The Dance Data Project®
Board of Directors
Ballett Zürich rehearsing Vittoria Girelli’s “Formoria”
Photo by Admill Kuyler
Elizabeth Yntema
President & Founder
Elizabeth Yntema is the President & Founder of the Dance Data Project®. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for WTTW/WFMT and the Board of Directors of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Liza was graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 and is 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where she was awarded the Jane L. Mixer Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice. Ms. Yntema is a past member of numerous organizations in the Chicagoland area, including the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Women’s Bar Association, Trust for Public Land in Illinois, Winnetka Board of the Northwestern Settlement House, the Children’s Home and Aid Society, and the Junior League of Chicago, where she was named as Volunteer of the Year for her work advocating for homeless women and children. Ms. Yntema was recently selected for the first national cohort of Chief, a global network of women founders and C-Suite executives. In June 2022, she was also honored to be selected as a lifetime Honorary Member of Corps De Ballet.
Erica Edwards
Board President
Erica Lynette Edwards is an accomplished change leader with demonstrated success as a facilitator, consultant, and public speaker. As a ballerina with The Joffrey Ballet, she performed lead roles throughout a rewarding 15-year career, dancing in hundreds of performances in the United States and abroad. During that time Ebony Magazine declared her a “Young Leader in the Future of the Arts” and the Chicago Tribune gave her the title "Black History Maker." When she retired from the stage, she became an artistic and administrative senior leader as Joffrey’s Director of Community Engagement. Under her visionary leadership, the department grew to support the city of Chicago through a focus on community partnerships rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Erica independently expanded her DEI services and now captivates a wide variety of clients with authentic and innovative programming.
Erica is a certified mediator and has a bachelor’s in human resource management which supports her ability to help people feel welcome while unpacking challenging issues. Her career promoting engaging conversations and inclusive environments has earned her many honors, including multiple features in Dance Magazine, giving a TEDx talk, speaking on national panels, and being selected as a member of the prestigious Crain’s Chicago Business “40 Under 40.” She is passionate about creating workplaces where everyone can flourish.
Jason Yeung
Vice President
A Texas native, Jason is currently a combined MD/PhD student at the University of Texas Medical Branch. His prior education includes a BS in Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University and an MS in Infectious Disease and Microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
Before pursuing a career as a physician scientist, Jason was a ballet dancer. Having trained at the Harid Conservatory, Jason went on to dance with Tulsa Ballet II and won awards at the 2015 Valentina Kozlova International Ballet Competition Finals and Semi-finals. In 2018, Jason started an independent blog analyzing publicly available ballet data (datapointes.com), leading him to join DDP. He is excited to apply his data science and ballet experience to further the advocacy goals of DDP.
Dr. Allison Grover
Secretary
Dr. Allison Grover is a Pediatric Resident at Maine Medical Center. She received an M.D. from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, a B.A. in English Literature from McGill University, and a M.S. in Reproductive Medicine from Northwestern University. She is a voracious reader, and her eagerness to find the narrative that someone is not always able to articulate united her love of literature and medicine.
Allison had an abbreviated dance career, starting and ending with ballet at age six. Nonetheless, she is an avid appreciator of the arts. Her passion for capturing the stories within science is what led to her work with DDP.
Terran Hill
Treasurer
Terran Hill is an associate at Dowd Bennett LLP in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his law degree from Cornell Law School and a B.S. in economics from University of Missouri—St.Louis. Before transferring to University of Missouri—St. Louis, Terran attended Robert Morris University in Chicago, where he played football. Terran will clerk for the Honorable Judge Julie A. Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, and the Honorable Chief Judge Lavenski R. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Terran is new to the dance community, but appreciates the passion and attention to detail that goes into live performance. He is looking forward to working with Dance Data Project® to help them promote gender equality in dance.
PATRICK CROCKER
Former Board President
Patrick is an Associate Professor of Healthcare Practice at the M.J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, where he also serves as the Faculty Director of the Graduate Healthcare Program and teaches a range of courses including Health Policy, Healthcare Markets, Negotiations, Organizational Management, and Business Law. Prior to his current role, Patrick was a Senior Director and Senior Corporate Counsel for U.S. Anesthesia Partners, Inc., a healthcare strategy consultant for PwC, and spent over a decade in the U.S. Army as a Judge Advocate serving as a prosecutor, appellate counsel, and command legal advisor throughout the United States and during two combat deployments to Afghanistan. Patrick has been involved with dance throughout his life, including working as an accompanist, composer, and performer for the dance departments at Texas Christian University and the University of Richmond. He is thrilled to be able to contribute to the amazing work DDP is doing to support equity initiatives in classical ballet.
Patrick holds a BS, magna cum laude, in Psychology from Texas Christian University, a JD, cum laude, from the University of Richmond School of Law, and an MBA, with honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.
*Former Board President
David Farber
David Farber is a partner in the law firm of King & Spalding, working out of the Washington, D.C. office. David is passionate about non-profit work, having served on several community and national non-profit Boards. He also has a deep interest in advancing equity in the ballet world, having learned about the profession and its history through his family’s journey with his eldest daughter, who is the principal dancer of a major US ballet company. Having been raised by a fierce "feminist," David has always worked to advance gender equity, and the ability to combine that interest with his interest in ballet has led him to DDP. David lives in Bethesda with his wife, Eve, and they have three daughters spread across the country.
Vanessa Barboni Hallik
Vanessa Barboni Hallik is the founder and CEO of Another Tomorrow, a B Corp Certified end-to-end sustainable design company with a mission to model a new future for fashion with a fully digitized product eco-system delivering technology-enabled transparency and authenticated recommerce. She is also an investor in early-stage companies positioned to catalyze or enable systemic change.
Vanessa serves on the Board of the Accountability Counsel and on the Advisory Board for Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, where current work focuses on the ethics of AI.
Vanessa is an active speaker on innovation, digitalization and new business models built for resilience. She has been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, Bloomberg, Forbes and Vogue for her work, and is one of Wallpaper* Magazine’s USA300 and Worth Magazine’s Worthy100.
Prior to founding Another Tomorrow, Vanessa was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, where she held several leadership roles in the emerging markets institutional securities business. Throughout her career she has worked across global markets and managed culturally diverse and cross-border teams.
While at Morgan Stanley, she served as a Trustee on the Board of the Morgan Stanley Foundation and represented the firm at the Council on Foreign Relations. She likewise chaired the Fixed Income Philanthropy Committee, during which she initiated and subsequently led the firm’s mentoring program with East Side Community High School, in partnership with PENCIL.org.
Vanessa grew up in small college towns in the Midwest and the Rust Belt with a passion for nature, the arts, technology and creative problem-solving at the intersections of disciplines. She lives in NYC with her husband, three step-children and two dogs.
Margaret “Lisa” Shanahan
Margaret (“Lisa”) Shanahan represents District E of the City of Norwalk on the Norwalk Common Council, chairs the Council’s Ordinance and its Ad Hoc Sustainability and Resilience Committees, and sits on the Council’s Planning and Health and Safety Committees. In addition, Lisa is a board member of the Norwalk Land Trust, serving as Vice President and a member of the Executive Committee, on the Steering Committee of the Hudson to the Housatonic Regional Conservation Partnership, and on the Rowayton Gardeners board chairing the Conservation Committee.
Lisa was a member of the fourth class of women admitted to Dartmouth College and subsequently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, starting her career in Chicago at McDermott Will & Emery and the Northern Trust Company. Upon her professional retirement to raise her two daughters, Lisa launched her “volunteer” career, involving herself in a wide variety of organizations, many of which are now focused on bringing green initiatives to all sectors and neighborhoods across Norwalk.
A long devotee of the arts, Lisa is looking forward to supporting the Dance Data Project®’s mission to raise awareness related to gender equality, primarily in areas of leadership and choreographic opportunities in the ballet world.
