Diana Riesman

Executive Director/Co-Founder

Riesman manages day-to-day operations of Wharton Studio Museum, overseeing the organization’s programming, exhibits and events, as well as fundraising and community outreach. She is leading the effort to develop the historic Wharton Studio building in partnership with Friends of Stewart Park, a nonprofit committed to the revitalization of Stewart Park, Ithaca’s main waterfront park where the studio building is located. Stewart Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2023. A founding member of the Friends of Stewart Park’s board of directors, Riesman is its current board president.

Riesman oversaw WSM’s partnership in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture (opened in 2018) and the installation of a permanent exhibit on Ithaca’s role in early movie history. That same year she helped launch the Finger Lakes Film Trail, an inter-county tourism in initiative in collaboration with the George Eastman Museum in Rochester and the Cayuga Museum of History & Art/Case Research Lab in Auburn. In fall of 2021, Riesman co-taught “Serial Style and Ithaca Silent Film History”, a Cornell University class, with Professor Denise N. Green, as part of the university’s Learn Where You Live initiative.

A former production assistant for ABC Afterschool Specials, and assistant to the late director Frank Perry (The Swimmer, David and Lisa) in the early 80s in NYC, Riesman moved to Los Angeles in 1985, working at Writers & Artists Agency, Tri-Star Pictures, and Film and General Productions before venturing out on her own to write and produce. Riesman most recently served as co-producer of award-winning radio programs To The Point, Which Way, LA?, Good Food, and Hollywood Wrap for NPR affiliate KCRW in Santa Monica.

Moving to Ithaca in 2001, three years later Riesman co-founded The Nest, an ongoing pre-school program affiliated with Community Nursery School. In 2014 she completed her third term as a Trustee in the Village of Cayuga Heights. She became a member of public tv/radio station WSKG’s board of trustees in July 2023. Riesman volunteers with Open Doors English which provides affordable language instruction for people throughout Ithaca and Tompkins County.

Riesman is a member of New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT) and its upstate counterpart UPWIFT.