Megan Pagado Wells
Megan Pagado Wells (she/her) is an experienced performing arts curator and event producer with a background in digital marketing. In her role as Co-Director of Artistic Programming, Megan works within a shared leadership model to oversee the Artistic Planning team, maintaining a multi-curatorial approach that values cross-disciplinary research, contemporary art forms and social activism through the arts.
Megan oversees the curation and management of the NextNOW Fest, an annual arts festival for the university and local community; global music programming as part of the collaboratively curated Visiting Artist Series; The Clarice’s participation in university and community traditions, including Maryland Day and Homecoming; and the Vital Signs: Creative Arts for Black Lives Mini-Grants program, mini-grants awarded to UMD student artists.
Megan joined The Clarice in 2012 as the Assistant Manager of Digital Media, spearheading the management of The Clarice's website, social media, email marketing and digital engagement initiatives. Megan came to The Clarice from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, MD, where she served Montgomery County’s cultural community by producing large-scale arts events and implementing marketing services, capacity-building initiatives and advocacy strategies.
Megan has served on grant panels for the MAP Fund and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, and has participated in the European Festivals Association’s Atelier for Young Festival Managers and the Association for Performing Arts Professionals’ Emerging Leaders Institute. She has also served on the steering committees of Emerging Arts Leaders DC, Maryland Citizens for the Arts' Emerging Arts Advocates and Sulu DC, which produced a monthly showcase of local and regional Asian American and Pacific Islander artists.
Originally from Los Angeles, Megan holds a B.A. in Public Communications and a minor in Music from Washington Adventist University (formerly Columbia Union College) and an M.S. in Nonprofit and Association Management from the University of Maryland University College. In her spare time, she makes bad movie plot guesses on a podcast co-hosted by her, her gamer husband and their dog, Tofu.