne has worked with international institutions throughout Europe and North America. She received a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree from the Glasgow School of Art in 1981, was awarded a funded Postgraduate Certificate from the same institution a year later, and a Diploma of Education from the Dundee College of Education in Dundee, Scotland, in 1986.

Scott Payne has received international arts awards and research funding that has allowed her to develop a diverse folio of projects rooted in technology, nature and society. Building on KyCAD’s first decade of growth and good will, Scott Payne’s leadership paved the way for its newfound independence.

Scott Payne is a strong believer in lifelong learning. “Haptic, semantic and sensory knowledge are understood in the arts, but our current systems still work with reductive, not expansive, models of exchange. To dance, to paint, to sing are all forms of communication and complex information is communicated and translated by artists. It takes years to master the skills.”

Once mastered, these skills give artists the power to lead. They challenge and interrogate accepted thinking.They use practices that problem-solve, iterate, collaborate and create. These skills have impact in not just the creative and cultural economies, but also the world of business—$704 billion a year, according to the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.