AUTHORS

STEFANIE MERCADO ALTMAN

Stefanie Mercado Altman—Stefanie was born to her mother Rosa Mercado in the Bronx, NY in 1991. When Stefanie was three months old, they moved into a residence for families with AIDS developed by Claire Altman and her not-for-profit organization.

Four years later,  Stefanie’s mother asked Claire and her husband Stan to become Stefanie’s guardian upon her death. Rosa died in 1996 when Stefanie was five years old. Custody of Stefanie was shared between her mother’s partner and the Altmans until 2002 when her mother’s partner died, and the Altman’s adopted Stefanie.

 Early on in life, Stefanie found her passions in art, reading, writing, riding horses, and musical theatre.  At eleven, Stefanie attended middle school at the Clinton School for Writers and Artists. At thirteen, Stefanie wrote a poem “A Racing Heart” about her birth mother, which was published in the Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans (1984).

Stefanie graduated from The Beacon School, one of NYC’s specialized high schools, and went on to attend Ithaca College pursuing a major in anthropology and a minor in writing, graduating cum laude. In college, she spent a semester abroad in a community health program in South Africa and chronicled this experience in her blog “Uthando: Being and Experiencing in Kwa-Zulu Natal.” 

Stefanie earned a Master’s of Science in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and now puts her education to work in the field of public health in New York City. Stefanie is active on LinkedIn and Instagram.

CLAIRE ALTMAN

Claire Altman— Claire, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, moved to New York City after college at St. Louis University where she majored in political science. In New York City, Claire obtained a masters’ degree in urban affairs at NYU and worked as an intern at the Fortune Society, the first “ex-offender” help organization in NYC. That sparked her interest in helping people released from jail/prison find employment. While earning a law degree at Fordham University, she continued this work at the Vera Institute of Justice creating a para transit service for the elderly and handicapped staffed by ex-offenders (Access-A-Ride), a day labor construction project and a vocational services project.

 Claire went on to create a not-for-profit organization, Housing & Services, Inc., which she headed for 19 years developing 3500 units of low-cost housing in New York City and in Dade County, Florida for a range of populations in need. Claire has written widely in real estate and affordable and supportive housing journals and newspapers The residence to which Rosa Mercado and her daughter Stefanie came in 1991 was one of these developments. Rosa’s request that Stan and Claire become Stefanie’s guardians and their agreement to do so took their lives in a different direction - raising a five-year old who had just lost her mother.

Claire continued her professional career in affordable housing development and leadership of not-for-profit organizations, ReServe Elder Services, Health Care Chaplaincy and Volunteers of America – Greater New York.

 Claire has published widely in the fields of affordable housing and health and is active on Linked in.

STAN ALTMAN

Stan Altman—  is a native New Yorker, who grew up in the South Bronx in a working-class family. His path out of the inner city began with his gaining admission to NYC’s Stuyvesant High School, one of NYC’s select high schools, and then to the City College of New York, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. Stan married after college and moved to California to work in the aerospace industry. Recognizing that this work was not his passion, he accepted a fellowship at Purdue University where he studied systems engineering, following that with earning a PhD  at the then NY Polytechnic Institute (now NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering). Stan began his teaching career at the City College of New York.His first son was born in 1966. He joined the Princeton University faculty in 1968 shortly before his second son was born. After two  years at Princeton, he was offered a associate professorship in 1970 at the State University at Stony Brook on Long Island.

Stan continued in a variety of academic and administrative roles at Stony Brook for the next 29 years and married Claire in 1983.  In 1987, Stan was asked to conduct a study of the housing needs of persons with HIV/AIDS, which led to  raising funds for housing for persons with AIDS. The $10,000 he raised became the first dollars invested in the Highbridge-Woodycrest Center (a $16 million residence for mothers and their children which Claire’s organization completed in 1991). This is where Claire met Rosa Mercado, Stefanie’s mother, and Stefanie. In 1995, Stan and Claire agreed to become Stefanie’s guardians and then to adopt and raise her which has been a labor of love ever since. Stan’s career continued in higher education both teaching and in administration, moving to Baruch College in NYC in 1999 as the Dean of the School of Public Affairs. In 2009, Stan served as Interim President of Baruch College for a year and then returned to teaching, launching innovative projects such as the Rubin Museum-Baruch College Project, CUNY-IBM-Watson Social Impact Challenge – teaching students how to develop solutions to NYC problems using IBM’s Watson AI technology, and a US Department of State grant on climate change.

In 2020, Stan moved his faculty appointment to The City College of New York in Harlem  where he dedicates his time to developing and implementing programs that engage and support Black and Latinx youth in pursuing educational and career pathways in the STEM fields.  These include the Harlem Gallery of Science, The Gaming Pathways Program- the first public access bachelor’s degree program in digital game. development at City College, and launched a major exhibition: Digital Games: The Great Connector that opened to the public February 3, 2024 and ran for 8-weeks.. Admission was Free.

Stan has published widely in his fields of systems science, management, computer engineering, and higher education. He is active on LinkedIn.