Management Team

Michael Epstein (Director, Founder, CEO)
Michael Epstein is the founder of Untravel Media and started working in this field in 2004 with a highly-publicized mobile narrative project in Venice, Italy in partnership with MIT, Dell and the European Union. The tour highlighted new forms of location-based storytelling, featuring documentary vignettes set in backstage areas of this tourist destination. From that project Michael formed the framework for Untravel Media, where he now runs the day-to-day operations and directs their client productions. Michael has a range of international experiences starting as a high school exchange student in Seville, teaching at an international school in Rabat, and becoming a Professor at age 23 in a dodgy med school in the Caribbean. Michael is fluent in three languages, was a reporter on NPR's “Morning Edition” and the author of two Macromedia books on classroom use of multimedia. Michael holds an M.S. in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a B.A. in Science, Technology, and Society from Vassar College.

Media and Research Team

Silvia Vergani (Market Research Specialist)
Silvia, an avid traveler, first started to investigate the tourism industry in Venice, Italy, where she worked for several years. Here she conducted research on mobile technologies for culture and tourism for the National Council of Research (CNR) and the Center for Studies on Technologies in Distributed Intelligence Systems (TeDIS) at Venice International University. She taught marketing and innovation as an adjunct professor at the Tourism Management course of University of Padova, Italy. She is currently pursuing a Master of Liberal Arts in Management from Harvard University. Silvia joined the Untravel team in 2005 to pilot test its first tour, realized in Venice with MIT, Dell and the Venice Art Biennale. Silvia supervises user studies for Untravel’s clients.

Caitlin Mailly (Graphic Design, UI) Caitlin Mailly is a Syracuse graduate with professional graphic, print, and web design experience. She has worked as a designer to Connecticut artist Karen Rossi as well as an in-house design department at Ryan Partnership in Wilton, CT. In 2005, she traveled throughout Europe and studied abroad in London for a semester. She is responsible for user interfaces and designs related to Untravel's web and mobile multimedia productions.

Laura Piraino (Production, Animation) Laura Piraino is a Boston based filmmaker with a passion for visual story telling. She is a recent graduate of the Massachusetts College of Art and Design where she earned her BFA in Animation. Upon graduating Laura received the 2008 Morton R. Godine travel grant from MassArt. She spent a summer abroad in Thailand traveling, volunteering and researching for an independent animation project. Her most current work explores documentary style animation, and has screened in film festivals all over the world including Ottawa International Animation Festival, Bradford Animation Festival, Laputa International Animation Festival, Neufchateau International Animation Festival, Chicago Short Film Brigade, Honolulu Film Festival (Winner of Gold Kahuna Excellence Award) and the NYC Animation Block Party (Winner of Best Documentary Short).

Board and Advisors

Eric Stange (Director) Eric Stange is an award-winning independent documentary film producer, director and writer who specializes in history and science subjects. His work has been broadcast on PBS, The Discovery Channel, and the BBC. Before becoming a filmmaker he wrote about about art and culture for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic Monthly, The Independent (London), and other publications. Eric is the Executive Producer and Director of Spy Pond Productions.