Board Members

Officers

Katie Ryan
(She/Her)

President

Katie Ryan lives in Ithaca, New York, where she works as the CFO/Business Director for a Montessori school that educates primary through middle school-aged children. Katie previously lived in Clifton Forge, Virginia and served as the Interim CEO/Director of Operations at Clifton Forge School of the Arts (CFSOTA), a community arts education nonprofit. She has also worked as a grant writer, a nonprofit consultant, and on matters involving community development and rural investment. Prior to her time in Virginia, Katie worked as a litigation attorney in New York City. She attended Cornell University for her undergraduate studies and received her law degree from George Washington University Law School. Clifton Forge was where Katie first had the pleasure of working with Cora Dance, both in her role at CFSOTA and also as a parent to a Cora Dance student. Katie was immediately drawn to Cora Dance’s inclusive and celebratory approach to dance, and especially loves the urban/rural model that Cora Dance has cultivated and continues to build.

Elizabeth Byrd
(She/Her)

Vice president

Elizabeth Byrd is a Belizean mom of six. She is a founding member of Unlock’s NYC Leadership Collective as a Housing Advocate where she works to advocate for the rights of mothers and children. 

As a part of her work she was invited by Mayor Eric Adams to input her stories for Housing our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness. She’s also actively working with United Nations Side Events to promote tech and housing with other Nations. She is a Peacemaker with the Red Hook Community Justice Center, parent of a Cora Youth Company member and has been a parent at Cora Dance for 9 years. Elizabeth has been a Board Member since 2022 and is proud to serve for the first time as President in 2024.

Melissa Johnson Dallett
(She/Her)

Secretary

Melissa Johnson Dallett brings passion, expertise, and deep community ties to Cora Dance. A longtime Red Hook resident and devoted dance mom to Anais, she has spent over a decade immersed in Cora—volunteering, cheering, and witnessing dance’s transformative power. Her love for movement runs deep, from ballet and Afro-Haitian to improv and salsa. Now, she’s ready to channel her finance and tech expertise to help Cora grow. Beyond dance, Melissa is a fierce advocate for social and healthcare justice, dedicating her time to causes like God’s Love We Deliver, AIDS Cycle for the Cause, and the 2025 People’s March on New York. She believes in safe, inclusive spaces where young artists thrive—exactly what Cora provides. With a sharp financial mind and a hands-on approach, she’s eager to support the board, whether analyzing budgets, driving fundraising, or rolling up her sleeves for events. Melissa is all in—because she knows Cora changes lives.

Emma scott
(She/Her)

treasurer

Emma is a Vice President at Annaly Capital Management, Inc., where she specializes in whole loan trading and securitized products within the Residential Credit Group. Prior to working at Annaly, Emma worked in investment banking and received a B.S. in Finance from Wake Forest University. Emma’s background spans finance, nonprofit leadership, and the arts, bringing a diverse perspective to her professional and philanthropic endeavors.

 A lifelong dancer, Emma began training in classical ballet at the age of five and was an active member of the Dance Company at Wake Forest University. Emma’s passion for making dance accessible led her to teach dance classes to students with disabilities through a program called Shining Stars during her high school years. At Wake Forest, she co-founded a program that continued this work, called Dancing Together, furthering her commitment to inclusive arts education.

Beyond the dance studio, Emma is dedicated to giving back to her community. She currently serves on the Junior Board of Breaking Ground, a nonprofit organization providing supportive housing for the chronically homeless in New York City. In 2024, Emma had the privilege of serving as Co-Chair of the Junior Board, where she played an instrumental role in advancing the organization’s fundraising, outreach, and engagement efforts.

Members

Pat Bennett-Wilhelm
(She/Her)

Board Member

Pat Bennett-Wilhelm, a resident of Clifton Forge for most of her life, is honored to be one of the first Board members of Cora Dance Alleghany. She has had a lifelong love of dance as a student, teacher, and ballet company member. When Cora came to Clifton Forge, Pat knew that she had to take part somehow someway.

As an undergraduate from Radford University and then on to Virginia Tech for her MA in Education, Pat has been an educator in many settings - public schools and private schools with all ages of students, and now she is with the University of Virginia assisting preschool educators across Virginia with incorporating best teaching practices in their programs.

Another great love of Pat's is traveling. She has traveled across the USA and abroad. She passed this love of travel to two of her favorite travel companions, her two adult children. This is her third year on the Board.

Erica E. Elam
(She/Her)

Board Member

Erica Elam’s connection to community-based dance education spans more than 16 years — not from the stage, but from the wings. As a dance mom, she watched both of her daughters grow in confidence, discipline, and community through their years training and performing with GroundShare Arts, a youth dance company similar in spirit to Cora. She credits that experience as foundational to who her daughters have become, and with both now living in New York City, she feels called to help ensure the next generation has access to those same opportunities — in Brooklyn and in Alleghany County alike.

Erica is the Founder of Phoenix Consulting, where she designs and facilitates leadership programs for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and industry advisory groups across financial services, pharmaceuticals, technology, and government. Having lived and worked on four continents, she brings a deeply global perspective to building inclusive cultures and developing leaders who can navigate an increasingly uncertain world. She has long believed that the skills cultivated through dance — creativity, adaptability, collaboration, and the capacity to regulate and express oneself under pressure — are precisely the skills today’s leaders need most. For Erica, Cora Dance’s work with young people isn’t separate from the work of building a more resilient world; it’s foundational to it.

She looks forward to rolling up her sleeves for both communities Cora serves — bringing her networks, her experience, and a deep belief that what happens in a dance studio echoes far beyond it.

Matthew Reynolds
(He/Him)

board member

Matt Reynolds is a partner with Huth Reynolds LLP, a boutique law firm based principally in New York and Virginia. His legal practice focuses on corporate litigation, with particular emphasis on antitrust, maritime, and transactional disputes. Prior to co-founding his present firm in 2018, Matt worked for two international law firms in New York, Washington, DC, Richmond, Virginia, and Frankfurt, Germany, and clerked for two federal judges. A graduate of Marquette University and Columbia University School of Law, Matt also studied as a J. William Fulbright Scholar at the Universität Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany.

A lifelong musician and lover of the performing arts, Matt has sung with several choirs in New York and Virginia, including the James River Singers, the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, Columbia University’s Collegium Musicum, and the Marquette University Chorus. He also is a proud “dance dad” to his son Holden, a musical theatre student at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School (ARGS), where he has studied ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance, and his daughter Zoe, who dances with the Richmond Dance Center and is joining her brother in the musical theatre track at ARGS. In addition to his service on Cora Dance’s board, he serves on the Board of Directors and Development Committee of the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community (SPARC).