United States
Storytelling and content have been the core of my career since the start. My professional background includes journalism, marketing and communications. A portfolio of my content work can be found below.
Marketing Content & Brand Journalism
GEMS World Academy Chicago is happy to welcome Tom Cangiano as our new head of school. Mr. Cangiano brings to the role a rich background in education and school leadership. For the past eight years, he served as the president of Shady Side Academy, a prestigious private school in Pittsburgh.
GEMS fifth-graders became authors, designers, builders and explorers — all during the same unit!
Innovation has been part of the DNA of GEMS Education schools since the organization's founding in Dubai more than 60 years ago. GEMS World Academy Chicago has continued that tradition, delivering a forward-thinking academic program that prepares students to be creative critical thinkers with the knowledge and skills they need to solve real-world problems. You can find innovation not just in the classrooms of GEMS Chicago, but in our parent community, as well.
In a way, families enrolled at GEMS World Academy Chicago actually belong to five different schools. GEMS Education operates five World Academies around the world; in addition to Chicago, they're located in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Switzerland.
A parent discusses the value of a unique travel/exchange program offered at GEMS World Academy.
A general recruitment brochure about the school, its mission and its approach.
The role of education is changing. Schools have to prepare students for a world that is more diverse, more connected and more rapidly evolving than ever before. Helping young people to memorize dates and formulas is not enough; today's students must know how to think, how to communicate and how to create.
Every year, global finance company Bloomberg conducts an exhaustive survey of recruiters to find out what skills are most in demand by employers, and what skills are the hardest to find in prospective employees.
News Articles & Features (PDF files)
Libraries are no longer simply places to read books. Cafes, multimedia labs, discussion rooms and more play a big role in what libraries have to offer.
When people with mental illness can live independently in supportive housing, the benefits are huge. But such developments often face staunch opposition in the Chicago suburbs.
The Lollapalooza Music Festival, as it celebrates its 20th anniversary, remains a key force in rock/pop even if it's not as cutting-edge as it used to be. (Lisagor Award winner.)
The state of Illinois' ongoing struggle to meet its pension obligations has some residents criticizing the system as unfair, while others say the state must keep its promises. (Lisagor Award winner.)
The white plastic ball with the funny-looking holes in it has been a staple of outdoor fun for generations, and it remains popular, even in a tech-crazed world.
Music Writing
Life Sentence has reissued its debut album, considered a key artifact of the Reagan-era punk scene in Chicago.
"Barracuda," the blistering anti-sexism hit from the band Heart, sounds like it could have emerged from the anger of today's #MeToo movement. It was written more than 40 years ago. Ann Wilson, the song's writer and Heart's lead singer, says the fact that it resonates so strongly in 2018 shows just how far America still has to go to achieve gender equality.
It's been more than 30 years since new wave/pop band Tears for Fears conquered the world with the monstrously successful record "Songs From the Big Chair." Their creative energy still intact, the duo of Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal are bringing their tour to Rosemont's Allstate Arena Monday with '80s heroes Hall & Oates.
I sometimes wonder if musicians view their early work the way the rest of us do our high-school yearbook pictures. Shallow, the long out-of-print debut album by Philadelphia noise-punk band Pissed Jeans, was released in 2005 - hardly long enough ago to produce an embarrassed "what were we thinking?"
Your boss screams at you at the morning staff meeting. Your boyfriend or girlfriend dumps you, by text. Your lunch is stolen from the office fridge, your car gets booted and then you step into a big pile of crap left on the lawn by your neighbor's always-barking pit bull.
The Handsome Family This New Mexico duo's latest is another strong collection of strange and hypnotic Americana music. Listening to the Handsome Family's music feels a bit like traveling to another world-a place both beautiful and frightening, where the cry of a bird or the whispering shake of a tree branch can herald great cruelty and pain.