Initially a physics major, Alex graduated with a BA in English from Rice University (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa). Subsequently, he earned his PhD in English Literature from Rutgers, and his dissertation project was awarded the prestigious Dan David Prize in Literature by an...

Alison grew up in Concord, MA, known for its literary and revolutionary history (Henry David Thoreau inspired the name of her first dog Walden). Alison has always loved reading and writing; at Brown University, she studied Comparative Literature and Italian Studies. While studying abroad for a...

Born and raised in Baltimore, Allison spent her primary and secondary education studying Japanese until her Japanese teacher, who happened to be enrolled in Arabic classes, inspired her to do the same! She graduated from Williams College cum laude with a BA in Arabic Studies, was awarded a...

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...

Ash is a native of Queens, New York and will take every opportunity to remind you of its charms. He spent his teenage years crisscrossing the city, attending Hunter College High School. At Harvard College, he fell in love with the classics of social and political theory, majoring in Social...

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...

Ben grew up near Philadelphia, where easy access to the city’s enormous park system spurred his curiosity about how people change the places they live in. Ben attended Amherst College, majoring in Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought and graduating summa cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors....

Beth grew up just outside of New York City in Stamford, Connecticut. She followed her passion for languages and literature to Middlebury College in Vermont, where she graduated magna cum laude with a BA in English and American Literatures and Italian. After graduating, she worked in digital...

In 2008, Brent graduated from NYU, double-majoring in Literature and Music. He made the Dean’s List and was awarded the Dean’s Grant for Creative Writing. After graduating, and living briefly in France, he became an English and History tutor, helping students improve their grades and craft...

Bryan grew up in Akron, OH where he cultivated a taste for exploring the wider world and has spent most of his life in Chicago and New York City. Bryan is a Ph.D. candidate in British Atlantic and Early American History at Columbia University. He earned his BA from the City College of New York...

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”...

Austin, TX is Devin’s hometown: when he was young, his family moved there from Orlando, FL because they realized they had finally finished seeing every part of Disney World. He got his BA in philosophy at Yale, where he graduated magna cum laude and won 1st prize in the Yale Public Speaking...

Duncan is an Affiliated Fellow of the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College and holds a D.Phil in English from the University of Oxford, an MA from University College London and BA from Cambridge University. He moved to the United States in the summer of 2012 after a decade...

Elizabeth was born in the boonies of Appalachia. She attended the University of North Carolina, double-majoring in dramatic art and English and graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She was awarded the Joseph Adler Award in Dramatic Art and the Whitfield Award for her work in...

Originally from Connecticut, Elizabeth graduated cum laude from Harvard College with a BA in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a language citation in German. While at Harvard, she participated extensively in the performing arts scene, earning the David McCord Prize for Unusual...

Emily is a theatre kid from Jersey turned writing coach, educator, and interdisciplinary humanities scholar. She received her PhD from Columbia University in Theatre and Performance, a subcommittee of the English and Comparative Literature department, in Spring 2020. Building off her...

Emma grew up in a household of readers, and still remembers when her mother established the rule “No Reading When You’re Walking” after a bad fall (caused by reading while walking down stairs) resulted in a sprained ankle. Emma attended Sarah Lawrence, where she earned a BA in Liberal Arts with...

Emma hails from rural Minnesota, where she frequented her local library to the point that her parents were forced to threaten returning her literary spoils as a form of disciplinary leverage. After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2014...

Eric grew up in Wisconsin, and double majored in history and English literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where occasional rumors that the school had a football team (“Badgers?”) reached him while he was getting hooked on the writing of Joyce, Faulkner, Eliot and Woolf. He...

Erin Bartnett received her Masters in modern & contemporary literature from the University of Virginia, a certificate in publishing from NYU, and her Bachelors in English Literature with a concentration in Women's Literature from Rutgers University, summa cum laude, high honors.  She has...

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...

Evander Price hails from the southwesternmost corner of America—sunny San Diego—from where he has since been transplanted to the northeastern city of Cambridge, MA, learning through slow attrition to brave the bitter New England winters.

At Vassar College, he double-majored in Art...

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...

Jeb grew up on a beautiful, bucolic island near Seattle. Long commutes into the city to attend school gave him ample time to read and write, and he became a lover of books and developed an interest in English grammar and language at an early age. He received his B.A. in international relations...

Jenna grew up outside of Philadelphia, spending most of her childhood with her fingers glued to a fantasy novel or a video game controller. She attended Tufts University, where she majored in English and fostered a passion for fantasies written in the middle ages. At Tufts, she graduated summa...

Jingyu completed her undergraduate work in mainland China in Chinese language and literature. She holds an MA from Harvard University in Regional Studies of East Asia and an MPhil from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Chinese Studies. She is currently a PhD candidate at Harvard University...

Originally from the midwest, John learned to teach and tutor while earning his doctorate in Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin. In his graduate program, he studied race and the slave trade in the literature of the Europe and the Americas, with an emphasis on Brazil. He...

Jon realized that he wanted to study literature and writing while working his first (and so far only) office job, when he found himself often hiding to read Dover Thrift Editions of the works of Shakespeare and Blake.  So, he got a BA in English at The George Washington University, writing a...

Before discovering his passion for academics at Franklin and Marshall College, Joe’s two most influential educators were his dogs Louis and Ella, who taught him that food really is the most important thing in life. Having maximized his dogs’ tutelage, Joe decided that he wanted the unique...

Julia may have left England at the tender age of 5, but she has never gotten over her first loves – good English tea and great English literature. In fact, she holds a B.A. from Princeton University in the subject (English, not tea), with certificates in Theater and Music Theater. At Princeton,...

For the last three years of elementary school, Kannan fell asleep to a book-on-tape about a barn owl named Plop; maybe that explains how prose got inside his subconscious.  Kannan did his B.A. at the University of Chicago, where he studied the history of science, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and...

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...

Lucina is not embarrassed to admit that some of her earliest memories are of playing ‘school’ with her friends and family. Years later, she entered Princeton University with vague scientific aspirations and left it a zealot for her major, English Literature, graduating summa cum laude,...

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...

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...

Nell is a born and bred New Yorker who spent her formative years in Prospect Park. She attended Wesleyan University where she double-majored in Art History and English (Creative Writing). While at Wesleyan, Nell was a member of the Women’s Varsity Squash Team, elected Captain her Senior year,...

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....

Peter grew up in Southern California and attended the University of California Berkeley, earning his BA in English Literature and graduating Phi Beta Kappa with high honors. He then earned his MA and PhD in English Language and Literatures at Brown University, writing his dissertation on 19th...

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...

Rebecca was raised in the woods of North Carolina, where she learned to love both reading and climbing trees. Rebecca received her A.B. from Harvard, where she designed an independent major in drama and literature and graduated with high honors. Her senior thesis won a Thomas T. Hoopes prize,...

Rosa is a Native New Yorker, and unfortunately, a Mets fan. She was bitten by the theater bug early, and she has participated as an actor, director, playwright, and dramaturge.  She attended Reed College where she majored in English and made Dean’s list every semester. She received her Ph.D. in...

Sam grew up in Southern California with a magician as a father and librarian for a mother, and she emerged as a curious intersection of the two. She attended New York University as an undergraduate, where she studied English and American Literature and Dramatic Literature. After hustling as a...

Sara Deniz Akant is a poet, educator, and scholar, who recently found out that she is related to Dracula, by marriage. She grew up as a dual Turkish-American citizen in New York, and graduated with an International Baccalaureate from Atlantic College, in Wales. She returned to the US to study...

Sarah has spent much of her adult life as a professional English teacher both overseas and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which she considers her home. After completing her BA in liberal arts at St. John's College in Annapolis, she went on to pursue a masters degree in English and Comparative...

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...

Terry is from revolutionary Lexington, Massachusetts, where he grew up marching in parades as a minuteman until he was old enough to think better of it. He attended Amherst College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with degrees in English and French. His thesis on medieval...

Tess grew up on the coast of Maine and spent her childhood summers devouring as many garage sale paperbacks as she could find. These stories stoked a curiosity about the world and love of language that has stayed with Tess her whole life. In 2019, she graduated magna cum laude from...

Tim was born and raised in lovely Laguna Beach, California. He graduated summa cum laude, with Highest Honors in Politics, from the University of California, Santa Cruz. After graduation, he headed East to study for a PhD in Political Science at Brown University. And though he misses California...

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....

Zach is a PhD candidate at Harvard University where he studies German philosophy and language theory. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, where he majored in comparative literature, focusing on Ancient Greek,...

Zoe grew up in the bustling metropolis of Los Angeles, California. She attended Vassar College  where she graduated after four years with a degree with honors in Science, Technology, and Society.  While at Vassar, Zoe was a member and captain of the Varsity Swim Team for all four years.  She was...