There has never been a better time in history to be a woman over 40. Our panel members come from — and have arrived at — different places in their lives, but all have experienced transitions. They are embarking on new careers, pursuing healthy lifestyles, surviving personal challenges. Some are reinventing themselves. Each has, in some way, come to a place of acceptance and appreciation of who they are. They celebrate their accomplishments and share their stories with us.
ANNE GARDINER PERKINS (MODERATOR)
Anne Gardiner Perkins is an award-winning historian and higher education expert, and the author of Yale Needs Women, which won the 2020 Connecticut Book Award for Nonfiction and was named by BookBrowse magazine as a best book for book clubs. The New York Times called Yale Needs Women “lively and engaging.” “Stunning,” said Library Journal in a starred review. Anne grew up in Baltimore and received her B.A. from Yale. She holds a PhD in higher education from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and has devoted her career to education and writing. Find out more about Anne and Yale Needs Women on Twitter @AnneGPerkins and on her website.
LISA ACIUKEWICZ is the co-owner and chief photographer for the Harvard Press, an independent, locally owned newspaper that she helped launch in 2006. She loves capturing the ephemeral and turning it into history — be it a pandemic town meeting under a tent or a child’s first baseball game. Lisa also runs a separate photography business for which she shoots sports, portraits, weddings, and bar/bat mitzvahs.
LIZA F. CARTER is an environmental scientist by training, and uses art to beguile and captivate viewers into a loving and caring relationship with the natural world. She has been an exhibiting artist since 1999 and has shown her work in solo and group shows throughout the United States. She holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. from Yale University, both in environmental science. Carter is the author of Moving with the Seasons: Portrait of a Mongolian Family, a visual and written portrait of life in a nomadic Mongolian family, which Carter illustrated with her photographs. Moving with the Seasons received six national book awards including 20 Best Photobooks of the Year in 2013.
As both a painter and photographer she aims to capture a feeling or a moment that extends beyond the physical to capture the emotion. She aspires to create art that reminds us that separating human beings from the natural world is an illusion. By re-finding our place in the natural order we will be better stewards of the planet on which we all live. Carter is currently working on a book for children entitled Hamburgers Don’t Grow on Trees: Raising Beef on a Family Farm with Loving Kindness. www.lizacarterart.com
NADINE DOWLING grew up in the very small town of Tenants Harbor, Maine, where, until her senior year in high school, she was one of thirteen students in her class. She moved to Boston, where she began her career in higher education quite by accident. Northeastern University offered free tuition to employees, so she worked days in the Office of Human Resources, and went to school evenings, earning her A.S., B.S., M.B.A. and going on to work for Emerson College, where she was the Associate Vice President of Administration, while attending Harvard University part-time, earning her M.Ed. and her Ed.D. in higher education.
Her career continued at Roxbury Community College as Associate Vice President for Administration, followed by a move to Atlanta, Georgia, to assume the role of President of Argosy University. She returned to New England as Interim President of Daniel Webster College, before working as the Director of ITT Technical Institute in Wilmington, Massachusetts until its bankruptcy in 2016. She currently consults on a variety of topics for Community Colleges, and lives in Hull, Massachusetts, with her six cocker spaniels and her fiancé Brian.
WENDY HYATT is a Physician Assistant for 14 years, mom of 2 kids, and spouse of a skilled and caring physician. She found herself going through the motions of life with work, when she started a family. Having time to herself, she became lonely, self-critical and had low self-esteem. She lost her sense of self, as a new mom, until she had her wake-up call in 2010, losing a close friend at the age of 31. She searched for meaning to her life, and started with her health, regaining her energy and vitality. Slowly her self-confidence grew, and she began competing in fitness competitions for accountability and personal development. Now she is a full-time entrepreneur with a global health and wellness company and, over 6 years later, is a 2X World Natural Bodybuilding Federation Pro Masters (40+) Bikini World Champion.
SEDRUOLA MARUSKA is a social justice, equity, inclusion and diversity consultant and coach, host of the award-winning podcast Diversity Dish, speaker and aspiring author. She’s a graduate of Andrews University with a BA in Graphic Arts, a former Conversational English teacher, Corporate Trainer, and Executive Assistant. Her passion is helping individuals in business cultivate cultures of equity and inclusion, so they attract the diverse partnerships they desire.
Sedruola Maruska founded her consulting agency of the same name in January of 2017 after realizing it was time to embark on an intentional life journey to help educate and empower others on issues of social justice. Sedruola is a first generation Haitian-American, wife and mother who prides herself on having an amazing extended family network and being a citizen of the world born in Queens, New York.