Alums Leading the Way

Aimée Eubanks Davis ’95 is the founder of Braven, a startup that works to ensure underrepresented college students develop the life skills, confidence, experiences and networks that enable them to get strong first jobs after graduation. Named as one of America’s Best Startup Employers of 2022 by Forbes magazine, Braven is now operating in five cities and working with more than 3,300 students.

Suzan-Lori Parks ’85 is the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an award she received in 2002 for “TOPDOG/UNDERDOG.” In 2018, the play was named “The Greatest American Play of the Past 25 Years” by The New York Times. This unprecedented distinction was awarded unanimously by a special panel of critics convened to examine and rank the most important plays written and produced in the previous 25 years. Parks is also a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.

Tony Award-winning producer Debra Martin Chase ’77 is an entertainment industry trailblazer. She was the first Black woman to have a producing deal at a major movie studio, and her films have grossed more than a half billion dollars. She has a deal at Universal Television and executive produces CBS’ “The Equalizer.” Her numerous credits include “Harriet,” “The Princess Diaries” and “Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella.” In partnership with Marc Platt, she won a 2022 Tony for Best Musical for “A Strange Loop.”

Addison Beaux serves as an executive leadership, strategic communication and management consulting asset. Before becoming a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, he served as a staffer to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, speechwriter to the President and Board of Trustees at Stanford University, congressional liaison and speechwriter at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and lead researcher at the Center for Economic Integrity. Addison is trained as a child and family therapist and is also a celebrated storyteller and public speaker.

Charisse Pickron ’08 is an assistant professor at the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota Twin Cities. As the director of the Child Brain and Perception Lab, Charisse and her team examine the ways in which social experiences shape how infants and children perceive and represent people in their environment to better understand the way early experiences influence face perception and how young children begin to respond to and understand social constructs such as gender and race.

Kira Banks ’00 is co-founder of the Institute for Healing Justice and Equity at Saint Louis University, where she is a professor in the Department of Psychology. She also served as a racial equity consultant for the Ferguson Commission and continued as the Racial Equity Catalyst for Forward Through Ferguson. Her research, teaching and facilitation around equity, diversity and inclusion have helped frame racial equity in the St. Louis region and beyond.