- Formally trained in ballet and tap from childhood through young adulthood. Former competitive gymnast, cheerleading Captain, track and field MVP in high school at Norfolk Academy, where she was also a friend and prom date of fellow filmmaker William Perry Moore IV (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak), now sadly deceased.
Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) and Mr. Moore IV also served together as student volunteers on an Operation Smile Medical Mission to the Philippines during the Winter of 1988.
Fellow schoolmates (high school contemporaries) include Kira Snyder, Fabien Cousteau, Céline Cousteau (also a fellow member of the gymnastics team with Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham)), Glenn Youngkin, and Marc Short. - From December 1998 to January 2000, Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) was Office Manager, Production Manager, and an Associate Producer at Moxie Firecracker Films, a documentary film production company founded by Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award winning filmmakers Liz Garbus (The Farm: Angola, USA; What Happened, Miss Simone?) and Rory Kennedy (Last Days in Vietnam; Ghosts of Abu Ghraib), New York. During the year 2000, she was an Intern for Emmy Award and Peabody Award winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords; The Murder of Emmett Till; Freedom Riders), a MacArthur Fellow and Co-Founder of Firelight Media, along with his wife, Writers Guild of America Award winning and Emmy Award nominated filmmaker Marcia Smith (The Murder of Emmett Till; Wounded Knee).
- 2007, Berlinale Talent Campus (now "Berlinale Talents"), Berlin, Germany.
- 1999-2000, Committee Member, inaugural Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition Summer Film Series (now Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy "Movies with a View"), Brooklyn, New York. In addition to advisory contribution, collaborated on the production of "A Park Grows In Brooklyn", an educational film and public service announcement for the then Coalition and Film Series, with fellow Committee Member and award-winning Producer, Lisa Cortes (Precious; Kwaku Ananse).
- 2001, Intern, Le Festival international du film contre l'exclusion et pour la tolérance (FIFET!), founded by Claudine Drame, and then sponsored by UNESCO, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France and Durban, South Africa. Helped plan and manage FIFET! participation in the Film Festival Against Racism at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) on site in Durban, South Africa (with the co-sponsorship of Le Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples (MRAP)).
2006-2008, Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) worked with Ms. Drame, an historian and expert on the representation of the Shoah in cinema, on various projects related to FIFET! and the publication of her non-fiction work, "Des films pour le dire, reflets de la Shoah au cinéma, 1945-1985" (Les Éditions Métropolis, Prix Henri-Hertz, 2007), along with accompanying Holocaust survivor interviews, several of which Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) personally translated from filmed French language survivor interviews to English transcript, and accompanying visual aids, Paris, France. The feature-length documentary film accompanying the 2007 final publication of Ms. Drame's non-fiction historical work in DVD format is entitled, "Témoignages pour Mémoire" ("Testimony for Memory"). - 1997-1998, Intern, Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division, and, subsequently, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, where she worked directly for fellow filmmaker Bruni Burres (then Director), Heather Harding (then Associate Director), and John Anderson (then Associate Director), New York. While interning for the HRWIFF, Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) also worked on the FilmWatch initiative, a program advocating for the rights of filmmakers around the world who suffer abuse due to the political nature of their work.
- 1999-2000, Member and Content Co-ordinator, inaugural FilmAid International Advisory Committee, New York. Helped organize FilmAid's very first mission, to Macedonia. Responsible for proposing, securing, and arranging for the viewing of film content for refugee audience screenings. Worked with, and learned from, FilmAid Founder and Producer, Caroline Baron, FilmAid Global Artist Council Member and Filmmaker, Mira Nair, and FilmAid Advisory Committee Member, Mahen Bonetti, Founder and Executive Director of the African Film Festival.
- 1997, Film Researcher, Archive Films (now Getty Images), New York.
- 1998, Intern, Department of Public Information (now Department of Global Communications), Media Division, United Nations Headquarters, New York. Researched, logged and compiled footage of the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, including footage of the historic trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, one of the first international figures to be indicted and sentenced for the commission of rape as a War Crime.
- 2000, Panelist, "Documentary Film Funding and Distribution / Digital Media", Urbanworld Film Festival, New York.
- Sorority sister (and pledge class sister) of filmmaker Tavin Marin Titus (Who Killed the Electric Car?) and fine artist Tjasa Owen.
- Member, The Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. Notable members include Edgar Allan Poe, President Woodrow Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson (Honorary), President James Madison (Honorary), Gilbert du Motier - The Marquis de Lafayette (Honorary), William Faulkner (Honorary) and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Honorary).
- 1991, Summer Sales Associate, Rock Shop, Hard Rock Cafe (Mayfair), London, England. Danced with co-workers at The Wag Club. Chilled at MTV parties when MTV was still "the first man on the moon". Got surprised at work by Peter Morton, the Founder and Chairman of the company, and his family "undercover" and didn't have a clue; Ms. Anderson-Avraham (then, Ms. Anderson) sold them a great mound of Hard Rock 20th anniversary pins, T-shirts, leather jackets and other mementos with a smile, and made them and her Manager very happy (to her sincere joy and relief "after the fact").
Saw Luciano Pavarotti live in Hyde Park in the rain, and then dried herself off to "Rhythm-a-Ning" at Palookaville in Covent Garden, where she was "taken under the wing" of the charming Maître D' who spoke 10 languages, but never revealed where he was from...Stepped it up at Carnival in Notting Hill.
Watched Shakespeare in the "open air" in Regent's Park. Sipped shandy and cider at the White Horse Pub in Parsons Green. - Daughter of Dr. Abraham St. Aubyn Anderson, graduate of Howard University College of Medicine, a Caribbean-born scientist, humanitarian, award-winning physician and Clinical Faculty at Eastern Virginia Medical School who dedicated his life to providing healthcare to underserviced communities in the coastal Southern United States. As a physician who long defended a woman's right to choose, including in America, although he was not an American citizen, Dr. (Abraham) Anderson survived three targeted terrorist murder attempts on his life by extremist domestic pro-life political activists, in addition to the other forms of violent harassment suffered by him, his (former) wife, and children, and served as an expert witness in several landmark legal cases in which similar attacks had been made on the lives of other pro-choice physicians in the United States, some of whom sadly lost their lives.
- As indicated by her life experiences, Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) has an extremely diverse family history, which she embraces in its totality as a Musta'arabi/Misrahi/Sepharadi Jewish woman of color with Northern and Sub-Saharan African, Caribbean, European, Latin American, Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern heritage and migrations, physically born in America, spiritually born in Israel.
- Niece, by marriage, to Ethiopian-born nurse practitioner, designer and benefactor of the Azezo Hospital in Northern Ethiopia (near Gondar), art collector and humanitarian, Emawayish Gerima, wife of her (Ms. Anderson-Avraham's) uncle by birth, Caribbean-born intellectual, inventor, artist, humanitarian and physician, Dr. Bernard Bradley Anderson, and sister of Ethiopian-born internationally acclaimed filmmaker, artist and intellectual, Halie Gerima, Howard University Professor and founder of the Sankofa Café and Bookstore in Washington, DC.
- Descendant, by adoption, of African-American and Native-American entrepreneur (largely acknowledged as the wealthiest American of color of his day), sea captain, abolitionist, advocate for African-American repatriation to Africa (Sierra Leone), and Quaker philanthropist Paul Cuffee (one of the few African-American silhouettes hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) and his descendant Hillary ("Hilry") Cuffee, an African-American and Native-American Civil War Veteran raised in the American South, but who chose to fight valiantly for the Union.
- Descendant, by birth, of French, British and Scottish European aristocracy and landed gentry, founders and owners of sugar plantations in the New World; Sub-Saharan Africans prohibited from recording their histories of origin in the New World, forced to work as slaves on sugar plantations; and Syrian and Moroccan Musta'arabi/Misrahi/Sepharadi Jews who came to the Americas (North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean) during the colonial periods, in Sepharadi flight from the Spanish Inquisition, during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and during the Baghdadi Jewish and Sepharadi Middle Eastern migrations (by way of India and Latin America) of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
- Politically Moderate Independent, Centre-Right Conservative leaning on some issues. Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) has identified in the past as a Conservative Democrat, Independent Conservative, and Centre-Right Republican.
- Multilingual / Polyglot; the languages which Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) speaks being almost entirely preservation of familial heritage.
- Niece, by birth, to Caribbean-born intellectual, inventor, artist, humanitarian and physician, Dr. Bernard Bradley Anderson, graduate of Howard University College of Medicine, designer and benefactor of the Azezo Hospital in Northern Ethiopia (near Gondar), and University of Gondar Professor. Niece, by birth, to Caribbean-born Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientist, professor, intellectual, artist and activist, Dr. Winston Anthony Anderson, Howard University graduate and Professor Emeritus, Brown University graduate, creator of the Sandy Spring Slave Museum and Art Gallery.
- Loves to read, as well as write, and does so in multiple languages. Supports a number of literacy causes.
- Musical instruments of familial heritage include voice, the piano, the guitar, the oud, the mandolin, the clarinet, the cello, the flute, and the violin. Ms. Anderson's (Ms. Anderson-Avraham's) paternal grandmother was completely (and beautifully) fluent in four of these instruments. A paternal "aunt", with whom she also studied and deepened her love of piano as a child, was an accomplished concert pianist who studied at The Juilliard School in New York City and the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Her longtime and dedicated piano teacher from childhood through young adulthood, Mrs. Shomier, who gave lessons in a renovated red barn, was also very well-loved.
- 1997-1998, Intern, Asset Pictures, founded by award-winning filmmaker Tessa Blake (Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me), New York.
- Pro-choice.
- While traveling in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in April-May 2006 in order to learn more about, and make deeper connections with, the Arabic language media industry and visual arts communities in the Middle East, and under the auspices of the Cultural Attaché of the United States Embassy in Qatar, Ms. Anderson-Avraham (then Ms. Anderson) attended the Second Symposium on Innovations in Education in Doha, co-sponsored by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, a private non-profit organization chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, and UNESCO. This three-day Symposium "brought together teachers from across the Arab world, leading international experts, and education specialists in a series of panels and debates on access to technology, education, and democratic participation" (UNESCO). During the course of the Symposium, she was honored to attend a Gala event at which Her Highness Sheika Moza formally addressed attendees on the issues presented, at the core of Her Highness' charitable work.
- While living and working in New York City in the late 1990's, Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) read and critiqued both fiction and non-fiction feature film scripts for Moxie Firecracker and several other independent film companies based in SoHo. She also worked at the Angelika Film Center & Café, and temped at Condé Nast, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and a financial company housed in the original World Trade Center.
- 2000, Ms. Anderson (Ms. Anderson-Avraham) began working as a Freelance Producer in New York City as "Abeng Media". This name was inspired by Caribbean author Michelle Cliff's celebrated coming-of-age novel, "Abeng", referencing the Twi word (of the Akan people of Ghana) for the conch shell used by Jamaican Maroons to speak in code with one another as they rebelled against their British enslavers.
- 2020, Contractor / Case Manager, Coronavirus Relief Project, Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program, Rapid Triage Team, US Small Business Administration, Washington, DC and Fort Worth, TX. Later, in 2022-2023, during the tail-end of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Anderson-Avraham also worked as a Contractor / Provider Services Advocate for a Medicare Administrative Contractor.
- In late 1997, Ruth Rachel Anderson-Avraham (then Ms. Anderson) turned down an offer to work as an Assistant to the Producers on Marc Levin's Brooklyn Babylon (2001) in order to collaborate with Michael Drosnin on "Code", the screenplay adaptation of Drosnin's second New York Times Best-Seller, The Bible Code (Simon & Schuster,1997). She had been offered the opportunity to work on each project - both treating religious themes - within days of one another, and simply took the job offer which came first.
- Ms. Anderson-Avraham (then Ms. Anderson) was also among those Harvard Law School and metro-Boston-area students participating in the Blackout Arts Collective empowering communities of color through the Arts, an initiative founded in 1997 by artists, intellectuals, and community organizers in New York City, to which she contributed primarily during the years 2000-2003.
- Committed to the cause of increasing financial literacy, especially among children and young adults from marginalized communities.
- 2022, Community Organizer, KBJ for SCOTUS, as a former Harvard Law School One-L classmate of Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice to the United States Supreme Court.
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