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 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...

Andrew grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, just a few miles from the utopian religious community on which he would eventually focus much of his academic work.  He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and St.  Andrews University before ultimately receiving his bachelor’s degree from the...

Andy grew up around punk music and alternative theatre in the Great American West.  After graduating from Arizona School for the Arts, he attended Harvard College, where he studied American History and Literature, wrote and produced six plays, recorded and performed original music, lived in a...

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...

Cait was born and raised in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. After attending events on Penn's campus and at the Kelly Writers House throughout her childhood, her dream of receiving a Penn education became a reality when she studied for and received her Bachelor's degree in Biological...

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 received his B.A. at the University of Virginia, where he studied creative writing (poetry), English literature, and Spanish. He graduated with distinction and went on to study poetry writing at Columbia University, earning his M.F.A. and winning a Fulbright Fellowship to Bogotá, Colombia...

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...

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...

            Erik hails from Kansas, which, contrary to popular belief, is not flatter than a pancake, but has plenty of hills and forests (and is not in black and white). He attended the University of Kansas for his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Classics. During his time at KU, Erik won an...

Originally from the Washington DC area, Erin has lived in four states and three countries! Erin attended the University of Michigan, where she majored in Environmental Studies. In 2014, Erin was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach English in Rwanda, and had the pleasure of teaching English...

Evan Mullen grew up at the end of a dirt road in bucolic Vermont, where his work ethic took shape via innumerable hours spent stacking wood. He majored in Humanities with a focus on French history and literature at Yale, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He then promptly moved to...

Guy did his undergrad in France at the Université de Limoges where he got a Maîtrise in English Literature, with a Minor in Linguistics. He then did an MA in Classics at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in which he performed “spectacularly” on the General Exams, to use the Chair’s own words....

Hank’s entire career has been devoted to scholarly writing and teaching.  At Harvard College his undergrad history thesis won a competitive Hoopes Prize.  He earned his PhD at the University of Chicago, and won a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke.  He taught for four years in the history...

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...

James is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in classical philosophy in the Harvard Department of the Classics. He graduated from Emory University (B.A.’s in classics and in philosophy) summa cum laude and with a perfect GPA. At Emory, he directed the college’s departmental philosophy club for three...

Jay Ben’s first acting role was as Judah Maccabee in a first-grade Chanukah pageant. After an eight-year hiatus (during which he determined, successively, that he would become a cartographer, a professional skier, a fantasy novelist, an architect, and an award-winning poet), he rediscovered...

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...

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...

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...

Kevin went to high school in a midwestern cornfield far from the nearest SAT administration, but managed to score 800s on his SAT Verbal, SAT Writing, and U.S. History tests, buttressing his self-esteem sufficiently to withstand a 690 SAT Math score. At Stanford University he took a BA with...

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...

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...

MaryGabrielle hails from Solebury, PA, where she spent her childhood reading every fantasy novel available to her and subsequently play-acting scenes from those books in her backyard with her younger sister. (Harry Potter duels were their favorite.) 

She is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard...

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...

From a young age, Nicole has been a lover of history. At Boston College, Nicole studied History and like any good student of a Catholic institution, she also enjoyed many theology courses. After graduating, she worked in Fidelity’s Legal Department as a business analyst. She is now a student at...

Raised in Beverly, Massachusetts, Nora is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta, GA, where she majored in political science, and English and creative writing. She completed an honors thesis in creative writing and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude. While at Emory, Nora...

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...

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...

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,...

A true Manhattanite from head to toe, Sam attended Horace Mann High School before emigrating, in a fit of wanderlust and questionable judgment, to Ireland to enroll in the English Department of Trinity College Dublin. At Trinity, he earned honors and had his poetry and prose published in a...

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...

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 Chambers 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...

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 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...

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....

Before Zoe was in the first grade she lived in five different states and two different countries, and somehow she still likes to travel. Zoe studied English at Davidson College where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude. She was a John Montgomery Belk Scholar and received a Davidson...