Rebecca Harmon has been named chief public affairs officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System effective Dec. 1. Harmon will be responsible for the overall development and direction of the Health System’s communications efforts, including media relations, community affairs programs, and the Health System’s internal publications, which include Penn Medicine, PennPulse and HUPdate.
Harmon joined the Health System in 1976 and has steadily risen through the ranks in the public affairs office. She has served as director of media relations in the office for the past seven years.

Two at ICA

Ingrid Schaffner has been appointed senior adjunct curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art. A New York-based independent curator and writer, Schaffner has been involved in the field of contemporary art since the mid-1980s, organizing numerous exhibitions focusing on surrealism, collecting and photography. She has also written extensively on 20th-century art, with catalogue essays — including one for the ICA’s Jeanne Silverthorne exhibit — and articles for Artforum, Arts, Frieze, Art on Paper and other publications, including the quarterly Pink, which she co-edits. As senior adjunct curator, she will organize exhibitions on her own and the ICA’s initiative and work closely with Director Claudia Gould and her staff on creative programming.

Karen Jones, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, has been named the first Whitney-Lauder Curatorial Fellow at the ICA. In this position, Jones will provide administrative, research and technical assistance for the ICA’s curatorial department, which organizes 12 shows each year, and serve as the liaison between the ICA and the undergraduate history of art program, organizing a curatorial seminar that will culminate in an ICA exhibition in the spring. The Whitney-Lauder Fellowship, funded by Trustee Leonard Lauder, enables a graduate of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s independent study program to spend a year as an assistant curator at the ICA.

Mary McGuire Ruggiero is the new marketing manager for Campus Dining Services. As marketing manager, Ruggiero is responsible for promoting Penn’s campus food services, increasing meal plan and retail sales, improving the campus dining Web site and helping develop ways for Penn’s seven food-service partners to better meet customer needs. Ruggiero, a Restaurant School graduate and experienced pastry chef, holds a degree in journalism from Temple University and has edited numerous cookbooks, including the “White Dog Cafe Cookbook” and “The James Beard Library of Great American Cooking.” She took over the newly-created post within Dining Services Nov. 6.