OLIE WESTHEIMER, is the founder and executive director of BPG. She has worked as a magazine editor and writer specializing in medical subjects, was Executive Director of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease and has an MA degree in applied linguistics from Columbia University Teachers College. Her knowledge of dance and understanding of PD led to the development in 2001, of Dance for PD® classes in collaboration with Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG). The success of Dance for DFPD® led to the Brooklyn Parkinson Group mission to provide arts based classes for persons with Parkinson’s Disease, and to work in collaboration with other community organizations.
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DANAE BOISSEVAIN, Board President, served as Director of Public Relations and as Director of Publications for Bard College at Simon’s Rock. Danae worked previously as an editor at Venture Magazine and in public relations at the Ford Foundation.
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CARROLL NEESEMANN, Vice President and Treasurer of BPG, is a lawyer and from the beginning of BPG has been instrumental in its development. Dissatisfied with exercise programs offered to persons with PD, he studied fitness for a year before developing a Fitness for PD program for BPG which he directs.
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CAROLYN KALETT, is a BPG Board member and lawyer specializing in music rights and entertainment law, whose husband had PD. She is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School, and worked for a classical musical publisher and for Jim Henson and the Muppets.
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REGGIE BUTTS, a Board member, was an executive with ATT before he retired. He was involved in the development of Theater Row in Manhattan and currently serves on the Board of the Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA. Reggie has long been active in non profit work and has MA degrees from NYU and MIT.
DINA ZEMPSKY, LCSW, is a Board Member and has been engaged in human service programs in the fields of arts and aging. She is the Director of Case Management for Lenox Hill Neighborhood House and was formerly the Director of Caregiver Services at Heights and Hills. She has intimate experience with PD as a caregiver for her mother-in-law. She holds a B.F.A. from Syracuse University and a M.S.W. from Columbia University’s School of Social Work.
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JOANNA DEAN graduated from Smith College and has an MA degree from Columbia University Teachers College. She has taught science and English in public and independent schools. As Director of Development, Alumni, and Public Relations at Saint Ann’s School from 1986 – 2011, Joanna helped to build the School’s national reputation and strengthen its annual, capital, and endowment funding. As a new member of the Board of BPG, she continues her lifelong interest in the connection between science and the arts.