In our alumni spotlight series, learn about Harvard graduates' most meaningful experiences from college, and how Harvard impacted their professional and personal paths after graduation. 

Hometown & Current City: Grayling, Michigan and Minneapolis, MN

House Affiliation: Lowell House

Concentration: Classics 

What was your professional path after college? 

I started learning Latin and Greek at Harvard and had no interest in graduate school upon graduating. I taught high school English for two years through Teach for America/Americorps in rural Arkansas in a public school, loved having students, and decided to stay in the classroom by starting a PhD at Columbia.

After my graduate program, I worked and trained at the largest and oldest Latin dictionary in the world, the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, based in Munich at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Think the OED but for Latin. I worked alongside Latinists from around the world. My officemate was from Switzerland, and the woman across the hall was from Japan. I was the one American fellow. We are only up to the letter R after 130 years of work!

I'm now the Director of Greek and Latin at the University of the Minnesota, as part of the faculty of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures. I also help train high school teachers in the Twin Cities area who are teaching Greek and Latin. I'm very grateful for having learned so much at Harvard as an undergraduate, which set me on this fulfilling and intellectually rich professional path!

What fills your time now professionally and personally? 

I continue to play piano, relying every day on lessons from my incredible year in Music 51 with John Stewart, a truly life-changing class. I also started doing more serious distance-running at Harvard, finishing my first marathon in 2006, and I have continued to nurture this habit with the Dashing Whippets Running Team in New York and Mill City Running now in Minneapolis. Harvard also helped me refine my skills as a writer—an ongoing process!—and I enjoy writing essays for Commonweal Magazine and other outlets. 

What was a favorite class you took and why?

Music 51 with John Stewart. I still whistle Bach's chord progressions on my walk to the grocery store. This class totally restructured the way that I hear the world around me.

Did you have any research/internship opportunities and/or professor/mentor relationships that were influential? 

I had the opportunity in the summer of 2006 to study with Reginald Foster, one of the Pope's Latinists, thanks to a fellowship from the Classics Department. Reggie (as everyone called him) was a master teacher and linguist, and his comical classroom style continues to influence my own approach to teaching students today. I have a picture of the two of us on my bookshelf in my departmental office.

What is your favorite Harvard tradition and why? 

I had the good fortune of being selected to give the Latin Oration at Commencement. It's such a strange tradition, but I love that Harvard continues to carve out space for this genre of theatrical oratory. Judging from conversations at my College reunions, I don't think I'll ever live down swinging fake lightsabers and doing a trollish Yoda voice in Latin next to Bill Gates.