Today, we’re announcing that Executive Director Liz Neeley will depart The Story Collider August 31, 2020. We’re so grateful to Liz for everything she has brought to Story Collider, and wish her the very best in her future endeavors. Please find statements from our Board of Directors, and from Liz, below.

From our Board of Directors

The past five years have been a period of extraordinary growth and evolution for The Story Collider, and it is impossible to imagine that success without the guidance and other contributions of Liz Neeley as Executive Director. We could sing her praises for finding ways to expand the reach of the organization into multiple cities during a time that has been immensely challenging for so much of the arts community, and for managing so tirelessly the administrative headaches that go with it.

But what we value most about Liz — and what we will miss most with her departure — is the passion she feels for the mission of The Story Collider, for its celebration of science in everyone’s lives through the art of storytelling. No one has been a more eloquent advocate for that mission. We know firsthand how much her ability to spark that passion in others has done, not just for our organization but for individuals who have suddenly seen their relation to science and its connections to the rest of the human experience in a new light.

We are grateful to Liz for the half decade she has spent being a boon to The Story Collider. We are sorry to see her go, but we know she will continue to be a boon to the science community in whatever she brings her considerable talents to next.

From Liz

Dear friends,

One of the first things I learned from The Story Collider is that when you come to the end of your story, stop. We encourage our tellers to trust the audience, and to fight the impulse to say more. If we’ve told our story well, we don’t need to explain what it all meant, or wrap it up with a grand flourish: the narrative stands on its own. And so, I hope, does my leadership of The Story Collider. 

I have resigned as Executive Director and will end my time here on August 31. The past five years have been a profound pleasure and have presented me with tremendous challenges. I will never stop believing in the power of combining art and science, theory and practice. I will continue exploring this terrain for the rest of my life.

I believe this moment in history calls for each of us to search our hearts, and to throw ourselves into work we believe in wholeheartedly. I certainly plan to do so. 

Against all the odds, The Story Collider is stronger and more secure than it has ever been. Our team is too large for me to personally recount what each one of them means to me here. May it suffice to say that I count our board, staff, producers, and storytellers among my closest colleagues, friends, and confidants. I will cheer for their future successes, and I am certain there will be many. 

It has meant the world to me to be a part of this story.

Thank you.