Who are We?
Founders and Editors in Chief
Our Team
Founders and Editors in Chief
Cecilia Graña-Rosa
Founder and Editor-in-Chief
Arts + Culture, Politics
Major: International Studies w/ foci in Media Studies and Political Science
She likes people, places, and things. After graduation, she plans to have a series of monthly
existential crises and aims to found a similar publication to Boilerplate Magazine in her
hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico that she hopes will influence readers to take a radical and
critical lense when approaching both mainstream and marginalized issues in Puerto Rico and
abroad. If you are ever so inclined, you can hear her banter sleepily and play Latin American
alternative music on her radio show from 3-4am on thursday mornings. Someone once told her
that they were waiting for their cat to die in order to keep its skull and she tweeted about it at
@tulipsonlegs, so, naturally, follow her.
Gabby Miller
Founder and Editor in Chief
Arts + Culture, Vassar Climate
Major: Sociology
Gabby Miller is a sophomore at Vassar College that studies everyday topics and labels it
“academia”. She loves all things related to sexuality, women, and film and hopes to one day
produce documentaries capable of changing even your Protestant grandmother’s perspective. If
her Vassar degree somehow throws her into a perpetual state of post-graduation funemployment,
she has decided to run away and become either a tattoo artist, a certified Master Sommelier, or a
Netflix curator.
Brittani Skyers-White
Editor in Chief
Vassar Climate, Arts + Culture
Major: Women’s Studies
Brittani is from Western New York, and super excited to be a part of the Boilerplate team.
While working with Boilerplate, she hopes to challenge herself and others through incessant
complication of what it means to be socially conscious and just. Brittani loves to learn, listen,
and constructively criticize.
Lanbo Yang
Founder and Editor in Chief
Sex + Health, Science + Tech, Creative
Major: English, French (Pre-Med)
Lanbo is constantly thinking about how different and separate things can be pieced together
to form something whole and coherent. Born in Beijing, he has lived in several Bible Belt
cities before settling down in Boston suburbia-but not matter if the state is red or blue (or the
country), you can always find him talking about race, medicine, James Baldwin, marginalization,
Raymond Carver and room lighting. He has done various jobs with varying degrees of
enthusiasm: several biomedical lab assistant positions, writing instructor for homeless LGBTQ
youth, an un-coiffed barista, French and Mandarin translator, library and bookstore mogul; when
he is not reading and writing stories or volunteering at the clinic, you can usually find him on his
bike.
Arts + Culture
Michael Cadenas
Arts + Culture Co-Editor
Majors: Economics and Film
Michael is a Bronx native who hopes to use art as an alternative educational tool and as a means
of tearing down the divides between elitist infrastructures and the disadvantaged populations
they suppress. He spent this past summer doing educational outreach for the Museum of Arts and
Design, studying different ways of engaging youths through art in meaningful ways. Ask him
what he thinks about graffiti art.
Tatiana Esposito von Mueffling
Arts + Culture Co-Editor
Major: English? Idk, stop asking, mom.
Three sentences about myself: Tati is a sophomore from New York who thinks it’s cool when
people destigmatize mental illness and wants Quentin Tarantino to direct her nightmares. She
can be found looking for her chapstick which is probably in the last place she left it but it also
could be somewhere else have you seen it I haven’t seen it if found please call. (She also wants
to talk about the Bechdel test, women in the DIY music scene, problems with the institution
of marriage, heteronormativity, patriarchal social norms, terms like “basic” and “friend zone,”
feminism beyond white upper middle class cis gender heterosexual women, ways to improve our
educational system, and she thanks her six Spotify followers and David Lynch.)
Adam Spiegelman
Arts + Culture Co-Editor
Major: English? Studio Art? Only God™ knows
Adam is a (deeply ashamed) Connecticut native with an undying passion for the Barefoot Contessa, Joan Didion, and Green Day. His thoughts primarily regard Batman and nude photography and he has never tried Kombucha. Once upon a time he thought himself a poet but now spends time searching for new ways to subvert the capitalist agenda and make a fool of himself in public. When he isn't actively fleeing responsibility, he would love to sit down with you and talk about comics, photography, mental illness, new motherhood, and the exclusionary practices of alternative music scenes.
Creative
Lillian Kalish
Creative Co-Editor
Major: Political Science, Chinese Correlate
Lillian is a weirdo from Southern California whose style consists mainly of her grandmother’s clothes. Although often frustrated with the limits of language, she spends time drafting, reading, and studying foreign tongues and would one day like to be able to speak Yiddish and Russian. In the future, Lillian and her best friend would like to create a web series about queer brown Jews.
Isabel Moore
Creative Co-Editor
Major: Political Science
Isabel was born in San Francisco, California. She spent the fall semester of her
junior year in Havana, Cuba, an experience that has shaped many of her academic and creative pursuits.
She is often in the Political Science Lounge waiting for freshmen, etc. to seek her advice. She enjoys
story-writing, distributing disposable cameras, collaging with National Geographic magazines, and
pondering big questions such as “how do ATMs read handwritten checks?”
Politics
David Finger
Politics Co-Editor
Major: Political Science
David Finger is a Political Science major with a Hispanic Studies correlate. When he’s not busy
writing papers and reading long books about agrarian reform, he likes to hike, bike, and listen to
music. He also enjoys taking brisk jogs between his bedroom and the refrigerator.
Essie Asan
Politics Co-Editor
Major: English + Psychology
Essie was born and raised in Istanbul, the city with lots of stories to tell (her real Turkish name is Esin, but now that she lives in America she felt the need to assimilate). She learned English watching many a TV show, and she recently deemed herself a bilingual writer/poet, though she still doesn't know how/whether to define her ethnicity. She is looking for answers to questions such as: (a) why do college students not talk more about the wars in the Middle East? (b) why do most people care more about Taylor Swift than they do about Malala Yousafzai? (c) does binge-watching Gilmore Girls count as a profession? Her twitter self (@esinasan) is much cooler than her real self.
Science + Tech
Yasmine Abbey
Science + Tech Co-Editor
Major: Biochemistry (Pre-Med)
Yasmine is a West African born and former Texas native, is an avid reader of all things news (from Buzzfeed to the NPR to the New Yorker and everything in between). She's really interested in science and technology and how both intersect with and influence the world we live in. Yasmine is currently a junior Biochemistry major, prospective english minor and premed student.
Faith Hill
Science + Tech Co-Editor
Major: Cognitive Science
Faith is a sophomore who is simultaneously proud and horrified to be a New Jersey native. She’s majoring in Cognitive Science with a path in Religion, and her interests (aside from funky combos) include reading and writing poetry, taking photographs of people she loves, everything 90s, good socks, Nat Geo, Tolstoy, Toni Morrison and dogs. You can find her thinking about spirituality and the brain, or maybe eating clementines in her room.
Sex + Health
Zoe Adams
Sex + Health Co-Editor
Major: Classics (Pre-Med)
Zoe is originally from Manhattan, and is very excited to be a member of an alternative news
source at Vassar that synthesizes her interests in peer editing, health policy, and marginalized/
women’s health issues. When Zoe isn’t analyzing Hippocratic gynecological medical texts for her
thesis, she can be found biking around campus, eating sandwiches, or singing in Skinner Hall.
Zoe is also actively involved in computational neuroscience research at Weill Cornell Medical
College in NYC, and aspires to practice radical, socially-conscious medicine in the future.
Odile Carroll
Sex + Health Co-Editor
Major: Psychology
Odile is an excellent quilter, as a result of too many summers of being sent to quilt camp (for
reasons on my parents’ part that are still quite unclear to me). She practices eurythmy (look it
up). She is happiest in the dirt.
Vassar Climate
Dion Kauffman
Vassar Climate Co-Editor
Major: Geography
I grew up along (in?) a lake. I eat compost. I can barely see.
Soraya Perry
Vassar Climate Co-Editor
Major: Sociology and Film Major
Soraya Perry likes to talk about mass food service systems, the female orgasm, and black representation in Hollywood. When she was younger, she wanted to be the first woman of color to land on Mars. Now that she is older, she will settle for playing the first woman of color to land on Mars in a biopic that makes a lot a lot a lot of money. When not making very funny jokes (she is funny), she thinks about lava lamps and molecular gastronomy. In rare moments of clarity, she hopes Boilerplate's work can help the Vassar community become more genuine.
Business Managers
Amy Cao
Senior Business Manager
Majors: Economics, Asian Studies, and Women’s Studies
Amy is a senior and she means business. She’s trying to understand the inner-workings of
capitalism in hopes of one day dismantling it all in favor of a global woman’s commune. In the
mean time, Amy is enjoying learning about her Chinese ancestry and would love to talk to you
about calligraphic ink painting, Buddhist philosophy, Chinese linguistics, and how to wrap the
perfect dumpling-especially if you, too, are a woman of two worlds.
Alejandro Dinsmore
Director of Business Development
Majors: Neuroscience and Philosophy
Alejandro is a senior with in an interest in socially conscious technology and business. He has
had previous experience building and selling startups and is obsessed with the process of creating
something that will benefit others. His hopes for Boilerplate Magazine are that it will become a
vibrant, self-sustaining organization that will give a voice to opinions that need to be heard.
Web Developer
Sandy Miller
Web Developer
Major: Computer Science
Sandy is a senior computer science major trying to make both trippy and meaningful stuff with numbers.
Publicity
Catherine Chapman
Publicity Team
Major: Anthropology w/ correlate: Latin American/Latino Studies
Hey it's me, Cat. I am thrilled to finally understand the difference between humans and dolphins. I enjoy swimming, playing with human children, and performing water tricks. HMU at @chapman_cat or snail mail me locks of your hair.
Kiran Kawolics
Publicity Team
Major: English, with a (as of yet undeclared) Women’s Studies correlate
Kiran is a part-human, part-titanium abomination hailing from the bustling metropolis of Cleveland, Ohio. Her hobbies include needlepointing, sleeping, white chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream, cigarettes, and incorporating the phrase "socially-constructed expectations of femininity" into every paper she writes. In addition to being a member of Boilerplate's publicity team, she is a CARES listener and is deeply passionate about her work to end sexual assault at Vassar and in greater communities. Despite much confusion, she is not and has never been affiliated with the Miscellany News, but she still faithfully attends VSA meetings just for kicks and livetweets an extremely subjective account of all the riveting action and drama at @pntsizedbastard . You can often find her rockingout to her theme song, "Fat Lip" by Sum41, by herself because no one else really likes it that much.