Joey Brackner, manager of the Council's Folklife Program and Director of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, has worked for ASCA since 1985.  He manages a project grants program, which supports efforts by Alabama organizations to present the state's folk traditions as well as an Apprenticeship grants program supporting master folk artists who are teaching students their art forms.  Brackner co-produced "Unbroken Tradition" a film documentary on Alabama folk potter, Jerry Brown with Appalshop.  He is a native of Fairfield, Alabama.  He received a B. A. in Anthropology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1977 and a M. A. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981.  

Deborah Boykin is a folklorist with the Alabama Center for the Traditional Culture.  Before coming to the Center, she was Archivist and Cultural Planner for the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, where she developed educational programs, curated exhibits, coordinated research, and wrote articles about Choctaw culture and folklife.  From 1990-1997, she directed the Folk Arts Program at the Mississippi Arts Commission where she administered grants programs, coordinated fieldwork and research; documented and presented traditional artists; and wrote articles about Mississippi traditional arts. She received a B.A. in folklore from the University of Alabama and has completed coursework towards her M.A. in political science from Mississippi State University.

Jackie Ely, Administrative Assistant, joined the Center staff upon its creation in 1990. She served as assistant to the National Endowment for the Arts' Regional Representative from 1984-1990. Prior to that, she worked with the Department of Physics at Indiana University and as administrative assistant with the Alabama State Council on the Arts from 1979-1981.

Steve Grauberger, Folklife Specialist, officially joined the Center staff in 1998. He worked on a contract at the Pike Pioneer Museum in Troy, Alabama from 1995-1997 doing folklife fieldwork in a ten county area in Southeast Alabama. Grauberger did thesis field research for one year on a Fulbright Scholarship in the Philippines, documenting the Filipino diatonic harp. He received a both his B.A. music and M.A. music degrees in ethnomusicology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Anne Kimzey, Folklife Specialist, joined the Center staff in 1990 after serving as a contract folklorist with the Alabama State Council on the Arts since May, 1989. Prior to that, she served as folklife specialist, consultant and fieldworker with a number of institutions in North Carolina and South Carolina, including the McCormick Arts Council, the North Carolina Arts Council and the McKissick Museum. She received her B.A. in journalism and has completed coursework toward her M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.