Olivia Gude is the Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has created many award-winning collaborative mural and mosaic projects, including two National Endowment for the Arts Art in Public Places grants. The National Art Education Association awarded her the Viktor Lowenfeld Award for significant contributions to the field of art education in 2009 and in 2014 she was the recipient of the NAEAâ??s Manuel Barkan â??article of the yearâ?? award.

In recent years, she has united her work as a community artist and art educator by creating participatory spaces in which teachers investigate and re-invent the social practice of art education. These include organizing a Manifesta of Art Education at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2012 and gatherings of the Skeptical Assessment Society at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013, for the Art Educators of Iowa in 2015, and for the New York State Art Teachers conference, and the Missouri Art Education Association in 2016.