Stephanie Koch is a researcher, facilitator, and curator based in Chicago with roots in Tempe, Arizona. She engages in institution-building as a creative practice and exhibition-making as a site of testing sociopolitical possibilities. Koch received a BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

In all roles, she creates arts administrative structures which seek to sustain creative practitioners: their lives, their research, and the communities in which they engage. Currently, Stephanie is the Program Officer at Teiger Foundation, a foundation that supports contemporary visual art with a primary focus on curators. Previous roles include Interim Executive Director and Gallery Director of The Luminary, an art institution based in St. Louis focused on art, thought, and action, and a Co-Founder of Annas, an independent art space based in Chicago dedicated to the critical role of exhibiting process and collaboration. She is also a Lead Organizer of the 2022 Chicago Arts Census, a city-wide research project which collects, maps, and visualizes data that illuminates the lived experiences and working conditions of art workers in Chicago.