Meet The Ypulse Youth Advisory Board

Over the past few weeks, I have been working behind the scenes with the new Ypulse Youth Advisory Board. We met, or chatted online (since we have several international members), and have been using Ning and email to communicate regularly. The first projects for the board are coming up with regular editorial features that they will write for Ypulse as well as managing the official Ypulse Twitter feed. We're also talking about creating a larger Ypulse youth community, which the board will lead on Ning as well, where Ypulse readers may be able to submit creative concepts for some youth feedback. I asked each board member to write his or her own bio in the third person — so here they are, in their own words…

Bernadette Anat
Bernadette is a simple creature – all she wants out of life is to eat, write, dance and talk. But she hasn't found a way to do all four at once without a getting major cramp. Other than talking with her mouth full, Bernadette can be found beach-cruisin' through the brick paths of the University of Southern California as a sophomore studying Public Relations. It sounds fancy, but all she really wants to do is write to, talk with and help teenagers until she's wrinkly and gross. Bernadette is a former "Freshman 15″ and a current Los Angeles correspondent for Seventeen Magazine, but she's been journaling, blogging and Dear-Abby-ing since she was 8. This San Francisco native is a lot like her hair – crazy, in-your-face, and full of surprises.

Akanksha Aurora
By the time she got to the much-dreaded, self-esteem destroying wasteland also known as high-school, Akanksha began to develop an interest in writing. Suddenly, all the words she ever knew began to creep into her dreams, and discover all her darkest thoughts and feelings, before silently but permanently immersing themselves within her soul and transforming themselves into fiction. In addition to that, the French language is her drug and acne is her worst enemy. She laughs a little too much and is a romantic in the extreme sense.

Bruna Bonguardo
Bruna is a 16-year-old Brazilian teenager who moved to Israel in 2004. She can speak, read and write in four languages, and she loves learning about new cultures. Bruna always loved computers, and she wants to study computer science in college. She also loves webdesign and writing, and she had a blog for about two years. Now she's planning to start a new one again. Even though she loves writing, her passion is reading. She loves reading fiction books, but now she's starting to read autobiographies and non-fiction books. She is a senior in High School, where she successfully studies Software Engineering.

George Cox
Classic private school educated, tea adoring, dry-humored Brit. George enjoys school, more for the people than the work, but has a genuine interest in his chosen subject, even if he isn’t the brightest pupil. Having not been to America, and keeping away youth culture that is designed by adults and preferring to stick to true youth culture, he foresees an interesting future here. However the general insanity of day to day life and the crushing work load thrown upon his shoulders will certainly destroy his feeble mind at certain points and therefore he apologizes in advance.

Liz Funk
Liz Funk is a freelance writer and college student. She has written for USA Today, Newsday, the Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post, Girls' Life, and CosmoGIRL!, among other publications. Her first book, Supergirls Speak Out, about the pressure on girls to be perfect, will be published by Simon and Schuster in March of 2009. She writes a blog for the Albany, NY newspaper the Times Union and she edits the teen culture and politics blog GirlHeadQuarters.org. She is a senior at Pace University and lives in Manhattan. Her web-site is www.lizfunk.com.

Michael Hayball
Michael lives a simple life in Allen Park, MI. When he is not attending Henry Ford Community College for his Associates, he can be seen chatting and socializing around campus and the local coffee shop. He enjoys a good iced caramel cappuccino, or a regular coca-cola. Michael loves what he calls “The Blog Music," and he was and still is raised on a steady diet of electronic music and old-school hip hop. Michael hopes to work for Spin magazine one day, and screams like a little girl every time a new issue comes to the local coffee shop.

Libby Issendorf
After growing up on a farm in North Dakota, Libby Issendorf moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. She discovered her passion for brands and media as a member of her school’s first-place National Student Advertising Competition team. After graduation in 2008, she began her career as a media analyst at an advertising agency. Libby works on media placement and targeting for national brands like General Mills and Land O Lakes. Outside of work, she loves blogging, playing sports, consuming gratuitous amounts of pop culture, the Minnesota Twins, being really geeky with her iPhone, and driving to see her boyfriend, who lives too far away.

Nina L.
Nina is a freshman in high school in Washington state. She plays the flute in the school band. Even though she's not as writing inclined as the other board members, Nina is the youngest of the group and may share an opinion with a younger audience. Nina is very interested in fashion, new technology and teen culture. Having three and a half sisters (an exchange sister for the year) she knows a lot about how teenage girls interact with each other and their parents. Nina ‘s biggest love is music, either classical or contemporary, it doesn’t matter. She cares about all of it.

Caroline Marques
Caroline is a high school student in Geneva, Switzerland. While Caroline lists sports, music and travelling as her hobbies, she also very much enjoys writing and reading. After being a teen adviser for NickMag, she thought Ypulse would be the perfect opportunity for a new start. While trying to keep up with the trends (or setting some of her own), dance classes, working on long papers and trying to master three new languages, she rarely has time to write the novel she wishes she could finish, though she is certain one day she will. Writing is never far from her thoughts.

Ashley Qualls
Ashley has been building her teen-targeted company, WhateverLife.com, from her home near Detroit since 2004. WhateverLife.com reaches as many as 250,000 unique teenage girls each day, spreading color, design and Web knowledge within its growing community. Ashley has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes.com, Seventeen, CosmoGIRL!, and on ABC's The View and CNN. She continues to target a mainly tweens, teens and young adult community and is expanding by creating WhateverLife's own storefront.

Megan Reid
Megan is a college student, freelancer and hardcore bookworm. She began writing fashion articles for her hometown newspaper at age 15, and her work has since appeared in publications like Boston magazine, Mountain Living and CosmoGirl. Meg also loves theatre and the arts, and when she's not sending postcards, devouring YA novels, or reading up on 19th-century cultural studies, she's probably dragging someone along on a late-night ice cream/Starbucks run. Meg has lived in three (soon to be four) countries and five states, though she currently resides in Arizona.

Alyx Steadman
Alyx Steadman is a freshman in high school in Montana, and loves every minute of it. He loves reading, writing, acting, singing, and being a social butterfly. In the past people have accused him of being a YouTube addict and a pop culture junkie (and sadly Alyx cannot deny these accusations). His love for teen culture has led him to many hours slaving on the computer soaking up every piece of drama Hollywood has to offer. In the future he hopes to pursue a writing career as some type of journalist. Excited doesn’t even begin to cover how he’s feeling to be in the Ypulse Advisory Board. “Today the world changes so quickly that in growing up we take leave not just of youth but of the world we were young in.”

Categorized under: Youth Advisory Board

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