When Adrienne was seven years old, she published her first book, "The Pretty Girl Who Was Smart and the Beautiful Girl Who Was Stupid," and she hasn't stopped writing since.  Adrienne attended Princeton, majoring in English and creative writing; she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa...

Alix is a writer, playwright and performer born and raised in New York. After graduating from Brown University with her BA in the performing arts, she wrote, performed, and produced five solo shows which she toured throughout North America. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she followed love north,...

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Alyssa is happy to once again call Brooklyn home.  Alyssa attended Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights and then Williams College, where she majored in English and wrote a collection of short stories for her Honors Thesis, one of which won the Wainwright Award for best...

Born and raised in Hawaii, Amelia was excited to experience the snowy winters of rural Vermont when she started her undergrad degree at Middlebury College. Along with gradually figuring out how to layer, she fell in love with the Italian language. After spending a year abroad at the Università...

Andrew was born and raised in New York City, where he developed a love for history and English at museums and bookstores across Manhattan. Andrew graduated from Columbia University cum laude with a major in history and an English minor. In support of his history honors thesis on the...

Anna is a Harvard-educated linguist and historian and has taught Humanities at Boston College, Brown, Phillips Andover, Harvard, and MIT. She has tutored privately
for many years. While in college, Anna tutored middle-schoolers in remedial English and composition. After entering a graduate...

As an undergraduate at Wellesley College, Anne’s love of language and reading led her to double major in Linguistics and French. After a year studying abroad in the south of France, she was determined to spend many more years living à la française after she graduated. She taught English in two...

Becca is originally from the Boston area, where she received her BA from Tufts University in Political Science and Community Health. Following college, Becca joined Teach For America where she taught 6th-8th grade Special Education in the Greater Boston area. While in Teach For America, she...

Ben graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard with a degree in Literature and a secondary field in Computer Science. After contemplating life as a professional musician, he decided to go into legal research; these days, Ben studies how technologies like artificial intelligence are challenging...

Benjamin graduated summa cum laude with a 3.95 GPA from NYU, where his senior thesis earned him the Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Academic Achievement Award. Benjamin was also student editor of Mercer Street, a collection of NYU’s best undergraduate writing, and a writing tutor at NYU...

Blythe is a member of the Yurok Tribe; she is originally from McKinleyville, CA, and currently lives in Los Angeles. Blythe graduated from Dartmouth College in 2012 with a BA in Sociology. At Dartmouth, she was a Mellon Mays Fellow, won the national Beinecke scholarship as a junior and was one...

Bryan fell in love with literature and writing in high school, when he also felt his calling to help people grow through mentoring relationships. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, where he majored in English and Creative Writing and won three prizes for his scholarly and...

Caroline Dell is a Senior Associate Consultant in Bain & Company’s New York office. She joined Bain full-time in September 2013, after an internship during the summer of 2012.

Caroline graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Economics and Public Policy. While at Brown, she was...

Catherine is a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Wildlife Ecology at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. She has an undergraduate degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University, where she spent endless months counting Zebras on the plains of Africa and trees in...

Charlotte was born in Utah, grew up in England, and has lived in Mexico, Peru, and Chile. She holds a B.A. with first class honors and distinction in English and Spanish from Oxford University, an M.A. in Hispanic Studies from Brown, and a postgraduate certificate in translation from the...

Chris grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, where he developed an appreciation for the finer things in life, especially the music of Bruce Springsteen, the invaluable service of gas station attendants, and mozzarella cheese (pronounced “mootz-ah-rell,” or simply “muhtz”), though he has since...

Claire graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature and honors in nonfiction writing. She now holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the New York Academy of Art.

Claire has taught English literature at a high school in Athens, Greece, and...

Connor is a cofounder of an upcoming cryptography software project and the sole proprietor of a novel-in-progress. He grew up in Wyoming—his true loyalties are with the forests of the Snowy Range and the rock formations of Vedauwoo. He graduated from Duke in 2012 as an Angier B. Duke Memorial...

Daniel is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of five books of literary nonfiction.  He specializes in coaching students on their personal statements and other application essays, whether the goal is getting into a great college, grad school, or medical...

David grew up in Acton, MA, former home to Steve Carell and Big Bird (really—look it up!), where he also teaches. He’s a passionate parent, runner, musician, learner, reader, and writer. David has been a freelance writer for 15 years, interviewing people like Sia, Elvis Costello, and “Weird Al”...

Dilyn is originally from a cute mountain town – Golden, Colorado – that still thinks of itself as being “the Wild West.” She left her hometown to attend New York University, where she majored in English, minored in Spanish and studio art, and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Dilyn...

Eliza grew up on an educational farm in Western Massachusetts, The Farm School, and was milking cows before she could read. Then she picked up a book and started reading everything (and everywhere) she could. She majored in English at Bard College, where she won several awards for her academic...

Elizabeth is originally from southwest Michigan, but has moved around from St. Louis to rural Kentucky before finally ending up in Boston. Hailing from a road tripping family, she enjoys stocking up on podcasts for the long drive (all 14 hours) back to Michigan to visit family.  Elizabeth is a...

From a very young age, Elizabeth has been baking cookies, pies, and cakes. This love for baking stimulated her interest in chemistry. Elizabeth attended the University of Virginia and obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a specialization in biochemistry. At UVA, Elizabeth conducted...

Born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, Emily has spent most of her academic career on the East Coast, earning her B.A. in Slavic Studies from Columbia University in 2013 and her M.A. in Russian Literature from Harvard University in 2019. Emily has received numerous awards for her academic work,...

When Emma was fifteen, she started her own watercolor portrait business. Her favorite clients were the dogs. Always interested in life’s big questions, she spent her undergraduate years at Yale majoring in Religious Studies, contributing to a student-run journal that focused on the subject of...

Emmy did not learn how to read until third grade, many long months after her twin sister; and she has been making up for lost time ever since. An avid reader and book-worm (more like the Hungry Caterpillar of books), Emmy studied literature and the visual arts at Yale College, where she...

Erin Bartnett received her Masters in Modern & Contemporary Literature from the University of Virginia, and her Bachelors in English Literature with a concentration in Women's Literature from Rutgers University, summa cum laude.  She has taught and supported writing programs for students...

Evan’s enthusiasm for helping others with their writing began in the second grade, when he coached his friend Michael through the writing and illustration of a short book about a society of friendly rodents who lived beneath the stairs of a house. Evan attended The Evergreen State College in...

Hana Goldstone was born and raised in Southern California. She moved to New York City to attend Columbia University and has lived here ever since. As an undergraduate at Columbia, Hana double majored in sociology and dance. She graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and her...

Helena was born in New York City and then raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Raised by parents who are both teachers (at the high school she attended, no less), she has been engaged with reading, writing, and education quite literally since she can remember. She studied at Columbia University...

Despite her major, Janet did not learn how to speak English until she was 5-years-old when she moved to the United States from Taiwan. Janet graduated from Wellesley College with a dual major in Art History and English. After Wellseley, she went on to complete an MA in art history from the...

Jedd grew up in the college town of Ann Arbor, MI, making theater with his grade school classmates and swimming in the great lakes. He earned his BA in philosophy and education at Swarthmore College, where he was a Lang Scholar for civic engagement. He then went on to his Masters of Education at...

Jimmy is a J.D./Ph.D. student (Sociology & Social Policy) at Harvard University. Originally from Los Angeles, Jimmy graduated from Harvard College, magna cum laude, in 2014 with a degree in Social Studies and English. Following graduation, he spent a year doing political research for David...

Joani began her academic career in the small town of Princeton, NJ. She graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, with an A.B. in English Literature and minors in Humanistic and European Cultural Studies. As an undergraduate, she founded and led Princeton’s interdisciplinary Humanities...

Up until first being introduced to Donne in senior year of high school, John was firmly a science kid. In college, he began splitting his time between premed science and poetry classes at Amherst, and ended up graduating with a double major in Chemistry and English. His research focused on the...

Jordan grew up on the Southern California coast, where she spent most of her time on the beach with a book in her hands. She moved across the country to pursue her B.A. in English at Boston University. After graduating summa cum laude and receiving BU’s College Prize for Excellence in English,...

Julia grew up in New York City and attended Princeton University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in 2008. After college, she worked in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve access to healthcare in rural communities. She went on to Harvard Medical School and is currently...

June grew up in Southern California but spent two wonderful years at a boarding school in Delaware. She attended Boston College, majoring in History and graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She was the recipient of the Patrick Durcan Award, the history departmental...

Kate is extremely grateful to everyone in her life who embraces her philosopher’s tendency to respond to just about everything with “but wait, why do you think that?”. Kate developed this annoying habit at Gettysburg College, where she majored in Philosophy and English Literature. Reaching the...

When Keating read Suetonius’ biographies of the Roman emperors in high school, he realized that the ancient world was where he needed to be; barring a time machine, Classics offered the best means of entry. Keating went on to pursue his undergraduate studies in Classics at Columbia and Cambridge...

Kristen splits her time between central Connecticut and Princeton, New Jersey. After graduating from Colby College as salutatorian in 2014, with Honors in English and distinction in Sociology, Kristen decided to pursue a Ph.D. in English at Princeton, where she is currently working on a...

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Lana attended Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in International and Area Studies with a double minor in Korean and Russian. She graduated summa cum laude, going on to pursue a Master’s in Humanities at the University of Chicago and subsequently entering...

In third grade, Lucina taught long division crouched on the tiles of her school’s hallway; as her peers gained confidence, she sent them to teach others. She has seen teaching and learning as inextricable ever since, which is why she coaches students to become their own best teachers.

As...

Mallory grew up in New Jersey, which means she grew up listening to Bruce Springsteen and eating pizza on Long Beach Island. She carried her Jersey pride with her to Connecticut, where she attended The Hotchkiss School. There, she wrote and directed her first play, “A Slice of Life”. She gave...

Mariam has been writing for almost as long as she’s been reading, ever since first grade, when the PTA moms at her Midwestern school started “publishing” student work—a.k.a., typing up the kids’ handwritten copy and binding the stapled pages in cereal boxes and wallpaper. At Princeton for...

Max was born and raised in Northern California, near the redwood groves that perch on the Pacific Coast. He then moved east to attend Yale College, where he received his BA in Literature. At Yale, Max won the Calabresi Prize for best senior thesis in comparative literature. He continued with a...

Molly was born to Texan parents, but grew up near Boston, MA (she’s still trying to find good Tex-Mex in Boston). She attended Harvard College, where she studied History and Literature and Social Anthropology. Her interests in international studies and human rights led her to focus on the Middle...

Nadia is a mixed product of northern New Jersey, upstate New York, and Moscow, Russia. She graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University, where she double-majored in English and Psychology. She eventually received her PhD in Developmental Psychology, also from Cornell. Her work has received...

Nora Isacoff, PhD, is a professor in the Psychology departments at both Columbia University and New York University, and a former National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow. She has many years of experience working directly with students of all ages, from elementary school through adults. Her...

Olivia originally hails from Boston, though she's now proud to call New York City her home (where her Boston Red Sox gear definitely stands out).  Before moving to New York, Olivia graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a BA in English and a minor in Theater Performance.  At...

Parker grew up in Asheville, NC. He attended Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, where he studied anthropology and literature, edited the Bard Papers, and received the Heinrich Blücher Prize for excellence in scholarship. Between 2014 and 2015, he was a Fulbright-García Robles scholar in...

Perry is coming to terms with the fact that the Celtics will never need his upbeat demeanor and weak dribbling skills (even on their bench). Perry attended Yale University, graduating cum laude and earning distinction in the English major for his senior essays on Romantic and Victorian poetry....

At the beginning of his undergraduate education at the Eastman School of Music, Peter would spend hours in the practice room working on excerpts of Richard Wagner’s operas and other pieces in the German canon. While this was certainly musically rewarding, he found himself increasingly interested...

Rachel is a tried-and-true Boston transplant. She studied biology as a full-tuition merit scholar at Thiel College, a private liberal arts college that is buried under Pennsylvania snow most of the year. She then earned her Master of Public Health in Epidemiology as a merit scholar at Boston...

Richard was born in Canada and immigrated to the United States in elementary school, settling in the calm suburbs of Missouri. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in chemistry before spending two years at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar studying Global Health Sciences and receiving...

Samuel began his college career when most people finish theirs, at 22, when he started taking classes at Shasta College before his evening shifts as a line cook and kitchen manager in the small city of Redding, California. He enjoyed his English class so much that first semester that one day he...

In sixth grade, Sara finally finished her first novel, The Clamorous Medium. Since then, she has thankfully learned to write without a thesaurus. Sara graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California, where she studied English Literature and Political Science as a Trustee...

Sarah was born and raised in New York City, a place steeped in literary history that sparked her love of reading and writing. She attended Dartmouth College, where she majored in English and graduated as Valedictorian, winning the Stanley Prize in English for the most innovative undergraduate...

Shayna has lived in Montreal, Mumbai, Istanbul, Jerusalem and London—but considers herself a New Yorker at heart. She attended University of Michigan, majoring in Arts & Ideas in the Humanities and Creative Writing and graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. After a few years of...

Shyam grew up in Los Angeles, and completed his undergraduate degree in Neurobiology at Washington University in St. Louis. While at Wash U, he conducted research on the role of serotonin signaling in early brain development, and served on the university’s Board of Trustees. He graduated magna...

Susan is from the South, but she now lives in Hackney, London. She went to high school in Florida, earning the I.B. diploma and graduating first in her class.  She then studied English at Rice, in Texas, graduating summa cum laude and picking up the nickname Lady Geddes for winning the Lady...

    Tarek is originally from Beirut, Lebanon and spent most of his formative years in his hometown. He completed his degree in Political Studies, with an emphasis on International Relations and a minor in History, before moving to Sabancı University (Istanbul) for his Masters degree in Ottoman...

Tess is a true Upper Westsider with no plans to leave. She attended Trinity School and then moved north to attend Columbia University, where she majored in English and fenced for the varsity team. After spending a few years working at the Kinetix Group she has returned to Columbia as an MBA...

Tess grew up in northern New Jersey, where, as an enthusiastic user of AOL instant messenger, she first discovered her love of the written word. That love carried her to Yale, where she completed a BA in English Literature and Philosophy, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa,...

Hailing from Chicago, Tova attended the University of Chicago and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in anthropology. She recently completed her MPhil (with Merit) at the University of Cambridge where she studied Archaeology, with work spanning from theoretical anthropology to archaeobotany....