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Although Christine Abbate ’85, Dania Ahmad ’98, and Danielle DeVita ’04 graduated in three different decades, their paths have brought them together 75 miles away from Lafayette to Novità Communications in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Abbate is the principal of Novità, a public relations and marketing company that targets the domestic and international architecture and design industry. She earned an A.B. degree with a major in international affairs that focused on art history.
Prior to founding Novità in 1996, Abbate was director of marketing and promotion for the Italian Tile Center of the Italian Trade Commission. She has worked with several alumni and hosted externships and internships for Lafayette students.
She hired Ahmad in January 2004, and the two quickly realized they had much in common. Besides sharing the same alma mater, they had the same adviser, Ilan Peleg, Dana Professor of Government and Law, and a passion for design.
Ahmad, a senior account manager, had a double major in government & law and English. While at Lafayette, she studied abroad in Greece and interned with a public relations agency. The internship inspired her to enter the industry and she has been in the field of home-design public relations for the past six years. She has worked for such industry heavyweights as Allsteel, Alessi, Dornbracht, and most recently at LaForce & Stevens and Veeder & Perman.
In her spare time, Ahmad works with the Ibdaa’ Cultural Center in the Dheisheh Refugee camp, located near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, and assists in finding schooling for Palestinian students.
DeVita was first introduced to Abbate during an externship at Novità in 2002. She secured internships with the company the following two years. A double major in economics & business and Spanish, she also spent several months in Spain, learning about the language and culture and interning at a design-related store called Habitat in Madrid.
As an account executive at Novità, DeVita focuses on a Ceramic Tiles of Italy account and works closely with the Italian Trade Commission, as well as assisting with coordination of the Brooklyn Designs annual trade show.