BIOGRAPHY FELLOW 2009 – 2010

Mary Lisa Gavenas

For a biography on Mary Kay Ash

Mary Lisa Gavenas was a columnist at ELLE and served as senior editor at Glamour, In Style, and Mirabella; she writes for the academic and popular press. Following publication of Color Stories: Behind the Scenes in America’s Billion-Dollar Beauty Industry, she became a consultant on the beauty industry. As a Leon Levy fellow she worked on a biography of Mary Kay Ash, which had its genesis in the Mary Kay Ash entry she wrote for the American National Biography encyclopedia published by Oxford University Press.