About

Rufus Griscom co-founded Babble with his wife, Alisa Volkman, in December 2006. Prior to that, Rufus co-founded Nerve.com in 1997 and served as the website’s first editor and CEO. In the decade that followed, Rufus grew Nerve Media into a profitable website and online dating business, in the process spinning off Spring Street Networks, an online dating technology company that was acquired in 2005. Rufus serves as an advisor to several New York-based internet companies and sporadically updates his blog, Moments in Succession. Rufus graduated from Brown University in 1991 and has three sons, Declan, Grey, and Rye, with his wife, Alisa.

Alisa Volkman co-founded Babble with her husband, Rufus Griscom, in December 2006. In her capacity as Senior Director of Product and Sales Strategy, influences product development, and leads a team that creates and sells innovative custom advertising programs for leading brands like Proctor & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Target, Hewlett Packard, Playtex and American Express. As as result, sales have more than tripled annually for three consecutive years.

Before launching Babble, Alisa served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Nerve.com, where she grew advertising into Nerve’s largest source of revenue and prior to that was a story editor at Julia Roberts’s Shoelace Productions, an assignment editor at CNN and a development assistant at Oliver Stone’s Illusion Entertainment.

Alisa and Rufus have three sons, Declan, Grey and Rye.

Ramon Vinluan has 14 years of experience in such diverse fields as online media, media and tech corporate banking, public relations, government affairs and risk management. He was previously a Vice President in Citi’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications group. He received a degree in theater directing from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he was student body president. Ramon has been a celebrity judge for the Miss Washington USA pageant and is both an accomplished singer and the proud uncle of 3-year-old Maya.

Jack Murnighan is a devoted dad of two boys. He also happened to engender, among others, the book Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature’s 50 Greatest Hits, a guide to enjoying the classics no parent has time for.

Catherine Connors is a recovering academic, absentee Canadian and unrepentant mommy blogger. She’s the founder and author of HerBadMother.com, one of the Internet’s original ‘bad mother’ blogs, and one of the top-ranked mom blogs on Babble’s annual list of same. In a previous life, she taught political philosophy, which means that she can translate Goodnight, Moon into Latin and work Socrates into a conversation about sleep-training, although she really tries to avoid doing those things in polite company. She left Toronto and her sippy-cup-strewn home office to join Babble as Director of Community and Social Good in 2011, and only misses Canadian bacon sometimes.

A lead guitarist, filmmaker, wannabe sci-fi author and emerging veggie chef, Vora Vor, after a decade of hard web engineering wins and losses, hurled herself into Babble in 2011 as the Director of Technology and Development.

Andrea Zimmerman is from Chicago, IL, home of the Cubs and deep-dish pizza. Before coming to Babble, Andrea worked for Glamour, lemondrop.com, and many of Meredith’s custom publications. She graduated from Drake University and lives in the Upper East Side. Follow her on Twitter @azimm (she announces blogger openings!), Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+.

Dara Pettinelli grew up in the ‘burbs of Philly and now calls New York home. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, More, Philadelphia, and Billboard, among others. She believes that reality television is real, candy is a food group and that writing is fun.

Lindsay Hood found her way to Babble after four years with MTV Networks. Prior to becoming the Blog Coordinator, she created, edited and contributed to mtvU’s Music Blog, writing about indie music and going to concerts for free. She has appeared in The New York Post and Lovelyish.com and her work has been featured on The Hairpin. In her downtime, she liked to practice yoga and hang out with her honorary niece, Layla.

Alexandra Martell is a blog coordinator and sandwich expert. She has written for The Hairpin and New York Weddings and worked at New York Magazine’s website and ElleDecor.com. Her first journalism job, however, involved making newsletters on the photocopier at her mom’s office at age six and selling them for quarters for the vending machine. She spends her free time going out to restaurants, watching far too much television, and pining for a puppy.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Corinne Bagish migrated to New York to attend NYU and never left (can you blame her?). After graduating, she ventured into the working world as a community editor at Yahoo! before finding her way to Babble. When she’s not coordinating blogs and whatnot, she writes about indie music. And, when she’s not doing either, she enjoys a good bagel, frolicking in Central Park, and watching embarrassing ghost hunting shows.

Dana Vogel is a blog coordinator at Babble and a 2011 Penn graduate. Before joining Babble as an intern in May 2012, Dana interned at Redbook magazine and a handful of newspapers. Her likes include spin classes, Pilates, mexican food, Law and Order: SVU, bargain hunting and hot sauce. Her dislikes include contact sports, dirt and leaving Manhattan.

Andrea Roxas got her start in online media as an editorial intern for Babble and has since stuck around. She recently lit her oven on fire in an attempt to make something from Pinterest (lesson learned: bread REALLY rises). Somehow her friends and coworkers got into the habit of calling her anything but “Andrea.” She will not publicly disclose what they actually call her.

Jennifer Gimbel left the sunshine of Florida to study Arts Administration at Wagner College on Staten Island. She’s happy to inform you that she’s since made the big move to Brooklyn. When she’s not rocking out to country music, you can find Jenn [unknowingly] singing in public, nabbing the best sales at Target, and [innocently] stalking The All-American Rejects. And while America runs on Dunkin, Jenn runs on Red Bull … lots of it.

After spending the first 21 years of her life under Florida’s sunny skies and flip-flop-infested beaches, Melinda Carstensen migrated north to make it as a journalist in The Big Apple. Before landing a gig at Babble, she dabbled in newspaper writing, and interned at national mags like SELF and Weight Watchers Magazine. When she’s not writing and editing, she’s noshing on Thai food, half-seriously hanging with the hipsters in Brooklyn, and brainstorming clever name ideas for her future English bulldog.

Reece Karbowski is a Michigan-native, college dropout, and pizza enthusiast. His heroes include Jon Stewart, Anthony Bourdain, Sal Khan, and Barney Greengrass. Give Reece a bagel and he will give you a hug.

Rachel Coleman is a North Carolina native who already feels like a New Yorker at heart. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in journalism in 2012, she joined the Babble team and developed a newfound love for Pinterest and cute babies. When she’s not working, you can find her shoe shopping, stalking celebs in NYC, and planning her next tropical vacation.

After a long stint at the Village Voice as a print production artist, Chris Chaput took his talents online via the stomachs of hungry college students nationwide as a designer at Campusfood.com and then GrubHub.com. When he’s not working, he’s probably riding up a long hill on a bicycle somewhere or digging holes in his family’s vegetable garden with the help of his wife and their over-sized Chihuahua.

Lisa Puttagio has worked in the design field for almost 8 years after having positions in marketing and event production. She’s admittedly a Mets fan, as hard as it may be, and enjoys baking, cute kittens and anything delightfully vintage.

Kayiu Ho grew up eating Chupa Chups and has moved around quite a bit since she was a teen. While she still considers Hong Kong home, New York is clearly now her home away from home. When she’s not at Babble, she’s in her kitchen cooking up a storm for her food blog. She currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and rides her bike “The Praying Mantis.”

Ellie Kibbe, originally from the suburbs mean streets of Cleveland, moved to New York City to study graphic design. After graduating from FIT in 2011, she interned and freelanced for editorial websites such as Portable and Nerve. She’s in her happy place when walking over the Williamsburg Bridge, doodling on loose sheets of paper, or being nose deep in any free food sent to the office — seriously, it’s a problem.

Cassie Boorn is the Blogger Development Manager at Babble.com, where she works with the editorial and advertising teams to create new revenue streams that support the goals of Babble bloggers. Cassie is the founder of popular blog, As a PR Girl where she explores the intersection of blogging and PR. Her writing has been featured on the New York Times, Forbes, Chicago Tribune and NPR: All Things Considered.

Valerie Lai graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a dual degree in Journalism and Liberal Arts before making the leap to New York. She joined Babble as an editorial intern before crossing over into sales. You can often find her prepping for a half marathon, watching zombie movies, or planning her next big expedition (next up: Iceland!). She counts dog sledding as her favorite life experience so far.

Barbara Leung comes to Babble as another absentee Canadian, having spent the last several years in New York and Paris. She recently graduated from New York University with a B.S., double majoring in French and communications. When she’s not at Babble, she can be found working on other projects (for the greater good, of course) or just hanging around the city. And, hey, if you follow her on Twitter, you’ll quickly notice that she spells many words with an added “u” and often ends sentences with a tell-tale “eh?“.

Before joining the team at Babble, Tim Brodwater worked in Atlantic City on the promotions/marketing team for Townsquare Media. After working with Gawker Media and a short stint with the popular blog White Girl Problems, this Jersey boy fell in love with the Big Apple and decided to make the move up (reppin’ the Jersey City side of course). Tim graduated from Temple University with two Bachelor degrees in Broadcast Journalism and Theater.

Tony Christensen graduated from Arizona State University where he studied Accounting. Originally from New Jersey, he is excited to be back on the east coast and in New York where his favorite food, pizza, can be found on every corner. Tony is an avid fan of the New York Giants and Rangers, and always on the hunt for new music.

Aaron Bernstein was born-and-raised in upstate New York and attended the University of Vermont, both of which taught him to love everything about being outdoors. For some yet-to-be-explained reason he decided to move to New York City and start working in the online world. Although he is happiest in the mountains, Aaron is quite content in the city and is proud to call himself a Babbler.

Jim Williams is older than he looks, younger than he feels, and has absolutely no idea how to act his age. His name makes him pretty darn Google-proof, thank heaven. He is wondering if this bio is required to be written in the third person, or can I switch to first right here in the middle? I grew up in New Jersey, write songs and computer games for fun and profit, and got a 5 on my Calculus AP test, and I’m sure that I could be a movie star if I could get out of this place.

Joey Dehnert is an interface developer with a web design background. He started doing graphic design in 2005 and has been doing web development since 2006, mainly working in advertising and lead generation. Outside of web development he co-founded The Positive Change Project, a non profit that provides basic necessities like food, water and shelter to those in need. He also loves home-brewing, surfing and farm-to-table restaurants.

Je Suis Encrateia doesn’t consider it tedious to get up in the morning to go to work because he loves what he does and would be doing it whether he got paid or not (in fact, he offers his services pro bono for causes he finds close to heart, such as animal rescue and vegan education). When he can manage to find the time, he works on his own site. A life-long vegan (that still somehow despises salad), he enjoys bad horror movies and takes trips to Germany and California whenever he can.

Kyle Edwards was raised in a puny town in northern Florida famous for its prize-winning dairy farms and sweet tea. Before moving to New York, he worked as the web editor and editorial intern for INsite Magazine and the North Central Florida Business Report, where he was paid handsomely with gift cards, and as the managing editor of a pop culture blog that you’ve never heard of. Kyle spends his free time commuting.

Dexter Mills is a seasoned IT Professional with 7 years experience building and maintaining networks for media, publishing and entertainment companies. When he’s not working, he dabbles in graphic design and illustration and enjoys watching movies. He loves him a mean cheesecake.

Kelli Mears is an ex-pat from the great Lone Star state, where she earned a B.A. in psychology at the University of North Texas. She has overwhelming and startling addictions to peanut butter, pizza, and social media (but not all at the same time). She has never peeled an orange and wants to be a ballerina or an otter when she grows up.