Women’s Health Associates, which offers traditional, holistic and alternative approaches to women’s health, welcomed Stephanie Ott to its practice. She is an experienced women’s health physician assistant.
A German native, Ott moved to the United States in 2001 and studied life sciences at Arizona State University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree. She then continued her education and received her master’s degree in physician assistant studies from Northern Arizona University. Before joining Women’s Health Associates, Ott was a women’s health provider at MomDoc in Arizona.
Women’s Health Associates has offices in Westfield and Springfield.
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Jacob’s Pillow announced that Kim Chan has joined the organization’s curatorial and leadership team as associate artistic director, an enhanced full-time staff position that begins today. Chan will oversee several administrative departments, with a program portfolio encompassing archives and preservation, audience engagement, community engagement, in-person performances, artist residencies and The School at Jacob’s Pillow.
Chan will also serve on the curatorial team at Jacob’s Pillow, identifying artists to perform at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (which will celebrate its 92nd season in summer 2024) and to participate in the Pillow Lab year-round residency program.
She will be responsible for integrating Jacob’s Pillow’s programming areas operationally and strategically with an eye to achieving the organization’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) goals. Over the next five years, Chan and Tatge will also collaborate on facilitating a deeper digital integration of Jacob’s Pillow’s programming areas.
Chan has worked in New York City and Washington, D.C. as a producer, curator, presenter, marketer, and fundraiser of poetry, music, theater, dance, arts education, and literature. She is a board member for the MAP Fund, Mid-Atlantic Arts, Ping Chong + Company, and Pick-Up Performance Co(s). She has also served on the New York Dance and Performance “Bessies” Award Committee, on the boards for the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s La Pocha Nostra, and Dance Place, on the advisory board at GALA Hispanic Theatre and as a National Dance Project Hub Site.
Chan is the recipient of the Workforce Development Mentor of the Year Award from the National Independent Venue Foundation for her work at National Sawdust, a music incubator in Brooklyn, New York; the Pola Nirenska Lifetime Achievement in Dance Award from Washington Performing Arts; and Outstanding Service Awards from the International Association of Blacks in Dance and the Chen Dance Center. Chan is also one of the volunteers with Make Us Visible NJ who helped organize advocacy efforts that made New Jersey the second state in the country to pass legislation requiring Asian American Pacific Island Studies be taught in K-12 school curriculums to counter anti-Asian racism.
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The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts announces the appointment of its new officers to the board of directors. Dr. Charlotte M. Boney assumed the role of president. Boney is the chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Baystate Health. The first vice president is Willette H. Yarbrough Johnson, a retired educator from the Springfield Public Schools after having served 38 years in a variety of capacities. She is a member of the Coalition of Experienced Black Educators, an educational consultant group.
Second vice president is Omar Irizarry, director of cross agency initiatives at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. William Harju, treasurer, is chief financial officer at USA Hauling & Recycling, and clerk is Shannon Yaremchak, director of grants and Latino economic development opportunities at Partners for Community, and director of mission advancement at New England Farm Workers’ Council.
Two new board members also began their tenure: Joesiah González, chief philanthropy and communications officer at Home City Development Inc., and Xiaolei Hua, first vice president of commercial lending at PeoplesBank.
