Dana Austin is an award-winning Creative who lives by the mantra that limits do not exist.

A corporate expat and successful entrepreneurial Creative Director/Producer/Executive in Charge of Production who identifies, develops and executes strategic business partnerships and dynamic initiatives while remaining fluid in the worlds of production, music, surf culture, marketing, talent relations and philanthropy. She connects with forward-thinkers, emerging & high profile talent, artist management, start-ups, established business and executives to conceptualize dreams to life.

Dana began her career as an influential Executive Producer/Producer
for Sony Music Entertainment Inc. at the height of the music industry under Thomas D. Mottola - where she toured the world and broke artists - and was an integral part of The Latin Explosion collaborating with the magical teams behind Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. She has worked with iconic artists such as Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, David Bowie, DMC, Franz Ferdinand, Chuck D, Ariana Grande, Pearl Jam, Doug E Fresh, Cyndi Lauper, AC/DC and Matisyahu.

In 2009, Dana founded Breathe Entertainment on the premise of creating conscious, authentic content that lends one to shift focus. She has developed visuals for Epic Records, MTV, VH1, Spike, Entertainment Tonight, Sesame Street, NY Health & Hospitals, The Robin Hood Foundation, Partnership for a Healthier America, The President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition and the National Fitness Foundation. As an HBO Producer she worked on hit shows The Sopranos, Westworld, The Wire, Band Of Brothers and Big Little Lies.

Dana won the prestigious Time Warner Richard D. Parsons Community Impact Award in 2016 when she was hand-selected from over 100 international nominees for her expertise as a Founding & Active Board Member for Hip Hop Public Health. She is an ambassador for the United Nations appointed to a Special Media Advisory Board for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and recently partnered with Omaze for fundraising campaigns.

Dana’s passion for yoga and the ocean inspired her to train and receive 200-hr Yoga/20-hr SUP Yoga Instructor certification in The Hamptons in 2016, and in 2017 completed her 50-hour Hot Yoga teacher training. Dana is on the Advisory Board of Directors for AWOW: A Walk On Water 501c3 and is inspired daily by The Mighty Under Dogs 501c3 out of Malibu, CA.

In her spare time she can be found hanging out in downward dog and catching perfect waves.

Tony Drootin is a seasoned veteran with over 30 years in the music business.
He comes from a long line of musicians, his father Benjamin ``Buzzy`` Drootin
being a well know jazz drummer and his mother being a piano teacher with a
degree in Music Therapy teaching in the New York City School system for many
years. Tony has a degree in Music Performance (percussion). Over the years
he has managed some of the top recording studios in the country; Sony Music Studios on West 54th, Unique Recording Studios, and Daddys House Recording for Sean ``P-Diddy`` Combs. He has managed songwriters and producers as well and numerous Grammy winning engineers, owned a record label, and managed artists in the states and abroad. Tony is an executive producer of Hip Hop Public Health's Songs for a Healthier America and helps the organization successfully navigate the business and practices of the music industry. He currently owns Area 51 NYC Recording in Manhattan and is about to launch a new production company.

Born in Romania and raised in the United States, Tiberius transcends many cultural boundaries with a keen interest in education and youth development. Through the various non-profit organizations on which he has served as an advisor or board member, he endeavors and delivers a broad interest and capability to inspire people to make a difference. These include Junior Achievement, where he was an instructor and leader during his free time in college, as well as the Alex Fund Foundation, where in collaboration with Leslie and Ethan Hawke among others, he helped grow the organization to provide schools and education to impoverished children in Romania through an ingenious program tying school attendance to rewards for mothers in both jobs and job training and food-related programs. In his focus on music and youth, he is also on Board of the New York City Opera and the YMCA Junior Board. In his professional life, Tiberius leads the KPMG M&A Integration and Separation practice for New York. He has worked on more than 150 acquisitions and divestitures across the world and across industries that are worth more than a trillion dollars. In his personal life, he and his loving wife Elena enjoy travel, sailing, and the company of amazing friends.

Dr. Noble attended Vanderbilt University where in 1997 he was the general manager of WRVU Nashville 91.1 and subsequently completed his undergraduate studies in math and chemistry, followed by medical school at Emory University. His graduate medical training included internal medicine internship, neurology residency including chief resident in neurology, and finally neuroepidemiology and behavioral neurology fellowship, all at Columbia University Medical Center. He is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Columbia University Medical Center, was initially based at Harlem Hospital Center, and now is a member of the Taub Institute for Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain and the G.H. Sergievsky Center at Columbia University. Dr. Noble is recognized as a leader in neurological education at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. In addition to providing care to general neurologic patients as well as those with dementia, his research interests include health literacy, sports-related concussion, and systemic inflammatory factors as contributors to dementia health disparities. Dr. Noble is the president of Arts & Minds, a non-profit organization promoting well-being for dementia patients and their caregivers via art-centered, museum-based experiences in upper Manhattan. He has worked with Dr. Williams in developing the research arm of the Hip Hop Public Health programs since the inception of Hip Hop Stroke in 2005.

The Javdan Firm PLLC (Legal Counsel)

Ray Javdan is a veteran entertainment attorney, advising everyone from emerging- to award-winning artists, producers, writers, composers and publishing companies, on intellectual property, licensing, and contractual issues in music, musical theater, film, television, internet, and other platforms. A graduate of Fordham University School of Law, he spent 7 years with the renowned international law firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, representing some of the world’s largest media companies, prior to starting his own full-service boutique practice. As an advocate to artists, and the son of a physician father and nutritionist-philanthropist mother, he is proud to contribute to the outreach efforts of Hip Hop Public Health.

Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn is the Executive Director of Pilot Light, a Chicago-based nonprofit that partners chefs and teachers to build Common Core-compatible curriculum on food basics. Alex began her career at Harlem Hospital in New York City, where she was deeply engaged in public health education for urban, underserved communities. Recognizing the power of the creative arts to reach people, she began to develop and implement public health programming that harnessed contemporary urban music genres to facilitate healthy behavior change among communities with the Hip Hop Public Health team. She has also served as a member of the faculty at Columbia University’s Neurological Institute, where she managed two federally-funded community-based studies before coming to Pilot Light. In 2014, she was recognized by the Society for Public Health Education as one of 30 Under 30 in Health Education and in 2015 she received the Society’s Oberteuffer Scholarship, which recognizes a doctoral student in health education whose work promises to advance the health of children and youth. Alex is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and earned her Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Teachers College of Columbia University.

Mindy Feldman Hecht is the Social Media Director and Ambassador Program Manager at Hip Hop Public Health. She is also a Research Coordinator for the Hip Hop Stroke and TASHE stroke education programs. Mindy first became interested in issues related to health disparities and health education during her time as an undergraduate at Columbia University when she traveled to several developing countries and learned about these issues firsthand. These issues led her to pursue a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia and her current career. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Teachers College at Columbia University, where she is focusing her dissertation on the physical activity-related work of Hip Hop Public Health. Mindy enjoys spending time with family, traveling with her husband Eric, reading and spinning.

Ian Ellis James (aka William Electric Black) is a seven-time Emmy Award winning writer (former writer for Sesame Street). Ian has been writing in the family entertainment television industry for over fifteen years. His credits in family TV include Sesame Workshop, Topstone Productions, Lancit Media, Nickelodeon, Scholastic Productions, Warner Cable, Winchester TV & Film, (London), Voodoo Entertainment, (Vancouver).

His theatre projects, under his stage name William Electric Black, have been seen in New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. For the past six years he has been writing, directing, and producing plays at La MaMa ETC, New York City– where he presently runs their Poetry Electric Series. His musical, Betty & The Belrays, was performed at Theater For The New City, March 2007. In 2009 Mr. Black (Ian) directed The Lonely Soldier Monologues (Women at War in Iraq). Ian’s 50’s rock musical,

My Boyfriend Is A Zombie, opened in NYC June 3rd, 2010.

In film, Ian has had two scripts optioned. These include Slave Ball for Silver Pictures/Warner Brothers and Road Runnerfor MCA Records, Jerome Ade, producer and music by Teddy Riley. He has also written, directed, and produced two independent features.

Mr. James received funding from Kenneth Olden and The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for an animated pilot he created to promote exercise and good nutrition for young children —- Fighters For Fitness/Fitness Fighters. Ian has also received funding from Touro College for a prescription drug awareness cartoon. He is writing, directing, and producing animated videos on stroke prevention with the National Stroke Association and childhood obesity prevention for Harlem Hospital’s Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S. Program under the direction of Dr. Olajide Williams featuring music by Doug E. Fresh, Chuck D, other rap artists.

He has received several Best Play Awards, been published by Benchmark Education, The Dramatic Publishing Co., Smith & Krauss, and received a Bronze Apple for directing (National Educational Video Award).

Interactive media projects include “I Hear What You’re Saying” for Columbia University’s School of Social Work and “Virtual Harlem” (Institute of Learning/Children’s Museum, NYC).

As a professor, Ian is a faculty member at NYU’s Tisch School (Dramatic Writing, Open Arts, and NYU’s Summer High School Program). He has also taught at The Collegiate School, The Riverdale Country Day School, Southern Illinois University, 92nd Street Y, Teachers & Writers, and TheatreWorks USA.

Monique Hedmann is a Program Manager at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and a Senior Project Officer at Hip Hop Public Health. She received a BA in Psychology from Emory University and an MPH in Aging & Sociomedical Sciences from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She is currently studying premedical sciences at Columbia University and is applying to medical school. Ms.Hedmann is also a published Narrative Medicine author. Ms. Hedmann works on the Hip Hop Stroke and TASHE research projects at CUMC as well as designs and administers educational programs for HHPH including Old SCHOOL Hip Hop and MyPyramid in Egypt. She serves as a Board Member for Arts & Minds, Inc., which provides art experiences for people with dementia and their caregivers. Ms. Hedmann also founded the Walk It Out! program at Harlem Hospital Center to promote senior fitness and coordinates other physical activity programs at Harlem Hospital Center including Dance of the Village Elders and Shape Up NYC. Ms. Hedmann writes HHPH special event newsletters and the “In The Know with Mo Flow” blog as well as assists with social media for HHPH. She has lent her musical talents to create the tracks “The Mission” and “Go With The F.L.O.W.” in collaboration with HHPH Music Director Artie Green. In her spare time, Monique enjoys running, dining, attending concerts, writing songs, volunteering, spending time with friends and family, and exploring NYC.

Hip Hop event producer and marketing director, has a knowledge and passion for Hip Hop Music History and Culture. With four pop-up Hip Hop History museums to his credit in Miami, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and culminating with the founding of the Hip Hop Culture Center in Harlem, created under the auspices of New York City Mayor Bloomberg and VH-1 Honors Television Awards Show program that celebrates the history of Hip Hop Music and Culture, he has a deep understanding of Hip Hop’s global reach.

Terry Nelson received his BA in Journalism with an advertising concentration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked as the Director of Operations for multiple teams of experiential producers, graphic designers, copywriters, multimedia producers, architects, procurement managers, project managers, PR executives and administrative support including. Nelson has worked as an advertising and sales promotion marketing executive for Mingo Group, Kirshenbaum & Bond, and Upshot Marketing, with brands including Snapple Natural Beverages, the launch of Patron Tequila, Coca Cola USA, Moet-Hennessy USA, Nike, Converse, and more.

Nelson is a specialist in creative development, team and process management, and youth programming with over 1,350 successful promotions and events in 26 cities nationwide and Japan including large- scale productions. He has appeared as a contest judge in international Hip-hop dance competitions in Japan; produced a 4 city Japanese tour of dancers from the hit movie Rize directed by David LaChapelle; travelled to China on multiple occasions including on-the-ground Hip Hop marketing consultation for Shanghai branch of U.S. Marketing Agency, Ignition Marketing; produced Rudy Ray Moore, AKA Dolemite, Live at Wetlands video for Xenon pictures; directed and co-produced the award winning Hip- hop documentary, I Gotta Blow up. Nelson founded Global Artist Coalition in 2004, one of the first nonprofit organizations to use the power of Hip Hop to educate young people. Strategic partnerships include new sneaker and apparel brand Hip Hop USA.