Kate Kramer, Deputy Director of the Center since 2004, is an experienced fine art and media professional who has spent her career initiating and facilitating an ongoing dialogue on the arts among artists, universities and the general public through her lectures and as coordinator and curator of numerous arts events and exhibitions including financial planning, working with and retaining artists, developing media and interfacing with the private and public sectors. Kate received her PhD in Modern Studies at UWM in 1995 and has served on the art history, humanities, literature faculty at Illinois Institute of Technology and Florida Gulf Coast University. Kate has worked as a curator of art events, galleries and exhibitions for universities, commercial galleries and private collections over the past twenty years.

Kate and her husband, the sculptor and lighting designer Christopher Poehlmann, are currently renovating a 1950s modernist ranch and raising two tots: Charlotte (born August 2003) and Theo (born September 2006).