Alumni in the News
Ashley Danoff (BA ’02) received her M.A. from Boston University in Sociology of Education in 2004, and then became an inaugural member of an urban education fellowship program in Boston called MATCH Corps, in which she tutored urban high school students. She now serves as deputy executive director of The MATCH School, which has been nationally recognized by NPR, The New York Times, and the U.S. Department of Education for the work it has done in closing the achievement gap in education. For more information, visit www.matchschool.org.
A collection of Jordan Eagles’s (BA ’99) new works is being displayed at the Merge Gallery in NYC from March through May in “Signs of Life,” a solo exhibition. Eagles’s work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Chicago. This is his first solo exhibition in Chelsea. For further information visit www.mergegallery.com.
Yvette Heyliger (BA ’83, MA ’87) is a grant-winning playwright, director, and producing artist. She is celebrating her 20th year of receiving her master’s degree from Gallatin and is a member of the Alumni Reunion Committee. She is also very proud that her daughter, Faith, has recently been selected to be a Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar at NYU. Heyliger directed a play, Coming Clean, in the Riant Theatre’s Strawberry One-Act Festival finals in February 2007 and was nominated for Best Director. Her play, Hillary and Monica: The Winter of Her Discontent, which was read in Gallatin Professor Michael Dinwiddie’s class, will be presented in a limited run at Gloucester Stage in Massachusetts this May and June.
Ann Hood’s (MA ’90) latest novel, The Knitting Circle, was published by W. W. Norton in January 2007. A portrait of women in a knitting circle and the bonds that grow between them, the book shares stories of loss, love, recovery, and hope. Hood, who also taught as a Gallatin adjunct professor for several years, is the author of seven novels and a short-story collection, An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life.
The film The Nanny Diaries, based on the best-selling book by Nicola Kraus (BA ’95) and Emma McLaughlin (BA ’96), hits theaters this year. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson, Nicholas Art, Laura Linney, and Paul Giamatti, and was directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. McLaughin and Kraus’s next collaboration, Dedication, will be published by Atria in June.
Lyle Vincent (BA ’03) won the John Alonzo Heritage Award for student filmmakers at the 21st annual American Society of Cinematographers’ Outstanding Achievement Awards, held in February 2007 in Los Angeles. Vincent is pursuing his M.F.A. at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Barbara Whitman (BA ’88) is a theatrical producer whose latest show, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, is currently touring in three separate companies around the U.S. She has a new show, Legally Blonde – The Musical, opening on Broadway this April. Whitman’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is also on a national tour.