Founder
Otis Kriegel has over 15 years experience in community education and the arts. Kriegel has a degree in Experiential Education from Prescott College and an M.S.ed in Bilingual Education from The Bank Street College of Education. He has taught grades 1st– 5th in the public schools of San Francisco, Los Angeles and currently New York City, in both bilingual (Spanish/English) and monolingual programs. He is an adjunct professor in the graduate school of education at New York University and a guest lecturer at The Bank Street College of Education and City College of New York. Otis has also worked as a consultant to community arts and education programs in Mexico and Nicaragua. A working artist, Kriegel founded internationally known public art collaborative, Illegal Art, whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine and on National Public Radio. He lives and works in New York City.
Contributors
Specialist/Blog Contributor Carlin Greenstein
As a private chef for the past ten years, Carlin Greenstein has created healthy, seasonally-inspired menus for the likes of many including such clients as George Lucas, Harvey Weinstein, Vincent D’Onofrio, Marisa Tomei and many others. After receiving her MA.ed from New York University in Food Studies and Nutrition, Greenstein received her certification in Holistic Health and Wellness. Carlin has worked as a culinary consultant, helping develop a line of healthy snacks for kids. She recently designed a food wheel that helps educate the public on how to shop and eat locally and seasonally. You can check out her food wheel at www.chewonthis.org. She continues to work as a private chef as well as a Wellness Coach, helping people to create a diet and lifestyle that keep them healthy and happy. She lives in New York City.
Specialist/Blog Contributor J. David Carr
Jeremy Carr, a native New Yorker, is currently a School Psychologist for the New York City Public School System. Jeremy has been working directly with children as well as parents for the past 6 years. One of his passions has been to work parents incorporating psychologically based techniques for use in the home. Jeremy holds a bachelors degree in Psychology, a Masters degree in Education and a Professional Degree in School Psychology. Jeremy is working on his first book for adults and children about children’s perceptions of fear.
Lauren Barack, Blog Contributor
Lauren Barack is a freelance journalist who writes on subjects from potty training to identity theft, Bollywood to childcare. Her work has appeared in Parenting magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, Wired, the St. Petersburg Times, The Independent (London), the New York Post, and Variety, among other publications. Online, Barack wrote and appeared on camera in a series for MSN Money about the middle class crunch that attracted one million hits in its first week.
Barack attended U.C. Berkeley as a genetics major before transferring to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she received a BFA in film and television production. She then worked in television and film as a script reader, writer, editor, producer, and on camera, for MTV Networks, Comedy Central, TNT, and Warner Brothers, a time highlighted by failing to light Milton Berle’s cigar during a limo ride to a photo shoot. He forgave her. She eventually attended U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, graduating with a MJ. Barack also spent six months working in Nestle′ USA’s test kitchen where she perfected her skills at baking the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. She was also nominated for a Loeb Business Award for a series on Money for MSNBC. Lauren is also the co-founder of the parenting blog, Mothers on The Verge. She now lives in Manhattan with her husband, 6-year-old daughter and a school of fish.
Blog Contributor Bruce Mack
Bruce Mack, Brooklyn born (1958) Composer/Music Educator and Multi-instrumentalist, is a former music major at Long Island University. Bruce Mack is keyboardist, percussionist and a regular touring and recording member of Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, a band based on and meant to be a continuation of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew Band. Along with original compositions, Mack’s keyboard work is featured on all 13 CDs to date. Mack also leads the abstract/expressionist band Tricky Dilemma which features guitarist Marvin Sewell and DJ Val-inc. As work for hire, Mack has composed and produced music for PBS/Thirteen, MTV, Naked Angels and co-produced 2 compilation CDs for the Black Rock Coalition.Mack has played and/or recorded with Maya Azucena, Butch Morris, Vernon Reid, Gene Williams, Dean Bowman and others.
Mack’s work as a music educator is the subject of a recent documentary titled ‘When Fried Eggs Fly’ by filmmaker Constantine Limperis and was celebrated in the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. Mack’s continued efforts to enhance music education and curriculum for children and youth have also garnered a grant of $100,000.00 from the Rockefeller Foundation for a new music initiative called The Lab that was developed and overseen by Mack and featured at The Door, a Center for Alternatives in New York City from the 2006 season to the present. Mack has recently toured in South-East Asia, performing and facilitating intensive music education workshops in China, Burma, the Philippines and Sri Lanka as a representative for the U.S. State Department and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Specialists
Anne Carey
Producer/Partner/Founder, This is that corporation
Anne Carey, together with partner Ted Hope, founded New York production company This is that. Specializing in unique content and innovative storytelling, This is that has produced 15 films in its five-year existence. Carey was honored as one of Variety’s Top Ten Producers to Watch in 2004.
Carey is currently producing ADVENTURELAND, written and directed by Greg Mottola and starring Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart. Carey recently produced THE SAVAGES, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. THE SAVAGES won Best Screenplay and Best Actor honors at the 2008 Indie Spirit Awards and garnered two Oscar nominations. Carey also executive produced Oscar-winner Alan Ball’s feature film directorial debut, TOWELHEAD, which premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Carey’s other credits include FRIENDS WITH MONEY, THUMBSUCKER and THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR.
Video and Web Production
Michael McDevitt, Web Design
Hailing from Binghamton, New York and schooled at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Michael brings 20 years of art and design experience. His work has received everything from a Gold Clio to a place in the American Institute of Graphics Arts permanent collection. Michael was also founder and principal of McDevitt Group, an advertising, design and strategy agency. For over ten years the agency worked with clients such as ITO EN, eBay, Fellissimo, United Nations Population Fund, Benetton, Citigroup, Chase, Mercedes-Benz and Condé Nast Traveler. Along with Otis Kriegel, he is also a cofounder of Illegal Art, collaborative of artists whose goal is to create interactive public art to inspire self-reflection, thought and human connection. Illegal Art’s book “Suggestion” has recently been published by Chronicle Books. Illegal Art has also collaborated with the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, The Deutsch Gallery, presented at the College Art Association annual conference and numerous college campuses. Michael now works with his partner, Natasha Chetiyawardna, and have maintained a long-standing relationship with the international creative group Designersblock, having collaborated with them on exhibitions in Tokyo, New York, Milan, Frankfurt, Seoul and London. They have also collaborated several projects with Spring Gallery located in Brooklyn’s DUMBO. For several years Michael and Natasha have been adjunct professors at Pratt Institute’s Undergraduate Communications Design in Brooklyn.
Constantine Limperis, Video Co-Production and Co-Direction
Constantine Limperis of Unstumble Films produces, directs and edits films and video for the web, television and theater. His documentary When Fried Eggs Fly, a musical journey of 150 elementary school students was an official selection of the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. www.whenfriedeggsfly.com
Advisors
Ben Odell
Odell recently produced the feature films SANGRE DE MI SANGRE which won the Grand Jury Prize, Sundance, 2007, and was released by IFC in Spring 08, and LADRON QUE ROBA A LADRON (Lionsgate, 2007). He is currently producing the Lionsgate/Televisa feature, ACUARDATE DE MI, which he co-wrote. Odell has produced or executive produced many films for the Hispanic market including LA MUJER DE MI HERMANO (Lionsgate, 2006). He was formerly a screenwriter and TV writer in Colombia. He co-wrote the dark comedy, GOLPE DE ESTADIO, directed by Sergio Cabrera, which was nominated for the Goya in 1999 and was Colombia’s nomination to the Oscar in 2000. He holds an MFA in film from Columbia University and has taught filmmaking at Columbia University and The New School in New York City.
