Media4All: Bios
Meet Our Team
Catherine Russell, Vocalist
Catherine is a Grammy Award-winning vocalist best known for her stunning vocal approach and interpretive works in blues and early jazz. After graduating with honors from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she toured and recorded with Carrie Smith, Steely Dan, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Levon Helm, Toshi Reagon and Rosanne Cash, among numerous others. Hailed as “one of the outstanding singers of our time” by The Wall Street Journal, Catherine has performed across the world and on over 200 albums. www.catherinerussell.net
Jesse Jones III, ASL Interpreter
Jesse Jones III is originally from New Orleans, Louisiana and now resides in San Diego, California. He works as a Deaf interpreter and interpreting service scheduler. Coming from a musical family and having grown up using ASL, he’s been part of many projects and performing groups where he’s translated music, danced, or performed with ASL all over the world. jessejonesiii@gmail.com
Michael Sullivan, ASL Translator
Michael is a Sign Language Interpreter and Bilingual Health Communication Consultant. He is Director of Sonas Health Communication, an organization that provides tactical and strategic consulting for healthcare organizations in order to improve the experience of non-English speaking patient populations. michael@sonascommunication.com
Sheilarae Lau, Audio Description Writer
Sheilarae brings 22 years of experience to her work in audio description. As Head Description Writer for Bridge Multimedia, she writes description for television, films, and museums; develops new writers; and oversees Bridge’s audio description standards. Sheilarae is also an adjunct professor at Lasell University in Boston, where she teaches courses in communication, social science research methods, and mass media. info@bridgemultimedia.com
Marcel Ortín, PhD, Linguist
Marcel is a researcher, author, and translator with the Translation and Language Sciences Department at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. His research interests include the study of Catalan literature, the history of translations and literary reception, rhetorical studies…he even teaches a session on double entendres. marcel.ortin@upf.edu
Jason W. Hammonds, Director
Jason is a Director/Producer/Editor at Electron Entertainment, where he develops various videography and media productions. He is also a producer and editor for Bridge Multimedia, where he works on high-profile projects for clients in travel, advertising, education, and financial industries. jwhammonds@gmail.com
Matt Kaplowitz, Executive Producer
Matt is the parent of a child with disabilities, a jazz aficionado, social entrepreneur and President of Bridge Multimedia, accessibility providers and strategists for television networks, educational publishers, architectural companies, government agencies, corporations, non-profits, and foundations investing in socially progressive initiatives. MKaplowitz@bridgemultimedia.com
Matt Munisteri, Guitar and Arranger
Matt is a New York City-based guitarist, singer, and songwriter specializing in varied musical styles ranging from contemporary to 1920/30-era jazz. Matt has taught at the Berklee College of Music, the Augusta Heritage Center, the Ashokan Center, and Centrum. He has performed on A Prairie Home Companion, Jazz Night in America: Jazz at Lincoln Center, E-Town, Mountain Stage, and Michael Feinstein’s Song Travels. mattmunisteri@gmail.com
Nicki Parrott, Acoustic Bass
Nicki has performed in several Broadway shows and has made several television and documentary appearances. She has performed at most major jazz festivals around the globe. In 2007 and 2008, Nicki received back-to-back honors for Swing Journal’s Best Jazz Vocal Album. Nicki actively participates in continuing musical education for women and inner-city children. nickiparrott@hotmail.com
Mikey Krajnak, ASL Sign Master
Mikey is a Certified Deaf Interpreter, an American Sign Language Master, and Deaf Interpreter Mentor. Born Deaf, Mikey graduated from Gallaudet University with a BA in Sign Communication. He has been long involved in political activism for Deaf rights. mikekraj@gmail.com
Allyson Johnson, Audio Description Narrator
In addition to being a jazz, pop, and a cappella singer, Allyson is a voice-over talent with vast experience in commercials, promos, audiobooks, narration, looping, and audio description. Clients have included audible.com, A&E Television, Travel Channel, Verizon, and Macmillan Audio, among many others. allyson@allysonsvoice.com
Carlos Martinez, Sound engineer and mixer
Specializing in sound design, mixing, supervision and scoring, Carlos’ work as a recording and mix engineer earned him over 10 Grammy nominations and a Grammy win for Justin Timberlake’s first album. Carlos also sound designs and mixes films, including the 2011 Academy Award winner for Live Action Short, God of Love. info@bridgemultimedia.com
Louis Milisci, Captioner
Louis is Project Coordinator at Bridge Multimedia where he manages the development of content accessibility, from in-house captions to alternative text and quality control. Louis also conducts research to improve the workflow of programmers and user experiences in accessible apps and games. lmilisci@bridgemultimedia.com
Norma Miller, Live Captioning
Norma is a Certified Realtime Captioner and Certified Broadcast Captioner. She is President and CEO of White Coat Captioning, the only captioning firm that specializes in captioning services for the software tech, medical, and graduate-level STEM communities. Norma travels extensively and works to provide captioning services for clients in the UK, Europe, Australia, and Asia, as well as throughout the United States. norma@whitecoatcaptioning.com
Shane Rutkowski, Art Direction and Graphics
Shane has served as Bridge Multimedia’s Art Director for several high-priority projects including the STEMIEFest Virtual Conference, the U.S. Department of Education Unconference, Print Accessibility for Graphic Designers, and the Career-Centered Active Listening app. Shane has also worked with Bridge on projects for Special Olympics and the National Science Foundation. info@bridgemultimedia.com
Ilan Kometz, Technical Director, Syncro Services
Ilan is the Chief Operating Officer of Syncro Services, a New York City-based content management and multimedia solutions provider for advertising and production communities nationwide. Ilan is a broadcast integration expert, editor, and workflow & automation specialist. ikometz@syncroservices.com
John Finen, Technical Operations
John is a specialist in Event Technology, Production Management, Stage Management and Line Producing Live Events and Galas. John has had extensive international experience producing events around the globe. He provided Event Technical Direction for Games for Change, a week-long conference programs showcasing cutting edge game development. info@bridgemultimedia.com
George Mazur, Production Associate
George is the Studio Manager at Bridge Multimedia. Immigrating from Odessa, Ukraine as a young child, he grew up in San Francisco and developed a love for music at an early age. His musical endeavors took him to study Music Production and Sound Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. George has been working in the field of Post-Production in New York City for the last 6 years and has recently entered the world of Accessible Media. gmazur@bridgemultimedia.com
Manny Minaya, Production Associate
Manny is a project manager at Bridge Multimedia. He was born with a sensorineural hearing loss, which makes his work at Bridge meaningfully personal. Manny is a writer on his off time, having self-published a poetry book in 2020. He is currently studying English and Creative Writing, and Sociology at CUNY City College. mminaya@bridgemultimedia.com
Anna Fernández, PhD
Anna has a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She has worked as a freelance translator since 1997, specializing in audiovisual translation, software and video games localization. She has been a lecturer at UAB and UPF, and she has been involved in various research projects. Anna is now working on the EASIT project. Her research interests are audiovisual translation and media accessibility, audio description, and focusing on machine translation and language technologies. Ana.Fernandez.Torne@uab.cat
Anna Matamala, PhD
Anna has a PhD in Applied Linguistics, is TransMedia Catalonia’s main researcher and an associate professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has led many projects on audiovisual translation and media accessibility and has taken an active role in the organization of scientific events. She is currently involved in the projects EASIT, RAD, TRACTION and the networks ALMA and LEAD-ME. Anna Matamala has published extensively in academic journals and is also involved in standardization work. anna.matamala@uab.cat
Estella Oncins, PhD
Estella holds a PhD in Accessibility and Ambient Intelligence from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has extensive experience in providing accessibility for live events. She is a freelance translator and subtitler for Spanish television companies and conferences. She is also an audio describer for Liceu Opera House. Estella is currently involved in the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) from W3C. She is a partner in KA2 LTA and IMPACT. She is also a partner in H2020 projects HELIOS and MEDIAVERSE. Estella.Oncins@uab.cat
Pilar Orero, PhD
Pilar works at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona where she researches at the TransMedia Catalonia Group. Her interest is on Media Accessibility, leading some EU funded projects. She is active on media accessibility standardization at the agencies: ISO, ITU, UNE; CEN and ANEC. Pilar is the coordinator of the PG course on Audiovisual Translation Online. She also works as a translator for voice-over for TV channels such as Granada TV, UK, BBC North and TV2, Spain. pilar.orero@uab.cat.