Tuesday
September 7
2010

Prior Jury

For Issues 3–6:
M. Beirut
D.Reyes
A. Schlesineer
D. Ashford

Andrea Batista Schlesinger

Since 2002, Andrea Batista Schlesinger has led the effort to turn the Drum Major Institute, originally founded by an advisor to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement, into a progressive policy institute with national impact. Under Andrea's leadership as Executive Director, DMI has released several important policy papers to national audiences including: Congress at the Midterm: Their Middle-Class Record and Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class. Andrea has worked in various capacities to promote educational equity and youth empowerment. She directed a national campaign to engage college students in the discussion on the future of Social Security for the Pew Charitable Trusts, and served as Director of Public Relations of Teach For America before working as the education advisor to Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer. Andrea has been profiled in the New York Times, New Yorker magazine, Latina Magazine and the award-winning documentary, "Hear us Now." She is a contributor to The Huffington Post, serves on the Editorial Board of The Nation and the boards of the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, WireTap and the Applied Research Center and was named a "40 under 40 Rising Star" by Crain's New York Business.

Doug Ashford

Doug Ashford is a teacher and artist. He is Associate Professor at the Cooper Union where he has taught design, sculpture and theory for many years. His principle art practice from 1982 to 1996 was as a member of Group Material, an artist’s collaborative that produced exhibitions and public projects using the museum and the city as forums for questioning culture. Since those years he gone on to write, paint and produce independent public projects. Ashford’s most recent effort is as a organizer of Who Cares, a book constructed from a series of conversations on public expression in 2006.

Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut is a partner in the international design consultancy Pentagram. Prior to joining Pentagram in 1990 as a partner in the firm’s New York office, he worked for ten years at Vignelli Associates, ultimately as vice president of graphic design. He is a Senior Critic at the Yale School of Art, the recipient of the AIGA Medal, and the author of Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design. He has won hundreds of design awards and his work is represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Montreal. Michael was elected to the Alliance Graphique Internationale in 1989, to the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 2003, and was awarded the profession’s highest honor, the AIGA Medal, in 2006.

Damaris Reyes

Damaris Reyes has been the Executive Director of Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), a neighborhood housing and preservation organization dedicated to tenants' rights, homelessness prevention, and community revitalization. She is a lifelong resident of the Lower East Side and has been involved in public housing issues for more than ten years. Previously, as the Director of Organizing for public housing (Public Housing Residents of the Lower East side – PHROLES, a GOLES partner), she worked to educate and empower residents about the issues that plague public housing. She was involved in building several coalitions, including T.R.A.D.E.S., Rebuild with a Spotlight on the Poor and Neighbors Empowering Neighbors. Damaris continues to work on behalf of local residents, but uses a holistic approach to neighborhood improvement addressing issues that include zoning, job creation, education, affordable housing, small business retention and general community awareness. She sits on several boards including New York City Jobs with Justice, the Pratt Center for Community Development, LSNY-Manhattan, and the Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development. In November 2006 she received the Helen LaKelly Hunt Neighborhood Leadership Award from the New York Women's Foundation for her work and commitment to the Lower East Side.