Tribute

The Young American Artist TRIBUTE™ Scholarship program was founded by The Social Graces™ to support the artistic ambitions and dreams of young, outstanding art and design students. We are proud of the commitment of the following TRIBUTE™ Scholarship Advisory Board members to achievement of those goals. Without their leadership and guidance, the TRIBUTE™ Scholarship program would not exist.

Ivna Tarsis d'Affonseca Gusmão
Chairperson

Advisory Board Chairperson Ivna Gusmão came to the United States from Brazil in 1974 to attend college. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at New York University. Ultimately, she found her professional passion in education.

For the past 23 years, Ivna has worked in various capacities with students from diverse economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds at both the high school and college level. Ivna now serves as the College Counselor at Reseda High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In that role, she has helped promising students transition to colleges and universities across the country, including programs in the arts. She has also presented workshops at professional conferences on college admissions, particularly on issues of equity and access in higher education. She participated most recently at the Harvard Summer Institute on College Admissions. In 2003, Ivna was specially recognized by Los Angeles Valley College at their annual Women in Education Celebration.

Having devoted most of her adult life to educating young Americans as well as immigrants from all corners of the world aspiring to become Americans, Ivna recently became a citizen herself. Inspired by the energy and promise of the 2008 elections, she exercised her citizenship as a voter and as an enthusiastic campaign volunteer. Ivna lives in Sherman Oaks with her husband and has a daughter and a stepson. She is proud and honored to be chair of the Tribute Scholarship Advisory Board.

Julie Benson brings over 25 years experience in the cruise industry to her position as Vice President, Public Relations for Princess Cruises. She oversees a department with responsibility for media relations and publicity, corporate communications, media events and ship launches, issues management, crisis response and community relations.

Prior to her current role Benson was the company's Director of Public Relations, a position she held since 1988. Before that she was Director of Corporate Communications for Sitmar Cruises, a company she joined in 1983, and which later merged with Princess Cruises. From 2004-2006 Benson also had responsibility for building and overseeing a new public relations department for Cunard Line, which was merged into Princess' operations in 2004.

Before her association with the cruise industry, Benson worked for two public relations agencies in Los Angeles and represented travel, food and entertainment clients.

She is a member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). A native of Los Angeles, she holds a B.A. in journalism from San Diego State University. Benson has handled numerous art acquisitions during her tenure with Princess and is herself an avid art collector with the benefit of frequent international travel to broaden her exposure to promising young artists. She and her husband have two sons and live in Santa Clarita, California, where Princess Cruises is based.

One of the best known names in cruising, Princess Cruises is a global cruise and tour company. Part of Carnival Corporation (NYSE:CCL), its fleet of 17 ships sail on approximately 150 different itineraries around the globe, calling at more than 260 ports on all.

Paul Newman is responsible for the Print Services group of the Los Angeles office of DDB Advertising, DDB Direct, and DDB Pre Press. His career in advertising spans more than 25 years, and includes experience with hundreds of clients. He has been with DDB Los Angeles since 1996.

As Director of Print Services, Newman has produced advertising campaigns that have received the industry's most prestigious awards, including the Clio, the Obie, and the Effie. The campaigns have been recognized and published in Graphis Annual.

He is a member of the Advertising Production Association of Los Angeles and is very involved in advertising industry issues. Newman is also on the Board of Directors of Hope-Net, a Food Bank providing food and shelter to the homeless community of the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. A native of Los Angeles, Newman holds a B.A. in Fine Arts and Design from UCLA and also attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Newman is an avid photographer. He lives in the historic Windsor Square district of Los Angeles, is married to an architect, and has 2 children.

Victoria Pearson has built a highly distinguished career as a photographer in Los Angeles, specializing in still life, travel, food and beauty. Her extensive client list includes AT&T, Banana Republic, Chronicle Books, Clarkson Potter, Coach, Crate and Barrel, Disney, Food & Wine, Giada De Laurentiis, Garnet Hill, Gourmet, Food and Wine, J. Crew, Martha Stewart Living, Mercedes, Microsoft, Neiman Marcus, Ojai Valley Inn and Spa, Panera Bread, Random House, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Town & Country, Travel & Leisure, and Westin Hotels & Resorts just to name a few.

Her success owes much to an eminently simple style, which reflects both her love of nature and a penchant for the use of natural light. "The thing I love about natural light is that it's different wherever you go... it is the key to revealing the beauty in everyday things" she says. Indeed, this fascination with natural lighting and how it creates mood is the source of her reputation for creating unique images of subtle, uncomplicated beauty. Pearson is also a Tribute artist.

As Chief Executive Officer, Michael Schwimmer oversees the burgeoning Sí TV cable network, the first English-language, Latino-themed network in the country. Schwimmer brings deep industry and cultural expertise to the network, which is dedicated to delivering compelling entertainment in a relevant and authentic voice for young Latino and multicultural viewers.

Michael's passion for diversity in media, and the Latino community in particular, can be traced all the way back to his public school days in the San Fernando Valley, California, where kids from every ethnic and racial background came together in a usually harmonious but sometimes volatile environment.

After teaching himself to speak fluent Spanish by the age of 15, Michael later received his B.A. in Spanish and lived in Spain as a student. Focusing his attention on Latin America after graduating law school, a turn of events led him to Brazil, where he picked up Portuguese and practiced international law from 1989 to 1992.

Schwimmer joined EchoStar Communications' nascent DBS satellite business (Dish Network) in 1996. As Executive Vice President of Programming and Marketing, Schwimmer oversaw all marketing initiatives, acquisition and packaging of traditional subscription and pay-per-view video programming, as well as video on demand, advanced interactive TV services, television advertising sales and international programming.

Schwimmer conceived and engineered the launch of the "Dish Latino" programming platform in 1998. Revolutionary at the time, this programming package addressed the underserved Spanish language-dominant Latino audience. Outside the Hispanic arena, Schwimmer also oversaw the importation and U.S. launch of over 100 foreign language television channels from countries around the world for delivery to America's immigrant populations.

In 2003, Schwimmer joined Sí TV's board of directors. He later took the helm of Sí TV in September 2005. Schwimmer believed that despite the meaningful progress that had been made towards providing Spanish-dominant Hispanics with more choices in television programming, the large and growing segment of young Latinos who consume their media in English was being virtually ignored by both the media and advertising community.

Schwimmer raises two bi-cultural and bilingual children with his Brazilian wife of more than 15 years in Los Angeles.