Gregory Alan Thornbury, Ph.D., currently serves as Executive Director of Silver Art Projects at the World Trade Center. Founded in 2019 to change models of systems that perpetuate a culture of inequity, Silver Art supports artists through critically needed studio space. The program nurtures and builds thriving practices while contributing to the creative ecosystem of lower Manhattan, and was recently called “a premiere incubator for visual artists” by The Commercial Observer. The residency is an accelerator for underrepresented and formerly incarcerated artists, and has positioned over 100 artists to have breakout moments of success in the contemporary art world.

Thornbury has spent the past 25 years in higher education and arts nonprofits, as a professor, college dean, vice president, and president. Most recently, he served in senior leadership as Vice
President at the New York Academy of Art in Tribeca, founded by Andy Warhol. In addition to being a curator, he is a scholar of art, philosophy, and religion. In 2018, he wrote a prize-winning rock biography on Larry Norman for Penguin/Random House, which received critical praise from The New York Times, NPR, and The New Yorker.