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I have always liked being in a school environment (yes, I am that guy); that’s probably where I grew up and learned the most. I have been lucky to be a student in some amazing places -be it my public school in France, at the University of Paris, or at the University of Cambridge, where I have been able to focus on my passions: International Relations and Education. I have taught in diverse settings in France, England, and Spain before coming to the U.S. At Beaver, I have worked in the Language department, have been head of the Global History department, before becoming the Director of the Upper School. I am now the Director of Teaching, Learning, and Innovation, working with faculty on what and how we teach so that our students have a wonderful, engaging, in-depth learning experience. And every time, I had the pleasure to work with a great, dedicated faculty in a place where kids enjoy learning.

I am a native Bostonian, having lived and worked here most of my life. Before coming to Beaver, I served as Director of College Guidance at The National Cathedral School in Washington, DC, but the birth of my 3-year-old son brought me back to Boston. I have worked in college admissions and counseling for the past 16 years. Coming to Beaver gives me the chance to continue to help families in their search for educational options for their children.

My background in professional theater defines my teaching style, but my passion for theater was sparked as a student in high school; theater was both an outlet and an anchor. At Beaver, our Technical Theater program follows a professional model, ensuring that our students get an authentic experience. More importantly, we focus on creative problem solving, freedom of expression, and productive collaboration. I love having the opportunity to work with students to design and execute projects and productions, and seeing them enjoy both a depth of study and creative freedom afforded to few student technicians elsewhere.

I am a lifelong learner. I love school and therefore I never left. As the Director of Academic Services, I enjoy watching students develop a sense of themselves as learners. This is the most rewarding part of my job. Beaver students have the chance to reflect upon their growth, advocate for themselves, and build upon their areas of strength. Beaver is constantly growing, shifting, and evolving…students are the designers and creators. As an educator, the energy and magic that evolves from this philosophy have kept me feeling like it is day one for the last 30 years.

Bethany Eddy comes to Beaver with an MFA in Costume Design from UMass Amherst; Bachelor Degree in Visual and Performing Arts from Worcester State; and 10 years working costuming for theater.

Before that, Eddy created costume’s on commission for cosplay and freelance costuming for individual play productions. She is also a costume craft artisan, which means she can build big pieces of costumes that are not clothing (ex: hats, wings, and backpacks).

Since 1985 I have been part of the Beaver community, working in a variety of administrative capacities as well as teaching English and co-curricular courses. My calling as a teacher comes from my interest in kids, in helping them develop their critical minds and creative spirits. I’ve always been drawn to the arts. I spent a sabbatical studying poetry and portrait drawing and have recently developed an interest in rug-hooking, an old folk art tradition. Although my primary focus at Beaver is college counseling, I have valued the opportunity to teach fiction writing, a senior English elective that focuses on developing students’ artistic sensibilities and technical skills. In both my role as counselor and teacher, my work has been about helping students discover their stories and the power of their imaginations. Maybe it is my California roots that push me to dream.

I was born in California and raised in Minnesota and Massachusetts. After earning my bachelor’s from Spelman College, I returned to Northern California to serve with City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley where I worked with middle school students in an after school enrichment program and pushed into classrooms to support as a TA during the school day. In this role my passion for working with students and preparing them for their future endeavors flourished. After my year of service, I taught at a boarding school in Connecticut while earning my M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennslyvania’s Graduate School of Education. After teaching Science in Farmington, Connecticut; Washington DC; and Denver, Colorado, I transitioned into admissions at a K-8 school in Cambridge. While I love classroom teaching, admissions has provided me with the opportunity to assist in shaping school culture by building a community of learners, future leaders, and change-makers.

I am a Jersey Girl, originally from Trenton. I moved to Boston to pursue a BFA in acting at Emerson College, which led me to Europe to study mime and to L.A. to study acting for film. After graduating, I co-founded a Boston-based theater company in which I performed, and I oversaw the artistic vision and business management. While working with my own company, I acted professionally in Boston and choreographed and performed with a modern dance company, RedShift.  I realized that as much as I loved performing, I got more gratification from sharing my passion for theater and dance with others and watching them grow as artists. I began to teach in the classroom and to direct and choreograph plays in many Boston area schools and theaters.  Eventually, I connected with Beaver, directing and choreographing in the afternoon program for more than 10 years.

I left the States to travel and teach theater in Andalucia, Spain, where I lived and worked for two years, but the performing arts chair position at Beaver lured me back to the US. I am thrilled to be back at Beaver as chair of the performing arts department, and I feel lucky to have the opportunity to merge my skills, understanding, and passion for the performing arts with our independent and creative students.  Through exposing the students to a range of performing opportunities—both curricular and co-curricular—we allow them to find and express their voice in many different ways, and we encourage them to explore differing viewpoints and unfamiliar cultures.

I believe that teaching is about building relationships and motivating students to achieve at their highest potential. Beaver is a place where I will be able to grow as an educator because of its dedication to progressive education. I look forward to small class sizes—an integral part of a powerful education. I am also very excited to work with a motivated staff and administration that has one goal in mind—to educate each student. My experience in the Boston Public Schools has taught me that the most important way to truly empower students is through building positive relationships and allowing students to see the possibilities that lie beyond the school walls.

Outside the classroom, I am the boys’ head basketball coach. I started coaching basketball during my sophomore year in college at my alma mater Boston Latin School. At that point, I grew to love coaching so much that basketball has since been apart of my life. I am entering my 21st season coaching basketball. My coaching career began at Boston Latin School followed by Emerson College where I was an assistant coach for five years. Then in 1999 I became the head boys’ basketball coach at the John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science in Boston. The last ten years at the O’Bryant gave me the opportunity to use basketball to guide young men in becoming champions in the game of life. I look forward to bringing this experience to Beaver. Aside from teaching and coaching, I enjoy spending time with my wife and my two beautiful children ages 3 and 5 months.

With much to balance in their lives, it is important that our students be trained to use tools and strategies that help them be most effective and successful as learners. As Associate Director of Academic Services and a member of the Middle School Support Team, I collaborate to provide direct and indirect support to students, teachers, and parents/guardians throughout the school year. I also keep up to date with the most well researched techniques to improve student learning. Additionally, I advise seventh graders. Since joining Beaver in 2001, I have valued working in an environment that promotes critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, reflection, and empathy throughout the community. The chance to see a student have an “a-ha” moment or beam with pride at an accomplishment is what motivates me the most.

After graduating from college, where I majored in history and played soccer, I spent several years in San Francisco. Though I considered following my father’s footsteps into law, I quickly realized I was more suited to teaching and coaching, and I began taking education classes at the University of San Francisco while working and coaching at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. After getting my master’s in Secondary Education, I moved back to Boston and began working at Beaver in 2004.

During my time at Beaver, I spent 6 years as the Dean of Faculty and have taught a wide variety of US history courses for the past 12 years. I have also coached in many different programs at Beaver and advised the Mock Trial and Model UN clubs.

Most recently, I transitioned into the Athletic department. In the past, I have spent time as a head boys varsity basketball coach and head college basketball coach, and I currently serve as the girl’s varsity soccer head coach.  

I have worn many hats while here at Beaver, but no matter my role, I love the freedom students and teachers have in the classroom, the emphasis on technology and real-world learning, and the way we prepare kids for the world outside of Beaver.

Originally from California, I moved here with my husband 30 years ago, so New England feels like my home. I have worked as Beaver’s Middle School Counselor since 2015. I love being the counselor for our 6th-8th graders. I approach every student with compassion and understanding with the goal of helping students feel empowered to develop solutions to their problems. I provide individual and group counseling around mental health and social issues and offer day-to-day support as needed. Additionally, I am responsible for teaching wellness classes and providing lunchtime programming, such as RISE and Graham Dam. RISE is a program where I teach students ways to deal with stress in helpful ways. There is always a fun craft to make it a relaxing, creative, and supportive place for students during their school day. Students attend Graham Dam, a special lunch with me and a group of students, a few times a year. The goal of Graham Dam is for students to get to know me better so they will feel more comfortable connecting if the time arises when they need support.

I have a graduate degree in Counseling Psychology from Lesley University and a license in Child and Family Therapy. I started my career at Family Service of Greater Boston doing in-home family therapy and then worked at Boston Children’s Hospital for 10 years providing support to children and families. I also worked in Boston Public Schools and several  Catholic schools on the North Shore, providing school counseling services. 

In addition to being married, I have two adult daughters who are my pride and joy. We have two dogs, Shiloh and Millie, and one cat, Simba. It’s a small zoo at my house. I enjoy sailing on our sailboat, Enya, and being outdoors. 

People always ask, “How and why do you work with middle schoolers?” My response is usually a smile followed by a small laugh and something like, “You never know what you are going to get.”

For almost twenty years I was an antique dealer. Before that I was a bank teller, a waiter, a restaurant manager, and a soda jerk. When my antique store burned down in 1993, I used the teaching certificate I had earned in college to get a job in the Charlestown projects, teaching middle school kids who had been asked to leave the Boston Public Schools. When my first child, Jake, was born in 1995, I opened another antique store on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge. Now antique dealing might sound like an interesting pursuit, but really one spends a lot of time schlepping large armoires to the fourth floor of walk-up apartments. By the year 2000, after the birth of my daughter Isabel, I looked in the mirror and realized I wasn’t a mover and a shaker, I just moved shaky furniture. I decided I wanted to do something that mattered and teaching fit that bill perfectly. For some reason, Beaver took a chance on me and for that I am eternally grateful. Because I spent so long away from academia, my classroom approach can be seen as unconventional. I think true learning is a messy process. One learns more from mistakes than from successes. I know I have.

As a teacher and administrator for the last 16 years at independent middle schools in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Massachusetts, Ann Bevan is committed to creating lessons that push students to think critically. As the Associate Director of the Middle School, Ann Bevan supports faculty in doing the same.  At Beaver since 2004, her job includes managing all aspects of middle school student life, including discipline, scheduling, and coordination of the afternoon programs.  Ann Bevan particularly enjoys helping foster student leadership skills via student council and facilitation of morning meetings.  In 2006-07, she coordinated Beaver’s ten-year NEASC re-accreditation process, which gave her greater insight into virtually every aspect of the school, from curriculum to governance to student experience.  Beaver is always examining what it does and thinking about ways to be better, a philosophy that fits well with her own dedication to seeing life as a set of experiences from which to learn.

I was born and raised in Tangier, Morocco, and have been teaching French, Spanish, and Arabic for the past ten years at various schools in the Northeast. While in New York, I was very involved with Model United Nations and hope to continue that at Beaver. At Beaver, I am teaching Upper School French and Spanish.

Outside of school, I enjoy spending time with family and friends, reading, and traveling.

Words and language fascinate me. I love to read fictional novels and I believe I am a fairly confident and creative writer. I love to talk to people, articulating whatever happens to be on my mind at the time and listening to what they have to say. Hopefully there’s usually a balance between the two! I also enjoy television and movies, particularly if I can get lost in someone else’s drama for a little while. During the summers I teach English as a Second Language to international teenagers. Learning about other cultures and languages is exciting and enlightening for me. I also love to run. I have coached cross country and track and field over the years, and I often participate in local road races and have completed three marathons. The past few years have been busy and momentous for me. I got married, purchased a home and started a family. I now have two wonderful little boys who keep me active, supply me with constant entertainment and wonder, and fill me with more pride and happiness than I ever thought possible. If you stop by my classroom or catch me in the hallways, I’m sure you’ll wind up hearing about them! Three words that describe me well are sensitive, proud and frenetic. Bringing these traits into the classroom, I believe, has made me a strong and happy teacher.

I grew up in the snow globe of Edinboro, Pennsylvania making the winters in Boston easy to handle.

Before moving to Boston, I completed my undergraduate degree at Washington & Jefferson College. While completing my degree I was a member of the inaugural lacrosse team at W&J. After graduation, I traded my jersey in for a whistle to coach Division III lacrosse at my alma mater. In addition to coaching collegiate lacrosse, I coached club lacrosse in the Pittsburgh area, working mainly with goal keepers. These coaching experiences helped me to realize my desire to work with young aspiring athletes.

The following year I was presented with an opportunity to play post-graduate lacrosse while pursuing my Master’s degree in Social Anthropology at Durham University, Durham England. During my stay in England, I continued coaching youth lacrosse through a program called English Lacrosse. This program introduces students to lacrosse for the first time. I was able to work with a variety of students while expanding the sport of lacrosse across England.

My desire to work in athletics brought me to Beaver in 2014. I have held a variety of positions in the athletic department; most recently Assistant Athletic Director and middle school girls lacrosse coach. I love that I am able to work with students that are learning a sport for the first time as well as those building on existing skills. Watching our students transition throughout the year, both on and off the field is the most rewarding part of Beaver athletics.

As the Director of the Hiatt Center, I work with students to develop leadership skills, engage with the community, and promote social justice. I also lead our efforts to build mutually beneficial, sustainable partnerships between Beaver and the greater community that deepen student learning and promote a socially just world. This work is particularly exciting at Beaver, where our students are developing cutting-edge design and innovation skills that can be used to make our world a better place. Opportunities at this intersection of technology and social justice elevate our work in the community beyond a traditional service model. In addition, I am an advisor to Upper School students and coach the girls’ varsity lacrosse team. This is an incredible platform to help young people reach their full potential.

Before Beaver, I evaluated youth programs at Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and dedicated a year of service through the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship, an AmeriCorps program that delivers key resources to young people. I am originally from Central New York, where I studied government and sociology at St. Lawrence University. I received a Master’s of Science in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University.

I graduated from Boston College and stayed another year to get my masters degree. While I am certified to teach Elementary Education, my early passion was teaching Special Needs students (certified PreK-12). Following college, I headed to Hawaii to teach in a Special Needs Classroom on the North Shore of Oahu. When my school year in Hawaii ended, I returned to Boston to look for a teaching position and to work at Beaver Summer Programs.

I loved every moment of my summer at Beaver! It combined my two great loves: kids and warm weather. My Special Needs degree helped me navigate through any group social issues and the campus could not have been more beautiful. I thought Beaver Summer Programs was just the best. I worked as a special needs teach in Andover for a few years, spending summers at Beaver before being offered the position as the Assistant Director. I have been at Beaver for the past 11 summers and I am looking forward to summer 2012.

When I am not at camp, I am playing with my daughter, running, and spending time at the beach on Cape Cod.

I grew up just outside of Albany, NY, but spent many summers with my family in the Adirondacks. I loved to be outside playing sports, swimming, hiking, biking, or just enjoying nature. As an athlete, I was always curious about how the body worked and what allowed humans to perform at their best. I opted to take as many science classes as possible in high school, even testing out of gym class to open up room for me to take an Anatomy and Physiology elective! For college, I attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to follow two of my passions: science and playing lacrosse! After receiving my B.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics, I moved across the country to Salt Lake City, Utah to pursue a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry at the University of Utah. My research there was focused on helping physicians better understand how inherited mutations in genes related to colorectal cancer development could be used to predict onset and severity of the disease. In collaboration with Myriad Genetics, a genetic testing company based in Salt Lake City, we developed a genetic screen for FAP (familial adenomatous coli), a type of colorectal cancer found in family lineages. It was during my Ph.D. that I had the opportunity to teach a chemistry course within the nursing program at the university, eventually accepting a position as a lecturer in the chemistry department. While I loved to teach, I didn’t love the impersonal nature of teaching in lecture halls with hundreds of students! I left teaching to accept a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University but missed it so much that I returned to the profession a few years later, first teaching at the Waterford School in Salt Lake City, and eventually at Beaver, where I joined the science department in 2013. When I’m not teaching chemistry or biology, I enjoy coaching and pursuing outdoor activities with my family. I’m also an avid runner (both road and trail), even running my first marathon at the Boston Marathon in 2017!

Thomas grew up in Jamaica Plain and went to high school at Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury. After graduating from Tufts with a major in English, he stayed at Tufts to coach in the men’s basketball program. Thomas also enrolled in the Education Department and started working toward a master’s degree. A year of coaching, graduate school work, and student teaching in the Medford and Somerville schools convinced him that he wanted to teach and coach at the high school level. The following fall he started teaching, coaching, and running a dormitory at an independent boarding school in southeastern Massachusetts. After nine years, the Mannings decided to move back to the Boston area to try day-school life, and he happily landed at Beaver in the fall of 1990 as an English teacher and basketball coach. It has been exciting to be part of Beaver’s growth and development over the years, and he continues to enjoy his work with Beaver students and their families.

I joined Beaver’s Business Office in the spring of 2016 and am thrilled to be a part of Beaver’s vibrant learning community. Prior to Beaver, I served as the CFO for 14 years at the Woodward School, an independent school located in the city where I grew up, Quincy, MA. I also worked in accounting roles at Boston University and Deloitte and earned an MBA and MS in Accounting from Northeastern University. When I’m not at Beaver, I enjoy running, cycling, and spending time with my family. My four children love the beach and living in a seaside community means we enjoy many summer days with our toes in the sand.

I grew up in Dedham and was essentially home-schooled until I came to Beaver in high school. My family had started a school when my oldest brother and oldest cousin were old enough for kindergarten. There were about twenty students from my family, siblings, and cousins, as well as family friends. Until I came to Beaver, my teachers were: my mother (a Beaver alum), my aunt, my grandmother, and a couple of other mothers of some of the other students.

As a Beaver student, I played soccer, basketball, baseball, and lacrosse, and I also swam for my town team. In college, I played lacrosse and swam. I’d always enjoyed math and science as well as helping people, and I majored in psychology, minored in chemistry, and was pre-med. After graduating from Wheaton in 1994, I got my EMT license and worked for an ambulance company for about three years. I came back to Beaver in 1997 to teach math and science and coach soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. After three years, I took a year off to get my master’s degree in education at Harvard. My wife was in grad school in Atlanta, so I taught math and science and coached lacrosse at The Lovett School there for two years while she finished her program. We came back to Boston, and I resumed teaching and coaching at Beaver in 2003. I am in the Science Department and mainly teach chemistry and investing. I am also a coach for the golf team in the fall and the boys’ lacrosse team in the spring. I enjoy being well-connected to Beaver alums and work with the Philanthropy & Engagement Department on their alumni-related events. During the summer, I work at the pool for Beaver Summer Programs, where I have lifeguarded and taught swimming lessons since the summer of 1990. My wife, Rekha, and I have two daughters, Aiya and Macy that attend Beaver.

I have over 16 yeas of experience teaching biology, project based learning, and entrepreneurship in both formal and informal settings.  My love for biology led me to study entomology and sustainable agriculture at McGill University where I concentrated on insect eating populations of the Peruvian rain forest.  After graduating, I taught high school sciences in Northern California at an outdoor experiential school and studied at the Teachers’ Institute at The Exploratorium in San Francisco. After getting my Masters in Teaching from BU, I worked at the BU School of Medicine’s CityLab where I taught biotechnology labs and developed curriculum at the state and national level. In addition, I spent two years working with the Art/Science Prize Boston, an after school entrepreneurship competition helping teams of students trying to solve real world problems with innovative tech solutions.

I grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and came to the U.S. in 2004 to study business, so I can relate well to students who are anticipating the changes and challenges they will face when they leave home for college. As the Registrar, and working very closely with the college counselors, I can help students develop their “stories” from Day One. I am here to assist every student from his or her first day at Beaver right through Commencement. Believe me, I do everything in my power to make every single step in between as smooth as possible for them! It’s extremely fulfilling to see how they change from being nervous, anxious, and a bit insecure to being happy and so mature soon-to-be freshmen in college.

I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, where I began classical piano studies at the age of six. I continued my classical training at the Landaeta National Conservatory in Caracas. In 1996, under the guidance of Faride Mijares, I undertook formal studies of Afro-Cuban percussion. Two years later, I was awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, where I was the first recipient of the Tito Puente Percussion Achievement Award in April, 1999. I have performed with internationally recognized artists Juan De Marcos Gonzalez, Eddie Palmieri, Kenwood Dennard, Eguie Castrillo, Giovanni Hidalgo, John Benitez, Jane Bunnett, Pedro “Pedrito” Martinez and Oscar Stagnaro. As a band leader, my latest project is Obbini Tumbao. Formed in 2005 in collaboration with pianist Rebecca Cline, our septet makes regular appearances at Boston’s Blue Note venue, The Regattabar.  I am currently working towards a master’s degree in Music Education from the University of Florida. I’ve been teaching at Beaver since 2003, and I love it. I find that teaching music is an extremely rewarding experience. The school’s community is very supportive and wonderful to be part of. In addition to teaching and directing four of the upper school jazz band courses, I’m lucky to direct the all-girls band, Ikonoclastic, as an afternoon activity.  I also have the privilege to direct the Cuban Jazz Ensemble bi-yearly. One of the best parts of this course is that, during the first week of spring break, I get to take my students on a 8-day trip to Havana!

As a student, I was fortunate to attend schools where I felt challenged, supported, and encouraged, and I have always loved learning and being in a classroom.  I have also always loved theatre, from making up plays as a child to acting in numerous productions in college.  But I discovered that I loved teaching theatre entirely by accident, when I accepted a position via a former teacher and colleague to teach theatre at a school in Switzerland.

That decision, to not only move to a foreign country but also to try teaching, has changed the scope of my life since.  I’ve been fortunate to travel to many different places and teach in many different environments – from Newton to New York City, and from Switzerland to India.  What I love most about teaching theatre, aside from how much fun I have every day, is that I have the opportunity to see my students grow more confident and self-assured, more open-minded and collaborative, and more appreciative of diverse backgrounds and views.

I grew up in southern New Hampshire, where I also attended college, and then moved south to Boston shortly after graduation. I was given the opportunity to join the Beaver community in 2001 and have had the tremendous experience of working here, in various capacities, for the majority of my professional career. As the Director of Counseling Services and a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker, I am deeply committed to my counseling and advocacy work with students, parents and faculty. I strive to help others develop skills and strategies to navigate their realities. Beyond my work at school, I continue to try to seek balance in my own life. From a family of athletes and sports fans, I am a former swimmer turned marathon runner. I value family, adventures, and good relationships; all things that nurture healthy personal and professional growth. I continue to grow here at Beaver and remain inspired by the people who share their stories with me with everyday.

I grew up in Natick, attended a small private school and spent most of my free time in a skating rink. After graduating from college and spending a long year behind a desk in an office, I returned to school to earn my master’s in teaching. Working at Beaver has afforded me the opportunity not only to teach what I love (Spanish), but also to wear many other hats on campus and be involved in a wide range of activities. Every afternoon I look forward to heading out to the fields to coach the middle school girls’ soccer and lacrosse teams. I love to travel and attended a Spanish teachers’ workshop in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in the summer of 2007. During the summer you can find me relaxing at the beach, reading a good book, or working on my golf game.

I grew up in a small town north of New York City where I spent my childhood playing dress-up, collecting stickers, and building forts in the woods, and my teenage years imagining the studios behind windowsills covered with cans of brushes on weekend trips to Soho. I come from a family of crafty people and so making things by hand has always been something that is valued and central to my life. My art teachers in high school, college, and graduate school were extremely influential to me, and I am still in touch with most of them. They inspired me to pursue a career that would allow me to share my love of the arts with young people. Art, for me, has always been about connecting people and their stories through common interests and conversation, and I try to instill that in my students at Beaver. I started teaching at Beaver in 2006 after living for six years in New York City where I made and taught art in The New York City Public Schools. In addition to teaching I am always hard at work in my studio, located at Waltham Mills Artists Association, located in an old textile mill. My work has been exhibited locally at Proof Gallery, formerly in South Boston, at Carroll and Sons Gallery, in the South End, and at 13 Forest Gallery, in Arlington.

For most of my life I lived in Northwest Ohio, but coming to Boston has been a great change in my life. I attended a small Jesuit high school that helped to shape my views of serving others and committing my life to addressing issues of social justice in my community. After high school I attended the University of Michigan and attained a degree in Education with concentrations in Mathematics and History.

Upon graduation I started my teaching career back in Ohio at the very school I graduated from. I felt it was important to not only teach my academic content, but to also have the opportunity to help educate students as a whole individual. I fully enjoyed my experience there, but I felt a higher calling to attain my master’s degree from Boston College. My time in school has taught me the importance of becoming a well-rounded individual that continues to learn throughout my lifetime.

On a lighter note, in my spare time I enjoy playing soccer, listening to music, and hiking/camping in the outdoors.

I was born and raised on Nantucket. When I was eight years old, my family spent a year on a farm in the south of France, where I learned French and got my first taste of a foreign culture. I attended the public school in a tiny town, and I was blown away by how different school life was. That experience of becoming completely immersed in a new culture is something that has stuck with me, and it continues to guide my life and my teaching.

In college, I took an opportunity to discover another part of the francophone world by studying abroad in Cameroon. Living, traveling and studying in Cameroon was such an amazing introduction to the country’s unique, complex and diverse culture. After college, I was able to once again return to France, when I spent a year as an English language assistant in Normandy. Most recently, I have lived in New York, a city where you can’t help but hear French on a daily basis.

I hope that my students will leave my classroom ready to take advantage of the many opportunities that knowing French will offer in life, whether abroad or at home.

Kim Samson brings 35 years of experience as a teacher, leader, and innovator in education. More specifically, her work as the Assistant Head and Director of the Upper School for eight years at Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio. An innovator who knows how to develop ideas and put them into action and a developer of people, Kim has been leading the charge to make school relevant and impactful for students and teachers. She is devoted to championing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and serving the needs of a diverse student body. Most of all, she gets students! Kim is known for her close and intentional relationships with kids, faculty, staff, and parents.

Returning to her New England roots, Kim, her wife, Folly, and their puppy, Riley are thrilled to be closer to family, including their two daughters. An active skier, hiker, and swimmer, Kim will be right at home.

I come from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where I came to music early after my mother taught me how to work her turntable and gave me a stack of Motown and doo-wop 45rpm records. I left Pennsylvania to attend Oberlin Conservatory for voice and music education, and then continued working on both sides of the podium at Yale University, where I am the only student to have completed a Master’s of Music in both voice and choral conducting. Despite my classical training, I am very much a pop nerd and will never be able to commit to only creating or listening to one type of music full-time.

After leaving Yale, I moved to Boston to teach music and have continued gigging as a classical singer ever since. Then, I spent two years in Japan, teaching classroom music just outside of Tokyo. When it was time for me to return to the States, I was happy to be offered the position at Beaver, where I’m enjoying the chance to share my multidirectional, multicultural approach to music with its open-minded students and the rest of the Beaver community.

I was born in Texas, and my father’s time in the military provided time spent in Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, and most memorably in Germany. Living overseas gave me the opportunity to interact with different people and cultures; an experience I still treasure to this day! I believe being an educator gives me the opportunity to have some say in how our world will continue to evolve and change for the better. Working directly with middle school students is truly the best parts of my day. I see middle school students as the most interesting young people, who are open to new experiences, looking for guidance support and humor. My job is to foster a place where great teachers facilitate learning with curious students ready to ask the next question and engage in new experiences.

I am the Brand Creative Director at Beaver Country Day School.

Before Beaver, I was the digital marketing manager at a green-energy nonprofit in Boston, and I have also worked for several publications, including TechTarget and Boston.com.

Outside of work, I can be found running (and occasionally training for marathons), reading YA novels, making up hashtags, and watching (and obsessing over) one too many shows on Netflix. I live in Holliston, MA with my husband Jack, daughter Clementine, and our two rescue dogs and one grumpy cat.

I grew up and worked in Chicago to develop Shedd Aquarium’s teen mentorship program which provided experiential leadership programs for teens. These youth development programs fostered a sense of self, cultivated leadership + life skills training, and provided personal + collaborative opportunities with aquarium professionals from exhibit designers to veterinarians to dolphin trainers. I spent 8 years mentoring + coaching high schoolers while they lived aboard a research vessel in the Bahamas… snorkeling among the Caribbean fishes and immersing themselves in Bahamian culture. Students were able to bridge those experiences back to their everyday lives in Chicago. This approach to learning cemented my desire to provide students with an expanded view of school and a deeper awareness of the world that existed beyond classroom walls. After completing a MS degree from Northeastern University, I joined Beaver for 10 years as a Middle School science teacher and brought my passion for global conservation to the curriculum as well as a meaningful connection to how it relates to the students’ lives. Community engagement, experiential learning, and civic responsibility are at the core of the expanded learning approach that I bring to my work in the Hiatt Center (which I began in 2014) as well as to my Upper School science courses. I reside in Roslindale with my two children who also attend Beaver Middle School.

I have Midwestern roots and survived a middle school transition from Southern Indiana to Southern Connecticut. I started my professional life as a musician and audio engineer. Following a stint in pastoral ministry, I studied to become a clinical psychologist and have been working at Nobles for the past 15 years as well as keeping a small private practice. This journey has really shaped my willingness to embrace the twists and turns that occur in all of our lives. Life has an interesting way of unfolding!

I have been working as a clinical psychologist for eighteen years and combine my interest in positive psychology and clinical practice with helping high school students, families, and institutions discover and prioritize emotional and physical wellness. I value community, creativity, collaboration, and joyfulness. In my personal life, I have two adult daughters and live in Natick with my wife, Kim, and our two cats, Milo and Cricket. We enjoy gardening and cooking together. I am an avid cyclist, a Boston Bruins fan, and also play guitar and sing in an 80s cover band called Ghosts in the Machine. We play regularly around the Boston metro area.

I hail from the third pole: Walpole, MA. I was a busy kid, and I still am a busy kid. As a student, school was not my favorite place but art got me through my academic experience. It was the class for which I could not wait each day. Sitting still was, and remains, a difficult challenge so art class was a place I could use my creativity and energy positively. I am indebted to my art teachers for inspiring me to pursue art. When my high school art teacher suggested I major in art in college my mouth dropped open, “I can major in art?” Alfred University was a great choice for me; a school where experimentation was not just recommended but mandated. Teaching allows me to link art and working with kids, two things about which I really care. Saying “I love working with kids” is how I usually explain the reason why I teach. However, “work” often feels like play to me. I guess it makes sense that I found Beaver by way of their summer program where I still work and play. I truly enjoy helping kids grow as artists and feel lucky that I found a school that does too.

I am an Upper School Global History and Social Sciences teacher and the head of the department. A native of Philadelphia, PA, I started my career as a social worker counseling adjudicated youth and helping them transition into the home and school setting. A product of Philadelphia’s public schools, I began my teaching career with the School District of Philadelphia, where I taught history for five years at the high school level. Since 2005, I have taught in independent schools at the middle school and high school levels. I came to Beaver in 2011 and have spent the past few years supporting teachers around using technology as an educational tool to enhance instructional practices, working with new teachers, advising student groups, and incorporating technology, and social justice into my classroom practice when teaching about past and current historical events. I speak Spanish fluently and have spent time living abroad in locations worldwide, including Rwanda, Mexico City, Spain, and Japan. I have a bachelor’s degree from Chestnut Hill College and a master’s degree in secondary education from St. Joseph’s University.

A very talented theater teacher and director once said to me, “teaching high school drama is really teaching self-esteem through the experience of creating high-quality Theater.” Every single drama exercise, performance, and character study that a high school student participates in teaches them about themselves in a way that can be hard to define. Each challenge, fear, and struggle that culminates in a failure or success is a learning moment. It is a learning moment about drama, themselves, and life. Each drama activity is about problem solving – a life skill that I feel is one of the most valuable. So why is teaching theater so important to me? I spent most of my high school years trying to figure out who I was, and I didn’t excel in the same areas that my peers did. It was difficult for me to feel confident except when it came to drama. It made me feel talented, important, and even beautiful. Each day that I have the privilege to teach teenagers to love themselves through the study of theater is what makes me feel alive. I feel so fulfilled by watching a student tackle the obstacles of learning how to use their bodies and voices and minds to learn about what kind of person they are becoming. It is one of the most electrifying experiences I know of. I look forward to starting my twentieth year teaching, advising, directing and producing plays here at Beaver. I am also a big fan of all that is pop culture, movies and TV watching. I spend as much time as I can with my husband, my two cats, Chrissy and Janet, and laughing with my seven-year-old son Gus.