TFT BOD
TFT’s Board of Directors is committed to supporting both the Pilates and Breast Cancer communities. They aim to make TFT an industry-wide event that supports those impacted breast cancer.
Melissa Miles, Founder & President
Melissa has taught Classical Pilates since 2009 and Holistic Health Coaching since 2010. She is currently a Lead Trainer at Real Pilates in NYC and owner of Melissa Miles Wellness.
A breast cancer survivor since 2014, Melissa has served as Pilates instructor at Mount Sinai Hospital’s Dubin Breast Center since completing her treatment there in 2016.
She founded TFT to bring the Pilates and Breast Cancer communities together to fund hospitals and organizations that provide free wellness services to Patients, Survivors, Pre-vivors and Thrivers.
Email: mmiles@teasersfortatas.org
Alycea Ungaro, Secretary
Published authority on fitness and wellness and a pioneer of the Pilates method, Alycea Ungaro brought some of the very first mat Pilates classes to New York City. Both the method and Alycea built a devoted following as people flocked to her classes.
Alycea has expanded her popular Pilates classes into a fitness media empire. Her first multi-media project was the innovative Portable Pilates™, an easy-to-use at-home mat workout. Best selling titles followed including; Pilates: Body in Motion, The Pilates Promise and The Pilates Practice Companion, Alycea’s most comprehensive book. Her 15 Minute Everyday Pilates was an international bestseller. A new edition of Pilates: Body in Motion was released in 2019 a re-worked version of 15-Minute Everyday Pilates was released in 2020.
In addition to her Pilates expertise, Ungaro is a licensed Physical Therapist having graduated from New York University’s prestigious program. She holds a Masters in Applied Clinical Nutrition as well as a certification in Peri-natal exercise and is a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher. In 2024 she was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Pilates Certification Program.
Her commitment to the industry led her to create her comprehensive Pilates Teacher Training program where she shares the method as she learned it directly from her teacher, Joseph Pilates’ protege’, Romana Kryzanowska. The Real Pilates Teacher Training program is now conducted internationally and has graduated hundreds of professional Pilates instructors around the globe.
Geralyn Lucas, Treasurer
Geralyn Lucas was only 27 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Shaking the foundations of her world, she was faced with the harrowing decision of whether or not to undergo a mastectomy. She shares her incredible journey in her memoir, Why I Wore Lipstick: To My Mastectomy.
Having been diagnosed at an early age, Lucas thought it was important to share her story with others to help dispel the myth that breast cancer discriminates by age. Filled with courage, humor, and inspirational candor, Why I Wore Lipstick: To My Mastectomy details Lucas’ internal struggle and soul searching to rediscover her “inner cleavage” after losing a key female-defining characteristic and feel sexy and whole once again.
Having gained wide praise as an author and inspirational speaker, SELF magazine said Lucas’ “honest, funny and courageous account of facing down the disease is both inspiring and entertaining, and readers who know anyone going through treatment will love this singularly upbeat account.” Inspired by Lucas’ book, dress designer and breast cancer survivor Betsey Johnson designed a T-shirt to promote Why I Wore Lipstick: To My Mastectomy; cosmetic company Stila created a lipstick called Geralyn; and The Young Breast Cancer Survivor Foundation and Zeta Tau Alpha Foundation both endorsed the book.
Lucas’ message is not just for women who have experienced the effects of cancer. "This is a universal story for women," she says, "A lot of people say going through a serious illness makes you look deeply at who you are, and that can be true. But you don’t have to have breast cancer to do that."
Lucas was an editorial producer at ABC News for 20/20 before joining Lifetime Television as a producer and head of the Stop Breast Cancer for Life initiative. She lives in New York City with her husband, Tyler, and their two children. Skye, her eldest child, was born in the same hospital where Lucas had her mastectomy.
Harmony Boatwright, Director
Owner of Grace Pilates + Yoga in New Orleans, Harmony fell in love with yoga and after practicing for two years, she decided to take the Yoga teacher training. She loved the way that yoga calmed her mind, challenged her body and connected her to the breath. She knew that she wanted to hold space for others in this same way. While in yoga training, she started taking Pilates privates twice a week and absolutely loved the way that she felt during and after her sessions. A year after her yoga training, she decided to take the Real Pilates Teacher training in the fall of 2018.
She loves to help her clients along their wellness journey. Harmony has a great rapport with all of her clients. She loves to watch their bodies change and their confidence in themselves grow. Harmony never stops learning new facets of both modalities and is certified to teach beginner, restorative and pre-natal yoga. Harmony continues to grow her Pilates knowledge daily by observing her mentors and auditing cycles of the Real Pilates Teacher Training, and always gives her best to both her Pilates and yoga clients. If you know Harmony, you know Stormy her rescue boxer! You can catch her walking Stormy in Audubon Park, practicing yoga & Pilates, reading, watching movies or hang out with friends.
Jennifer Colandrea, Director
Jennifer has been teaching for over 15 years. She began studying Pilates as a modern dancer in college after a severe spinal injury. Within a few sessions, she quickly saw an increase in her strength and efficiency of movement and was able to return to dance full time.
Jennifer was a Creative and Performing Arts Full Scholarship student at the University of Maryland where she received a BFA in Dance. Upon graduation, she moved to NYC and worked in development at the School of American Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company and Elisa Monte Dance.
In 2009, with more than 600 apprentice hours completed, Jen became a classically trained Pilates instructor through Power Pilates in NYC, and its affiliate studio, and Beacon Pilates, under the direction of Juliet Harvey. She was a teacher at Beacon Pilates for ten years and more recently at the Brooklyn Pilates Project. Jennifer opened her own studio, The Garrison Bod Squad in 2019.
Jen’s teaching is influenced by a lifetime of movement study including classical ballet and modern dance, Pilates, Lagree Method, and yoga. With an eye for detail, students are offered clear instruction for a refined but challenging practice.
A mom of two children living in Garrison, NY, Jen has a particular interest in supporting women through breast cancer diagnosis and survivorship. As a breast cancer survivor, she credits Pilates with regaining full range of movement post surgery.
Kristen Davis, Director
In 2005, while (somewhat miserably) pursuing a PhD in Chicago, Kristen Davis booked a lesson at the Pilates studio across the street from her apartment. It was love at first Hundred. By 2007, she’d started first her comprehensive teacher training. By 2009, she’d said good-bye to academia to teach Pilates full time.
Since then, Kristen has studied extensively in the lineages of three of Mr Pilates’s students: Eve Gentry, Romana Kryzanowzka, and Kathy Grant. She is a Nationally Certified Pilates Teacher. Because Pilates is an unregulated industry, she believes it is critical to understand where and from whom exercise modifications and variations come, as well as when and why to teach them.
In 2021, Kristen and her business partner, Susan Bange, opened The Pilates Lab, St Louis’s first fully classical Pilates studio and host studio for Real Pilates Teacher Training.
Kristen serves as a Director for Teasers For Tatas in honor of her friend Lisa Lynch’s legacy.
Aimee Gordon, Director
Aimee resides in Lower Manhattan, where she teaches at her studio, Contrology Cathouse.
During her adolescence, Aimee was diagnosed with severe scoliosis requiring a spinal fusion. Following her surgery, Aimee sought out various exercise modalities in her attempt to live pain free, and she discovered that Pilates was the most comprehensive activity for building functional strength with an awareness on alignment while increasing mobility.
In 2018, Aimee was diagnosed at age 32 with Stage Ia breast cancer; however her devotion to the Pilates Method ensured an immediate recovery from a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction with no chronic pain and no limitations. In 2024, Aimee found her cancer had metastasized but because of Pilates, she continues to thrive - feeling perfectly healthy and living life as usual - with great enthusiasm regardless of ongoing treatment.
Aimee’s confidence in Pilates makes her so proud to join Teasers for Tatas as a board member. Pilates has provided the foundation for Aimee’s strength and work ethic, and Aimee is proof that the principles of Pilates can help any body become a better body. It is with great pleasure that she can help TFT bring Pilates to the greater breast cancer community with the goal that other patients can gain a sense of control over their bodies at a time when that control feels uncertain. Joseph Pilates said, “Be in control of your body rather than at its mercy,” and that is exactly what Pilates can do for anyone enduring a breast cancer diagnosis.