SSDA Board Officers

Robert Selent, CPA, CFA
SSDA Board President
CPA, Griffith, Indiana
Masters of Business Administration (Finance), with distribution, De Paul University, Bachelor of Science Accounting Northing Illinois University 1982, Certified Public Account licensed in Illinois and Indiana 1982.

Ellen Szarleta 
SSDA Board Vice President
Interim Director of the Indiana University Northwest Center for Urban and Regional Excellence, Associate Professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Ellen has focused her work on facilitating and supporting collaborative initiatives that improve the region’s quality of life including economic, cultural and environmental collaborations.  She holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural  Economics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a J.D. from the University of Iowa.

Nancy M. Kemp Brewer
SSDA Board Treasurer
B.S. Indiana University. Social worker, retired, Child Protective Services Lake County Division of Family and Children’s Services. Division Head Foster Parent Licensing and Institutional Placement

Michal Davis
SSDA Board Secretary
B.A. Social Services Indiana University. Full-time dance instructor at the Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts since 1986. Studied ballet, modern, and jazz at Indiana University, ballet at The Ruth Page Dance Center, Horton and Graham technique at Joseph Holmes in Chicago.
 

Krystle Simmons
SSDA Executive Director
B.S. ’07 Public Relations, Ball State University, M.S. ’12, Arts Administration, Columbia College. Simmons graduated from Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts dance program in 2003. Simmons served as an intern with Deeply Rooted Dance Theater from 2005 to 2007.

Special Advisor to the Board

Roger Jeffrey
Creative Director, Subtle Changes/Principal Dancer, Metropolitan Opera Ballet
Roger C. Jeffrey was born in New York City where he began his training at Bernice Johnson Cultural Arts Center. A graduate of Performing Arts High School, he received his B.F.A. from The Juilliard School. Jeffrey performed in the companies of Bernice Johnson, Martial Roumain, Kevin Iega Jeff, Twyla Tharp, Lar Lubovitch, Zvi Gotheiner and with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. 

SSDA Board Members

Nina Arzumanian
Pharmacist, Walgreen’s Corp
Bachelor of Pharmacy, Purdue University, and parent representative on the SSDA Board, Nina and her husband, Sam, have two daughters, Ani and Alena, dancing with South Shore Dance Alliance.

Martha C Bohn
Director of the Neurobiology Program at the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Research Center
Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Martha has served on many advisory boards for scientific societies, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and was President of the Society for Neural Therapy and Repair and the Chicago Chapter for the Society for Neuroscience. She is co-founder of the biotechnology company MedGenesis Therapeutix. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience from the University of Connecticut.

Larry Brewer 
Artistic Director and Founder of South Shore Dance Alliance
B.S. Communications/Sociology St. Joseph College Calumet. Studied Ballet, Modern, Jazz, and West African Dance at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana and Dance Theater of Harlem, The Alvin Ailey School, and the Chuck Davis African American Dance Company in New York. Since 2000, he has been a full-time dance instructor at the Emerson School for the Visual and Performing Arts in Gary, teaching ballet, modern dance (Horton Technique), jazz, and West African dance. Brewer recently received the Quality of Life Council Sustainability Award (2009) and was an Education 2010 finalist in the College Mentors for Kids: Inspire/Power of Mentoring Awards.

Nancy Niequist Schoon
Marketing Director, South Shore Dance Alliance
Art Director, Illinois Institute of Technology
B.S. Business (Marketing/Advertising) Indiana University. Currently, she is Art Director, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois and owner of Miller Beach Creative, a freelance design company in Gary. Nancy volunteers her time and services to SSDA as marketing director, managing all media, print and online communications.

Eric Dean Spruth
B.S., M.S., Art Therapy, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Eric is an art therapist with the Cook County Bureau of Mental Health, and former professor at the Adler School of Professional Psychology Art Therapy program, His nonprofit foundation, Sacred Transformations, works with the art therapy/tattoo augmentation process.

Nina Turner
Employment Specialist/Facilitator, Workforce Development Services
B.S., Continuing Studies, Indiana University Northwest. Experienced in instructional design, curriculum development and teaching job training and readiness skills to diverse populations in the community, Nina has also been involved in dance and the arts for many years.

Channae Watkins
Indiana University, Nurse, Methodist Hospital

In addition to her service on the SSDA board, Channae serves as a very active parent volunteer for SSDA. She and her husband, Mark, have three daughters dancing with SSDA—Channael, Jannae, and Mikala.