Celebrating Our People | 15 & 20 Years Faculty & Staff Milestones

“My Hopkins Moment” Please share a moment in the last 15 years that crystallized your Hopkins experience.

Not to cop out on the assignment, but it’s next to impossible to pick out a single “moment” over my 15 years back at Hopkins as a faculty member. It’s a whole series of moments: the rollicking ride of my first ninth grade AC1 class having no idea what I was doing; the support and counsel of countless colleagues (especially Marie Doval, the model Head Adviser); the passing of my mother in 2024 and the “Hop Love Bomb” and celebration of her life that ensued; the amazing kids that I had the chance to help coach (including my own) on the 2021 MIFL Championship team and the epic 2022–2025 Girls Lacrosse teams; and each and every one of the hugs and handshakes exchanged on Commencement Days, just to name a few.

But if I have to pick just one moment, it’s really two: the graduation ceremonies of the two classes I’ve had the joy of serving as Head Adviser. The Class of 2024 had all the right ingredients—leadership, creativity, passion, intellect, humor, sociability—and made the most of them. And of course, the Class of 2020 was special. After the pandemic deprived them of so many joyous rites of Senior Spring, celebrating them and handing them their diplomas at the once-in-360-years, LED jumbo-screened, drive-in Commencement ceremony was the single most cathartic experience I’ve had here. Tibi gratias ago, indeed!

What has influenced you to make Hopkins your professional home for the last twenty years?

Many of us who have lasted this long on campus may have similar reasons for our longevity: colleagues who have become lifelong friends; students who are eager to learn; and a welcoming home for my own children to prepare their extended academic careers. For me in particular, the yearly gift from Hopkins has been the freedom to be creative with the classes I teach and the productions I direct. I am able to introduce our HDA kids to a wide range of theater without having to bend to popular trends or cookie-cutter shows. 

Hopkins periodically gives me the opportunity to share my most influential theatrical love with my students: the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland. Five of my twenty years included trips allowing my students to perform on the world’s stage and enjoy the city I love. 

Finally, in a once-in-a-career moment, Hopkins invited me to help convert Lovell Hall into the newly renovated Academic and Performing Arts Center. I was proud to have worked so long in Lovell Hall with all of its quirks and character, but to also usher in the next generation of performing arts on the Hill. This, no doubt, will be what keeps me on campus for years to come. 

For me, it’s so hard to believe that I’m approaching my twentieth year here at HOP. This reminder really made me take pause and reflect on my time here at HOP. 

What has kept me here for twenty years, at its core, is people and purpose. The sense of community here is contagious. I’m surrounded daily by supportive, intelligent, and genuinely caring people who want to see one another succeed. Working in IT, while often behind the scenes, I’ve found meaning in building a quiet legacy: working closely with faculty, staff, and students, solving problems, and making someone’s day just a little easier by fixing a technology issue. One of my favorite quotes is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “To make one life breathe easier— that is to have succeeded.” If my work has done that, even in small ways, I’m grateful to have spent these years here. 

I hope to also give my own children the educational experience and share in the sense of community that I feel like only Hopkins can provide. A place that has supported me in my own professional and personal growth. For that, I'm forever grateful. 

I interviewed at Hopkins in the spring of 2006, the month my first child (Beyla ’24) was born. As a new parent, your head goes to a lot of different places. Mine went to plotting a trajectory for her education. She was two weeks old and I was thinking about what her high school English class might look like. In my interview with Head of School Barbara Riley, I asked two questions: “Can I choose the books I teach?” and “Am I going to be able to send my child to school here?” She said “Yes, and yes.” 

Now, after twenty years—and just a semester away from our second child (Sam ’26) graduating— Hopkins is an enormous piece of our lives. It’s a whole-family affair. But it could have gone another way, right? We could have seen how the sausage gets made, as the saying goes, and opted for something else. Instead, the insider’s view confirmed what I had hoped twenty years ago: that Hopkins is a place where the norm is to be curious and kind and where everyone gets to be their best selves. 

There’s a beautiful little film called The Ice Storm that came out while I was a freshman at Davidson College in North Carolina. It took place in New Canaan, Connecticut, and this lifelong southern boy wanted to live in some of those images. Trees encased in ice, homes set back in forests, winding roads, and historical small downtown villages with independent bookstores. I opened a teaching search in New England and when I stepped foot on Hopkins’ campus it felt like a smaller version of my college and made moving here a no-brainer. But those surface attractors gave way to something else in those early days: a department that mentored me, leaders that inspired me, and top notch students who made teaching challenging material a pleasure. 

As Hopkins has grown, so has my role, and it’s been both professionally and personally rewarding watching the science department increase from 13 teachers to 24, shepherding HARPS from a fledgling idea to a signature program, facilitating a robotics program that’s literally bursting at the seams, and seeing more and more students take science each year. I work with a tremendous group of science educators and department chairs that push me to be at my best every day, the students make Hopkins a unique delight, and yes, the campus still stuns on those crisp winter days as the sunlight dapples through the ice-coated trees. 

I began at Hopkins as a part-time Latin teacher in the Junior School. After 20 years of teaching all levels of high school (9–12) it was refreshing to teach younger students. Through the years I have added to the various things that I do here: coaching tennis and volleyball, running the Junior School Activities Program and the scrapbook and crafting activities, as well as teaching study skills. These different activities using some of my various interests and talents have enriched my life greatly. 

The most rewarding part of my time at Hopkins has been as a member of a caring community. My daughter attended and graduated in 2016. I have enjoyed teaching the children of my colleagues as well as establishing relationships with the teachers of my daughter. During challenging times of my personal life as well as serious illness and hospitalizations, my friends were there for me. Hopkins is truly my second family and the Hill my second home. It brings joy to my life everyday. Teaching is not merely a profession, it is a vocation, a calling. I was called to Hopkins and I love it here. 

It’s not complicated. I am happy here. I have wonderful students to teach and amazing colleagues to teach with. This is my home.