Founder & President

ABIGAIL S. RISCHIN

Abby Rischin is the founder and president of Step Into Art, Inc. Abby designs and teaches Step Into Art programs, builds partnerships with schools and community organizations, and leads a devoted team of educators, professionals, and volunteers. Since founding Step Into Art in 2005, Abby has developed programs introducing over 5,000 children and young teens to art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Abby established Step Into Art programs through a successful five-year partnership with the Newton Mayor’s Office for Cultural Affairs and subsequently expanded Step Into Art to reach children in schools all over Boston. Making school partnerships the organization’s singular focus from 2010 forward, Abby currently leads and teaches programs that serve 500 students at nine Boston schools each year. Abby holds an A.B. degree magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Yale University. Recognized for her outstanding teaching, Abby received the Yale College Prize Teaching Award. She also created a popular Yale College seminar, “Narratives of Art: Nineteenth-Century Fiction and the Visual Arts.” She has garnered generous research and study grants from numerous institutions, including the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Abby lives in Newton with her husband and their two daughters, all of whom participated in the creation of Step Into Art.