Pre-College Instructors

While at Towson University, Alexis focused on numerous aspects of forensic science, including crime scene analysis, forensic toxicology, forensic DNA analysis, and forensic anthropology. In addition to her coursework, she worked in the Towson University…Read more Human Remains Identification Laboratory, as well as assisting in the Towson University Forensic Anthropology Laboratory. As a senior, Alexis completed research associated with DNA recovery and presented her work at the 74th Annual American Academy of Forensic Science Conference in Seattle, Washington. During her undergraduate career, Alexis worked as an undergraduate learning assistant for an upper-level molecular biology course, where she led tutoring/study sessions and engaged in academic discussion with students. Alexis was the recipient of the William Michael Hogan & Dana Kollmann Student Professional Development in Compassionate Forensic Science award for the community outreach project she started, which provides brand new bed sheets to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence victims. In May of 2022, Alexis graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Forensic Chemistry, with a concentration in DNA analysis and a minor in molecular biology, biochemistry and bioinformatics. She is in the accelerated bachelor’s-to-master’s program at Towson University, so she will head right back to school in Fall 2022 to finish up her Master of Science in Forensic Science, with intended degree completion Fall of 2023. Alexis is fluent in English and earned proficiency in Spanish in 2018. In the future, Alexis aims to work as a DNA analyst for a regional crime laboratory, and eventually gain enough experience to work for a federal agency. Alexis is passionate about her education and helping others, and she has always enjoyed teaching. Read less

After completing her undergraduate studies, Amy worked for five years in the healthcare industry at Bryn Mawr Hospital. During her time there she worked with patients as a Patient Care Technician and also worked as a Laboratory Assistant in the Processing and Receiving …Read more department. She decided to go back to school in 2018 to obtain her master’s in forensic science. While at Syracuse, she was on the Forensic Science Student Association board as the Director of Communications. She also helped assist with forensic-based programs geared toward students of all ages (community college, high school, and middle school). Amy has recently gone back to school online to obtain her Graduate Certificate in Forensic Drug Chemistry. In addition, she has experience working as a Medical Laboratory Scientist for over a year in molecular pathology. Outside of the classroom, Amy has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity twice, has traveled abroad to several countries (Australia, Canada, Jamaica, China, Japan, and Switzerland) and enjoys learning foreign languages in her spare time. Read less

While at Harvard, Ansley focused on modern Arabic language and literature and spent time in Jordan and Egypt. For three summers, she wrote for the internationally published travel guide, Let’s Go, traveling to Australia, Greece, Austria, and Germany to explore both cosmopolitan…Read more cities and remote islands. Ansley has spent time in India, South Africa, and Argentina studying urban issues; taught dance classes at an orphanage in Peru; and performed in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Utilizing her love for and experience in the arts, she led a program on documentary filmmaking in the United Kingdom. Most recently, she also developed a university-level comparative study abroad program on social innovation and entrepreneurship in San Francisco, Brazil, India, and Uganda. While in Los Angeles, Ansley works as a personal tutor for middle and high school students as well as explores artistic endeavors, usually involving dance. Ansley has led high school travel programs for New York Times Student Journeys in London and Oxford, and for Putney Student Travel in Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Costa Rica, and Thailand. Read less

While at S.I.T. Fashion Design Studio, Benjamin studied womenswear design focusing on the creative and technical aspects of creating apparel. After being awarded the Grand Marnier Evening Wear Award in his final year he went on to launch his first collection under the spotlight of the national media and Australian fashion industry. This recognition led to various collaborations with textile artists, namely Indigenous Australian artist Robyn Caughlin, …Read more resulting in a runway presentation at Australian Fashion Week and a profile in Australian Vogue. Benjamin then felt the call to London and to steer his career out of the spotlight and into a behind-the-scenes role, learning more about the fashion industry in a bigger playing field. In London he worked for notable brands, including Marchesa (couture), WINTLE (luxury menswear), and Roberto Torretta (womenswear) in Madrid. This experience had Benjamin traveling across Europe working with garment factories and fabric mills and showing collections at Paris Men’s Fashion Week and Madrid Fashion Week. After 10 years in London, Benjamin relocated to New York where he was the first Australian designer to be a contestant on “Project Runway” (season 11), returning to compete in “Project Runway ALL STARS” (season 4) the next year. Still in New York, continues to design evening wear for private clients and explore the role of educator, running the fashion school within the world -famous Mood Fabrics from 2015-2020. For the past five years Benjamin has also been Head Instructor & Mentor for the Brooklyn Fashion Academy, a program run by Brooklyn Public Library. This program has included a 10-week course for high school students in collaboration with Uncommon Schools. Throughout 2020/21 Benjamin has continued to develop programs with Uncommon Schools and has most recently become the Studio Technologist for the MFA Fashion Design program at The Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC. He has also taught Fashion Design on Putney Pre-College in Vermont. Read less

While at the San Francisco Art Institute, Bridget received an MFA Fellowship Award, and studied with renowned artists Doug Hall and John Priola. Bridget’s photography has been exhibited around the country, including at New York’s Dorsky Gallery, San Francisco’s Diego Rivera…Read more Gallery, the Center for Contemporary Art in Sacramento, and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts. She was selected as a semifinalist in 2013 and a finalist in 2015 for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competitions at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Bridget has lectured about her work at Marist College, SUNY New Paltz, and the Fine Arts Academy at Missouri State University. She has worked as a studio manager and photographer with Spinnato Art Gallery and Photography Studio, and as an assistant photographer for Macy’s Photography Studio. Bridget currently works as a freelance photographer and photo editor, and her personal work focuses on environmental portraiture. Bridget has been an instructor for our Pre-College London and Florence programs for three summers, and for Pre-College at Amherst College for five summers. Read less

A native New Yorker, Erika Jo has led Putney programs in Florence, Oxford, London, and Vermont. She teaches English and Medicine and Society at the University of Houston, where she earned her PhD in 2019.Her dissertation focused on the use of humor as a political weapon in contemporary poetry by women.…Read more A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she’s the author of the poetry collection I’m Your Huckleberry. She also co-edited the scholarly volume Beatrice Hastings: On the Life and Work of a Lost Modern Master. This love affair began when she studied abroad in England as an undergraduate; she later pursued a Translation Certificate for graduate work in Old English and Latin. Some favorite classes to teach include film studies, intro to drama, poetry, food writing, and graphic novel. Read less

While at Marquette University, Gabriela focused her research on ethnic identity development and conducted cross cultural exchange volunteering projects with international students. She continued her language studies in college by spending six months on the Marquette en Madrid program. …Read more Upon graduating, she moved to New York City to start a master’s in international education. Gabriela spread her wings while at NYU, researching reverse culture shock, human rights, and global citizenship education, and coordinating exchange programs at a local college. Throughout her academic career, Gabriela also had the opportunity to travel extensively through Latin America to teach development and facilitate community service trips. Gabriela worked as a faculty member at The Traveling School, an accredited semester school program that travels through Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, teaching young women empowerment and Latin American culture through place-based education. She later joined the School for Field Studies in Patagonia to develop their climate studies program. She has led community service programs in Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Fiji and helped direct Putney Pre-College Vermont in 2020. She is fluent in Spanish, currently works as a history and Spanish language teacher, and runs experiential education programs across the U.S. Read less

Gyuri recently completed his Ph.D. research and in the fall will be joining Landmark College in Vermont as an Assistant Professor of Communication. His research has taken him around…Read more the globe to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he studied the educational uses of public computer kiosks by economically disadvantaged urban youth. For this research project Gyuri was awarded the University of Hartford Outstanding Graduate Research Award. His most recent research has focused on media representations of the opioid crisis in the news. His work has been presented at numerous professional conferences, and was recently published in the edited volume, The Praxis of Social Inequality in Media: A Global Perspective. Gyuri has taught undergraduate courses in writing, mass communication, interpersonal communication, film, television, and audio production, and public speaking at several institutions of higher learning, including UMass Amherst, University of Hartford, Westfield State University, Springfield Technical Community College, Holyoke Community College, and Asnuntuck Community College. Gyuri is fluent in Spanish. He has taught six summers for Pre-College at Amherst College. He has taught seminars in psychology, public speaking, and marketing. Read less

While at Colby College, Irene devoted her passion for education to working at summer camps and student-teaching at local schools in Waterville, Maine, as well as back home in China, mainly teaching languages to students of different age groups.…Read more Irene’s interest in education started during her high school years in the UK when she volunteered at an elementary school for two years. Irene was a residential assistant at Colby for two years, working to build a diverse community on campus and help students to have the best boarding experience possible. She now works as a civic engagement peer leader at Colby, helping students to connect with local partners and different opportunities within the Waterville community. Irene is fluent in Mandarin and English and is proficient in Japanese. Upon graduation, Irene is hoping to take the first step into her life-long teaching career. Read less

Josh is a musician, filmmaker, and comedian from Short Hills, New Jersey. In 2020, he created the viral video series “Rhythms of Comedy,” in which he plays drums alongside popular clips from movies and TV shows. With over 2 billion views and nearly 7 million followers, Josh is now the most viewed drummer on the internet. …Read more Previously, he was a writer for NBC’s TODAY Show and an audience coordinator for Saturday Night Live. Josh graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College with a degree in French Literature. A Putney alumni himself, this will be his fifth summer working on Putney programs. Read less

Kelly fell in love with traveling and learning about cultures during her study abroad semester in Perugia, Italy, in 2008. Since then, she has visited 30 countries across Asia, Europe, and South America. This past year she accomplished a long-time goal of walking El Camino de Santiago, a 550-mile trail across northern Spain.…Read more Kelly has worked as an international education advisor, preparing students to study in various countries in Europe and Latin America, and has also taught English in Madrid. She recently moved to Denver, where she will be pursuing her Master’s in School Counseling in the fall. In her free time she loves hiking, yoga, baking, and dreaming of her next adventure. Kelly has taught on the Pre-College at Amherst College program for five summers. She is fluent in Spanish. Read less

While at the University of Málaga, Karim studied abroad in Petrosani, Romania; Birmingham, UK; and São Paulo, Brazil. After college, he spent two years traveling around Europe, South America, and Asia. In this time, he worked on projects for several nonprofit organizations in Spain and in Brazil with an NGO that works with children with cancer. …Read more After several years as an entrepreneur in virtual advertising, Karim is now the CEO of Haverö, a company working with blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, trying to improve the process of international companies that work with sensitive information. He is also the Partner Technical Strategist for Microsoft in Western Europe, supporting 13 countries of the region to improve the business with technical perspective. Karim speaks Spanish as a native language, is fluent in English and Portuguese, and is studying Italian in his free time. He has previously taught Sports Management on Pre-College Barcelona. Read less

At Washington and Lee, Landon earned his degree in politics, with a focus on global politics, and studied abroad in Japan. Most of his free time in college was devoted to W&L’s residential life program where he was an RA for three years, helping freshmen navigate the transition from high school to college.…Read more He held various jobs throughout the summers: he worked as a policy intern for the Virginia gubernatorial race; taught in an ESL program; and worked for a local shipping business that organizes rubber manufacturing in Asia. Following graduation, Landon began a teaching fellowship at Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana, where he is currently employed as faculty teaching Global Perspectives and coaching tennis, rugby, and Quiz Bowl. Travel, film, and fly-fishing are a few of Landon’s hobbies, as well as his newfound love of creating adventures and stories within the game Dungeons and Dragons. Read less

While at the Catholic University of America, Monika majored in architecture and spent a semester in Rome studying ancient architecture, historical restoration, and adaptive reuse. After graduation she remained in Washington, D.C., and worked for the Smithsonian Institution as a historic preservation intern, as well as the Hirshhorn Museum …Read more as a design educator, where she designed workshops and curriculum focused on integrating art and design. She next pursued a post-grad certificate in Krakow, Poland, where she studied Polish history, language, and culture at the Jagiellonian University. Not yet ready to return home, she moved to Madrid, Spain, to work on her Spanish while she taught English in a bilingual middle school. After returning from life abroad she began working at Marianapolis Preparatory School where she helped establish the Architecture and Humanities Programs and taught in the Art, Modern Language, and History departments. Monika is fluent in Polish and proficient in Spanish. Throughout her life she has traveled to and volunteered in more than 30 countries, including working with the Missionaries of Charity in India, the Kosciuszko Foundation in Poland, and with the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development in Peru. She has most recently moved to Chicago where she is pursuing her master’s in historic preservation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has previously taught Architecture, Design, & Sustainability for Putney Pre-College. Read less

After finishing her undergraduate studies in creative writing and history at the University of Michigan, Naomi spent five years as a teacher and youth development professional, helping people who had left school to complete their high school equivalency diplomas. …Read more She took her experience as an educator to The Nation magazine in 2015, where she ran the internship program and fact-checking department while publishing her own writing in Harper’s, The New York Times, Complex, Out, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of residencies and fellowships from the Puffin Foundation, Lambda Literary, Vermont Studio Center, Monson Arts, and the Studios at Key West. In 2022, she completed her MFA in creative nonfiction at Washington University in St. Louis. This fall, Naomi will return to New York to complete her book, a memoir-in-essays about growing up gender-non-conforming. Read less

While at the University of Texas at Austin, Nat studied Psychology and received additional certifications in emerging technologies and user experience design. Following her studies, she worked as a psychological researcher on a cross-cultural study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Namibia, Africa. …Read more After a short career in ethnographic research, she shifted her focus to human-centered design at the world’s largest technology corporations. Her work at IBM has been awarded the Spark Award for Design and the Red Dot Award. Nat now works as a freelance tech reporter and digital consultant helping bridge the gap between the human and the highly technical. In the fall, she’ll be returning to freelance work with publications at Insider and Wired, but she might take an extra week off for a rock climbing trip first. Read less

While at school, Ravi focused on microfinance and the effects of global migration in the economy. After working for two years in investment banking and corporate finance, Ravi decided to sell everything he owned, pack only the necessities, and embark on a seven-month trip to Latin America. …Read more There, he focused his efforts on improving startup projects in Ecuador, Brazil, and Colombia. In his travels he discovered the virtues of panela sugar and then founded Nela Nature, a startup company that sources panela cane sugar directly from farmers in Colombia and imports it to the U.S. Ravi has grown his company to reach more than 50 clients in the D.C metropolitan area. For 10 years he has coached youth soccer, and he has also volunteered with youth in Baltimore, teaching English to teenage immigrants. Ravi is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, and Sindhi, and is proficient in French. He is also the founder & CFO of Sungate Property Management, a Baltimore-based real estate asset management company overseeing 50M in physical assets under management. He has taught at Putney Pre-College UCLA and led a Putney program in Morocco. In addition, he also takes on short-term finance consulting assignments in East Africa through USAID or the UN. Currently, Ravi splits his time between Granada, Spain, Baltimore, Maryland, and different parts of the Caribbean. Read less

After graduating from The College of New Jersey, Regina began teaching science in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a Teach for America Corps Member. Regina is passionate about STEM education and has recently been learning web development coding languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).…Read more She has worked for student travel companies since 2016, most recently as a trip leader in Hawai’i. Regina loves exploring new places! She once rode her bicycle from the White Mountains in New Hampshire to Bar Harbor, Maine. This fall, Regina will be returning to Philadelphia to work as a coding teacher. Read less

While at American University, Rianna concentrated in comparative politics, led first-year orientation programs, and directed the AU Improv troupe. During her junior year, she studied cultural integration and migration in Denmark for a semester (and a field course in Italy) and traveled in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Spain. …Read more During the pandemic, after graduation, Rianna worked with Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition to increase vaccine access in communities of color disproportionately impacted by COVID. She is passionate about the intersection of art, storytelling, and social justice and loves to write and draw. She is proficient in Spanish and French. She recently completed a gun violence prevention fellowship in Washington, D.C., where she researched policy on community violence intervention programs. Rianna is now exploring volunteering in community mutual aid efforts in D.C. and master’s programs in public health and social equity. Read less

For more than 35 years, Thom has taught graduate and undergraduate business and marketing courses at New York University, Yeshiva University, The Miami Ad School, Ducere, and the University of Canberra. During this time, he has also led strategy for U.S. and global brands…Read more working within WPP and Omnicom marketing agencies, as well as his own consultancies—The Isis Group, Isis New Media, FreeRadicals, and The Big Leap. Over the past five years he has developed a strategic proposition for businesses to become more ethically impactful in the worlds they inhabit. His book, The Big Leap – an Ethics of Insight, was published in May 2022 and lays out a framework for a better capitalism. Read less