Specializing in the realms of sports, medicine, philanthropy, environmental activism and the arts, these five women are transforming the present into a brighter future through innovation, ingenuity and good old-fashioned elbow grease. In the spirit of Women’s History Month, here are five women you should know.
MIRANDA KNOWLES
Is it a challenge to be the head coach when your husband is on the team?
Ultimate Frisbee superstar Miranda Knowles directs the all-male Atlanta Hustle, a semi-professional team that includes her husband, Matthew, on the roster.
She’s heard the (somewhat jocular) comments from friends: Ohh, does he get mad at you when you bench him?
Short answer: No. If Knowles, the coach, needs to offer guidance to Knowles, the defender, well, Knowles, the defender, already knows what the coach is going to say.
“Usually,” said Miranda Knowles, “if I have to give him feedback, he’s thought of it first.”
For his part, Matthew Knowles, 36, a software engineer when he’s not throwing discs, is happy to be playing for a team coached by a woman who has secured just about every honor available in the sport: She has won national championships twice at the club level, and is the first athlete to win as a player and as a coach at the World Games. Last year she was inducted into the Ultimate Hall of Fame.
“The entire time she has been in my life,” said the husband, “she’s been someone who knows way more about ultimate and is way better than I’ll ever be.”
Knowles, 40, grew up in Atlanta, and played on the boys varsity ultimate team at Paideia School, which would become an ultimate powerhouse.
As an undergraduate studying neuroscience at Carleton College in Minnesota, she led the team there to the national finals, then did the same thing as a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle.
She began coaching early in her career, and by the time she retired from active play at age 35, she’d been coaching for 10 years, including stints as a member of the coaching staff at the World Games.
A mother of two, she joined the staff at Paideia in 2013, teaching AP biology, anatomy, physiology and medical botany, and coaching the girls ultimate team. Her squad at Paideia has won nine state championships over the last 10 years, and was ranked first in the country in 2016.
The Hustle is part of the 24-team American Ultimate Disc League, or AUDL, which is working hard to turn what was once a hippie pastime into a valuable business enterprise.
The athletes receive a small stipend for each game, travel expenses, health insurance and snappy jerseys. But there are no LeBron James contracts.
Miranda Knowles, as the coach for the Hustle and Paideia teams, is about as professional as one can be in the sport right now.
As a business enterprise, ultimate is in its scuffling stage. But Knowles said there are signs a transformation is underway.
“In 30 years,” she said, “when we look back, right now is the crux point in the sport, where it’s starting to gain national and international practice.”
-- Bo Emerson
Credit: John Penn
Credit: John Penn
MAYA PENN
Maya Penn’s resume reads like someone three times her age.
Penn, 22, launched her eco-friendly clothing and accessory company, Maya’s Ideas, at age 8. She’s an environmentalist, author, designer, animator and three-time TED Talk speaker.
The Gen Zoomer was named one of Oprah’s youngest Super Soul 100, a group described as trailblazers and “visionaries with the power to inspire and uplift.”
Now she can add filmmaker to her resume.
In October, Variety reported that actress Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon will executive produce Penn’s animated short film, “Asali: Power of the Pollinators” for their company JuVee Productions, and Penn will direct.
The 20-minute short follows a group of diverse pollinators — bees, hummingbirds and butterflies — and an environmental scientist as they try to save their home from a deadly force.
“We’re building a whole franchise around it,” said Penn, who hopes the film will launch a TV series with related books and games. “I’m trying to reach people of all ages with a good story first that’s character driven and organically focuses on the issues that are affecting people, animals and the planet.”
The target demographic is middle school age, but others will like it as well because of the action and adventure, she said
The Cherokee County resident became interested in environmental activism as a child and received the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Drum Major for Justice Award when she was 12. She names Rep. John Lewis, the Rev. Joseph and Evelyn Lowery and Bernice King, CEO of the King Center, as her influences.
“Most of my pathway and blueprint as an activist came from civil rights activism,” said Penn. “There’s a lot of overlap between civil rights and environmental justice activism ... At the end of the day, environmental issue is a human rights issue.”
Her work was always encouraged by her parents, Deidre Penn, a women’s health advocate, entrepreneur and executive director of Penn’s non-profit arm, and John Penn, a Grammy-nominated record producer, musician, composer and virtual reality tech entrepreneur.
John Penn said the two of them knew early in her life that Maya “would be doing great things at a young age.” She was 4 when she told them she wanted to be an animator. Because she was homeschooled, her father said they could tailor her schoolwork around her interests.
“Maya has this awareness that more needs to be done to help the planet and that is incorporated in her business and animation,” he said.
There have always been people who are passionate about saving the planet, but Penn said only in recent years has it become part of the mainstream. She cautions against “greenwashing,” though — companies that mislead consumers by promoting themselves as environmentally friendly when their actions prove otherwise.
“It hurts a lot because, for me, it’s not about pushing an agenda,” she said. “For me it’s just about helping people and helping build people’s lives.”
-- Sheila Poole
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
JIHA MOON
Jiha Moon is an artist who exemplifies the rich character of the modern South. With her artwork lauded as “absorbing” by the New Yorker and “thrilling” by the New York Times, Moon, 49, is a testament to Atlanta’s status as a place where a thriving art career can coexist with a comfortable, fulfilling life outside the art hubs of New York and Los Angeles.
She has managed to launch a successful career from Atlanta with solo shows at Derek Eller Gallery in New York, an upcoming show at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Los Angeles and work currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., through April.
An artist who incorporates her hyphenated status as a Korean-American into drawings and ceramics, Moon projects a unique point of view in hybrid works that blend Asian materials like Hanji — a traditional handmade Korean paper — and Eastern iconography like dragons, fortune cookies and Korean folklore with references to Southern face jugs, Disney, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and animation.
Her work often has a mischievous, shape-shifting quality where figures glide in and out of formation like dragons emerging from a miasma of brushstrokes. In her deliciously playful ceramic vessels, garish toothy grins, long-lashed eyes and body parts decorate her vases and jugs in the manner of a Disney teapot or spoon that turns into a singing, dancing character. Her work can be laugh-out-loud delightful but often comes with an undercurrent of commentary about holding multiple identities simultaneously and the un-fun, not-pretty stream of stereotypes that plague Asian-Americans.
Moon was born in Daegu, South Korea, and earned her undergraduate degree and MFA there before coming to America in 1999 to continue her studies. She has been in Atlanta for almost 20 years with her husband, fellow artist Andy Moon Wilson, who she met in graduate school at the University of Iowa.
Her work deals with her blended identity as not just an Asian-American woman living in the South, but as a working mother of a 14-year-old son in an art world that hasn’t always taken kindly to mothers. Moon describes getting the “stink eye” years ago when she would visit galleries with her son in his stroller. At one art gallery she was asked how she could possibly continue to make work if she was also a mother.
“That gallery is out of business now,” Moon adds.
What has remained a constant in Moon’s work is defying the stereotype of Asian women as passive and compliant and women artists as somehow less serious or not as dedicated to their careers after having children.
In her frequent lectures at colleges and universities across the country, Moon offers living proof that her South Korean heritage is an important influence on her work. She also talks about the need to speak out about anti-Asian hate in the wake of the 2021 metro Atlanta shootings that killed eight people, six of them Asian women.
Those senseless murders incensed her as a double blow — for the hate involved in the crime and for how that act contaminated the sense of pride and love she feels for her adopted city of Atlanta. “It hit me really hard.”
And yet, she is extraordinarily grateful for the opportunities and freedom she has been offered as a contemporary woman artist. “I’m so thankful that I live in 2023.”
-- Felicia Feaster
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
EBONY AUSTIN
We’re not sure what Ebony Austin got for Christmas last year, but we know what she gave: Three fully-furnished townhomes for a year to Atlanta families in need.
A restaurateur who’s devoted her life to giving to others, the native of Chicago’s westside inherited her generous spirit from her mom, who owned a taco stand when Austin was a kid.
“The lines were literally wrapped around blocks and blocks and blocks, but what I remember most at an early age was her building relationships with her customers,” Austin said. “Some people would come and have the worst day ever and leave and have one of the best days. I just like the experience that you’re able to give your customer and then being able to brighten up the person’s day.”
That’s a mission Austin strives to follow each day as the owner of Nouveau Bar & Grill, a restaurant also featuring live music and karaoke that she opened in College Park in 2019 with a second location in Jonesboro.
But Austin is more than a restaurateur. She’s also a developer and a philanthropist who has established a brand of giving that defies traditional definitions of benevolence. Not only does she give back to the community, she rigorously invests in its residents to ensure they can continue to work for their families and communities.
Case in point: those three townhomes. Austin paid a year’s rent on each one as part of her third annual holiday toy drive and skate party at Cascade, where she also gave $5,000 in scholarships to four Spelman students.
Ultimately, Austin wants to build a community of affordable housing of roughly 30 townhomes for her staff through her real estate investment firm, Hiz Creations, which specializes in multi-family units and renovation projects. Austin is mum on location details because the deal is still in negotiations, but she’s certain everything will be finalized before the end of the year.
Through the development, Austin wants to instill the importance of home ownership and creating generational wealth for her team. She believes owning real estate is the start to sustaining communities and building legacies for families, especially for Black people. To that end, she partnered with Chase Bank to give her staff workshops on building credit.
Austin first recognized the importance of giving back when she visited a Chicago homeless shelter with her church and saw kids her age who had been left there.
“Parents just dropped them because they couldn’t figure out life. I got a chance to interact with those kids. I made a promise to God at an early age that as long as he blesses me, I will always give back,” she said.
How does she do it all? She’s still trying to develop a healthy work-life balance, but she credits her team of about 100 employees and her faith in God for grounding her.
The work can get overwhelming, especially in the male-driven industries of economic development and hospitality. She remembers occasions when men would ask to speak with the owner of her company, assuming it wasn’t her.
“You’re looking at building permits, and you’re going in there as a female, and you’re not really taken serious, but the beauty of that is we’re really strong,” Austin said. “We demand that respect. It’s non-negotiable for me.”
That’s why she encourages women entrepreneurs, especially those of color, to never doubt themselves and their capabilities.
“Just do it,” she said. “Trust yourself. Believe in yourself. Trust God, and be consistent. Do your due diligence, so if you want to open your own restaurant, go ahead start your LLC and just be proactive in what it is you want to do. Just believe in yourself.”
-- DeAsia Paige
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
DR. ELIZABETH BENJAMIN
Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Benjamin took over the helm of Grady Memorial Hospital’s trauma unit in August 2020, five months into the pandemic, and she quickly proved herself a leader.
A gifted surgeon in one of the busiest trauma centers in the country, Benjamin was tasked with overseeing Grady’s verification as a level 1 trauma center, a process that was delayed by the pandemic.
“She walked into a very complicated administrative nightmare, and she walked into it unexpectedly, and had to take the reins and didn’t miss a beat,” said Dr. Keith Delman, chief of surgery for Emory at Grady.
The hospital not only passed the renewal process, which occurs every three years, but also was not cited for a single deficiency.
It was no surprise to Benjamin’s mentor, Dr. Demetrios Demetriades, long-time director of trauma, emergency surgery and surgical critical care at Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center. He recruited her in 2012 as a surgeon specializing in trauma and acute care surgery, and even then she stood out.
“She was very humble, but I could see behind the screen I was dealing with a superstar,” he said.
“Clinically as a surgeon, she was one of the most gifted trauma surgeons,” said Demetriades. “I have seen her operating under very difficult conditions when you have a patient bleeding to death. And she operates flawlessly — very precise and deliberate movements. She could handle the most difficult cases in the operating room without losing her cool.”
She’s also “the nicest person in the world,” said Demetriades. At Grady, Benjamin often stops to comfort visitors in distress or provide directions at the facility.
As a child growing up in New Jersey, Benjamin, 47, wanted to be a ballerina, but she also was interested in math and science. By the time she got to college, while she continued to dance, she “became really interested in how things work and how to fix things, and I think one thing lead to another.”
She was drawn to surgery and trauma surgery in particular.
“It’s tactile, and I liked that, that sort of working with my hands and that combination of judgment and decision making, needing to know a bunch of stuff but being able to apply it,” she said.
Grady commonly treats traumatic injuries including falls, car accidents and gun shot wounds. Over the past decade, the number of gunshot wounds has increased significantly, becoming a nightly occurrence and often involving multiple victims. Benjamin is helping launch a hospital-based violence intervention program that offers support and resources to gunshot victims and is ultimately designed to stop the cycle of violence.
Under Benjamin’s leadership, Grady was recently selected to serve as a training site for physicians and nurses serving on Army trauma teams. Benjamin will also be actively involved in a new study on car crashes involving pedestrians aimed at improving safety and reducing car crashes.
Benjamin, who has a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology, is considered an expert in quality improvement, and she has co-authored a resource on emergency trauma, which has been translated into several languages. A big, framed photograph of Benjamin hangs prominently at a large hospital in Shenzhen, China, where she once led training on trauma surgery.
“When somebody wakes up in the morning, you don’t expect to have trauma,” said Benjamin. “They don’t expect things to happen to them or their family member. We can’t do it for everybody, but we have this opportunity to take this horrible thing that’s happened and make it not so horrible. It’s very gratifying on the surgical side to try and do that.”
-- Helena Oliviero
