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...

Alexa is a medical anthropologist and writer. She is Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. She holds an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Anthropology and Folklore and an M.A. from the St. John’s College Great Books Program. She did her undergraduate work at The Evergreen...

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...

Ariel was born in Santa Monica, CA but has lived in New York City since she was twelve and considers herself a proud New Yorker. She attended Professional Children’s School (to accommodate her schedule at the School of American Ballet) where she discovered her love of literature, writing,...

Audrey was raised in Arlington, VA and graduated from Northeastern University with a major in international affairs and a minor in Arabic. During her time at Northeastern, she studied Arabic in Jordan and conflict resolution in the Balkans. She also spent six months working with a freelance...

Becca holds a B.A. in philosophy (summa cum laude) from Dartmouth College and an MPhil in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. She is currently in the fourth year of her PhD in philosophy at Harvard, where she has been the recipient of the prestigious Bowdoin...

Until recently, Ben has been a Teaching Fellow at Columbia University, where he earned a PhD in English with a concentration on Shakespearean drama and economic history. In more than five years as an instructor at Columbia, Ben was repeatedly honored for teaching and mentorship. Not only does he...

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 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...

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...

After growing up on a farm in Iowa, Danielle moved to Massachusetts, where she studied English with a citation (minor) in Spanish at Harvard University. At Harvard, Danielle was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior and graduated summa cum laude a year later. She spent most of her free time in...

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...

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...

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...

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 is a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University reading for her MSt in English Literature (1830-1914). In 2017, Joani graduated from Princeton University Summa Cum Laude with an A.B. in English Literature and minors in Humanistic and European Cultural Studies. She plans to return to the US to...

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...

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 commencement prize,...

Born and raised in England, Karen went globe-trotting in her late teens through her early twenties, working at a variety of jobs (chambermaid, waitress, camp site assistant, flight attendant, van driver) in settings as far afield as Wales, Italy, Israel, Spain, Greece, and the United States. ...

When she was ten years old, Katherine’s dad took her to her first poetry reading, where she read a poem about a pine tree and another poem about a bully at school. She has been writing ever since, and she still enjoys giving poetry readings.

Katherine studied English at Macalester College...

Originally from Connecticut, Kristina first moved to New York to attend Fordham University, where she majored in English and Latin American and Latino Studies. In her junior year, she studied at the Universidad del Salvador and Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina during a semester abroad...

Born and raised in Morningside Heights, Madeleine has always loved whizzing down a Manhattan avenue (in the designated bike lane, of course) and watching the neighborhoods fly past on her way to Inwood or Battery Park. She earned her BA in Social Studies from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. in...

Margaret graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BA in human biology. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa upon graduation and honored with a Firestone Medal for a distinguished undergraduate thesis in the social sciences. She then spent two years at the University of Oxford...

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 has a BA (honors) in linguistics from University College London and an MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from Rutgers University. Nora completed a postdoctoral fellowship in literacy education at New York University’s Steinhardt School. For this position, she worked closely with NYC...

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...

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...

Shelby is from Wyoming, and he has spent the past decade living in Massachusetts, Colorado, California, and the UK. He has a Master’s in American Studies from the University of Oxford, and he recently received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction from the University of California, Irvine. He spent a...

Sofía grew up in Berkeley, CA, which explains her soft spot for worker-owned cooperatives and her remarkably high burrito standards. She majored in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard College. Upon graduation, Sofía was awarded a Harvard Traveling Fellowship to research...

    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 grew up “near Philly”—also known as the New Jersey suburbs. Prior to her Fulbright scholarship, she graduated summa cum laude and in the top 1% of her class year (Matthew Leydt Society) from Rutgers University’s Honors Program, majoring in political science and literature. During her junior...

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...

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...