Executive Director

Claire Peeps (she/her/hers) is the executive director of the Durfee Foundation. Previously she served as the Associate Director of the Los Angeles Festival, as the publisher of High Performance Magazine, and as director of education at the Ansel Adams Center/Friends of Photography. She has served as a consultant to the J. Paul Getty Center, the San Francisco Art Institute, The Music Center of Los Angeles County, and ARTS Inc, among others, and has served as president of Grantmakers in the Arts, chair of Southern California Grantmakers, and vice chair of the California Council for the Humanities. Claire is a Commissioner for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, appointed by Supervisor Sheila Kuehl to represent the Third District. She is a Senior Fellow at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Policy, and an adjunct instructor at the USC Price School of Public Policy. Her book, Activists Speak Out: Reflections on the Pursuit of Change in America, was published by St. Martins/ Palgrave in March 2001. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of New Mexico, and holds certificates from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.