Meet Our Leaders

Adam studied English and graduated with honors from Franklin and Marshall college before coming to UMass to study Fiction. He has taught courses in both composition and literature and twice has been nominated for Residential First Year Experience Student Choice Awards. He also worked for the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House in Lancaster, PA, where he helped establish a community for local and student writers. His book reviews and fiction have appeared in the Kenyon Review, The Common, The Ampersand, Word Riot, and other publications and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Adam loves dogs, bowling, games – both board and athletic – and cooking. He has taught Journalism, and Public Speaking and Debate at Excel at Amherst College.

Born and raised in Southern California, Adam grew up in a Dutch/Indonesian family, skateboarding, surfing, and making art. He studied painting, Spanish, and Western Art History while attending UCSB and the Severini School of Art in Cortona, Italy. Over the past five years he has traveled extensively throughout Central America, Colombia, Spain and Indonesia, and has built a strong studio practice and exhibition record. His recent paintings deal with cultural hybridity in the present day and are records of the events, relationships, and theatrics he experiences in daily life. He currently lives in Washington, DC where he works as an artist and exhibition specialist at the Art Museum of the Americas. He plans to continue his fine art education at The Chelsea College of Art in London this fall. In 2007, Adam taught Drawing and Painting with Putney Foundations in Costa Rica. He taught Art History and Art of Sketch in 2011 with Excel Madrid/Spain.

Alex’s longtime interest in Latin America became a passion after her college semester abroad in Lima. She had the opportunity to visit many of the different climes presented by Peru’s highly diverse environment, from the jungle to the sierra, and back to the coastal desert. While in Lima she volunteered with a NGO called Flora Tristán, which focused on women’s issues and helped some of Lima’s neediest people receive free legal counsel. She was deeply affected by the experience; and the immediacy of so many poignant social justice issues inspired her to focus on domestic social justice and join City Year in Washington, D.C. after graduating from college. She spent the 2010-2011 school year serving as a tutor, mentor, and role model for elementary school students in Southeast DC and feels that, during the experience, she learned even more than she taught. She hopes to make her career in science journalism but will surely make stops in new vocations along the way. Alex enjoys rock and alternative music, classical literature, and she plays the flute and guitar.  She is fluent in Spanish. Alex has led Community Service Peru.

Alexandra is a senior at NYU where she focuses on medieval and Renaissance literature and history. As a Putney alumna (of the Community Service in Brazil and Excel China programs), Alexandra has had a passion for travel from a young age. She studied abroad in Florence, Italy for four months where she completed intensive coursework in Italian language, literature (with a specific focus on Dante) and Renaissance art. Currently her studies trend toward medieval and Renaissance British literature, with a specialization in Renaissance drama. At NYU, Alexandra has been on the Dean’s List all three years of study. Alexandra also works as the Literature Editor for the Gallatin Rag, an arts magazine of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Alexandra is highly proficient in Italian. She has taught courses on our Excel at Amherst College program.

Alli is a proud native Vermonter, whose strong passion for community service work was born out of the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.  Since that time, she has spent the majority of her high school and college spring breaks assisting in community reconstruction efforts. As a Global Studies major at St. Lawrence University Alli’s interest in U.S. foreign aid to Africa brought her to East Africa in the spring of her junior year where she volunteered for Soft Power Education in Jinja, Uganda and lived along the shore of the White Nile. During her six months abroad, Alli’s fascination with the night sky led her to receive a travel enrichment grant to conduct a cross-cultural analysis of Northern New York and East African skies and stargazing traditions. Alli loves travel and outdoor adventure, and has backpacked through Peru, hiked in the Adirondacks, and explored Georgia’s Cumberland Island. She is also the founder of St. Lawrence’s Women’s Lacrosse Club, and ran her first half-marathon this past fall. Alli is proficient in KiSwahili and Spanish. Alli has led Community Service Tanzania.

Brought up in a bilingual (Italian and English) household, Allyson has always had a passion for culture, travel, and languages. She studied abroad in Barcelona and Paris. In Paris, Allyson attended l’Université de la Sorbonne – Paris IV, l’Institut Catholique, focusing her studies on French literature. She immersed herself in French cultural traditions while living with a French family in the 14^th Arrondissement on the bank of the Seine. While in France, she traveled extensively throughout the country, as well as to Eastern Europe and to Italy. Upon returning to Illinois, Allyson spent a semester student teaching French at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, one of the top ranked high schools in Illinois. During her free time she enjoys reading, playing golf and tennis, and working out.  Allyson is fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian.  She led Language Learning France and Community Service Costa Rica.

Amber majored in Studio Art at N.Y.U., and studied abroad in Naples, Pompeii, and Corciano, Italy. She spent a summer at the Chatauqua Institute of Art in Chautauqua, New York.  During the summer of 2002 Amber was awarded a travel grant to make a documentary movie about the Dominican Republic, later exhibited at Smith College.  After completing her M.F.A in Rome, Italy, she worked and lived in Sevastopol, Ukraine, where she exhibited her work at the Sevastopol Children’s Library and taught at the Sevastopol branch of Moscow University.  Amber ran the painting department and King Gallery at the College of Southern Idaho. In the summer of 2006, she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to attend the Bau Institute Art Residency in Otranto, Italy.  She taught painting and drawing at American University’s abroad program in Corciano, Italy, attended the Arts and Ideas Residency in Lisbon, Portugal, and taught painting at Syracuse University while she worked towards her PhD at the European Graduate School. Currently Amber is preparing for an exhibition at the Fowler Kellogg Art Center in Chautauqua, NY, and getting ready to write her dissertation. 2011 was her seventh summer with Excel.

Amelia spent most of her college years abroad.  She studied at the Université de Bourgogne in Dijon, France, where she focused on French language, Contemporary French Society, and French History.  She created lesson plans and taught English, music, environmental awareness, and basic math to Indian students at the Gandhi Ashram School in Kalimpong, India. Amelia then went on to study at the CIEE Study Center at Suffolk University in Dakar, Senegal, where she concentrated on Development in Africa, including Environmental Policy, Economics, Public Health, and International Crisis Management.  While in Senegal, Amelia worked at Pouponniere de Medina, where she gave basic care to young orphans.  She has also taught musical theatre at the Looking Glass Theatre Co. in Providence, Rhode Island for kids ages 8-16, and can be found humming a tune at almost any point in the day. Amelia’s global experiences have helped her recognize the importance of learning about other people and places in the world by interacting with them first hand, rather than simply believing what the media tells us about them. She is proud to be a third-year Putney leader to Senegal. She is fluent in French and proficient in Wolof and Spanish.

Amy first fell in love with the social sciences as a Psychology major at Boston College where she spent her college years pursuing children’s issues and child development through her coursework.  She was Assistant Program Director for a youth mentoring program in South Boston, a member of student government, and an avid BC football fan.   From there, she went on to get her Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania where Amy combined her studies with work at Philadelphia area social service organizations providing support for undeserved youth and extensive research into the areas of community programming and development.  As a social worker, Amy focuses on the child welfare system. She has not only worked with youth in the public school systems but also as an advocate for children and family related policies. She has participated in a variety of research projects including interviewing a diverse array of religious leaders and their impact in their urban communities, surveying active and ex gang members, and holding focus groups for social workers that aim to find adoptive homes for foster children.  Amy also has done community service work ranging to building homes in Tijuana, Mexico to mentoring youth in Boston. She is currently working on her PhD in Social Work at Boston College focusing on both the child welfare and juvenile delinquency systems. She has spent one summer with Excel at Amherst College.

During his time at Harvard, Andrea – or just Andy – studied German Romanticism, bringing its theories to bear on the manifestoes and artworks of Italian Futurism.  He also studied Italian, in an effort to perfect the language that he speaks at home with his Sicilian mother.  Outside of class, Andy spent most of his free time mentoring inner-city youth in Boston, leading them on trips to museums, but also to amusement parks.  He worked for several years after college as a researcher for Ernst & Young, where he collected and analyzed information on financial services companies to support the firm’s business pursuits.  Recently, Andy went back to school, this time to the University of Chicago, where he treated advertising as art, and studied it accordingly.  His parents emigrated to the United States from Sicily, and he is proud to be one-hundred percent Italian.  He travels to Italy frequently to see his many relatives, all of whom reside there.  Andy is fluent in Italian and has a working knowledge of Spanish.  He has led Cultural Exploration Switzerland, Italy, France, and Holland.

An avid language learner and traveler, Anna’s love for both was cemented during a summer program spent in Granada, Spain following her junior year of high school.  As an undergraduate at the University of Delaware, Anna decided to keep on with her language studies declaring the Three Languages major as her second major in addition to International Relations.  Anna’s explorative nature led her to travel throughout Europe and Latin America participating in study abroad programs in Argentina and Russia as well as a volunteer program in Costa Rica.  Anna’s passion for language learning, travel, and cultural exploration grew with every new experience and led her to stay at the University of Delaware to pursue a M.A. in Spanish Literature.  The program brought together her love of leadership, language, and reading, and gave Anna the opportunity to teach and travel in addition to her studies.  During her time as an M.A. student Anna assisted in leading a study abroad trip to Mexico and taught Spanish to undergraduate students.  She also took part in a faculty exchange, which led her back to Granada, Spain.  While teaching English as a visiting faculty member at the Universidad de Granada, Anna obtained a Spanish proficiency certificate from the Instituto Cervantes.  While in Spain, she took every opportunity available to travel, visiting over twenty cities as well as other parts of Europe.  Anna is fluent in Spanish, Russian, and Hebrew. She has led Language Learning Spain.

Anthony’s interest in Spanish began as a young child.  This interest led him to study abroad at La Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina where he focused his studies on Argentine literature and Hispanic linguistics.  Infatuated with cultural experiences and the kindness of the Argentine people, he traveled back to Argentina the following year as an intern and taught at La Escuela Superior de Comercio Manuel Belgrano in Córdoba, and took time to travel extensively throughout Argentina.  During college, Anthony tutored and mentored at-risk middle and high school students and served as the University of Texas at Austin mascot.  Currently, he teaches middle school Spanish in Dallas, Texas at Coppell Middle School West.  He is a sponsor of their Spanish Club and leads a mentoring service project.  Anthony is completing a dual Masters degree in Educational Leadership and Business Administration. In addition to his travels in South America, Anthony has traveled throughout Central America, Europe, Canada, and Mexico. He led Community Service Argentina and Language Learning Costa Rica.  Anthony is fluent in Spanish.

Upon completing his undergraduate studies, Ari moved to New Orleans where he taught the fifth grade with Teach For America.  Upon completing his two year commitment to Teach For America, Ari obtained a master’s degree and taught for several school programs that served low-income minority youth. In 2008, Ari started working for The Pangaea Project, a non-profit organization that offers international leadership development programs focused on social issues for low-income teenagers and young adults. In his time with Pangaea he worked as a program manager on program development and led trips to Ecuador and Thailand. In 2010 Ari began leading semester trips with Carpe Diem Education.  He has led trips to Central and South America and is assisting Carpe Diem in their curriculum development to increase awareness of social justice issues while traveling abroad. Ari’s interests include photography, soccer, yoga, rock climbing, and painting.  He is certified in Wilderness First Aid and Advanced Water SCUBA. Ari is fluent in Spanish and is studying Korean. He has led Community Service Nusa Penida.

Benjamin graduated cum laude from Connecticut College in 2008 with honors and distinction in German Studies.  A two time recipient of the German Consulate of Boston Book Award Prize, Benjamin was a captain and four year member of the school’s club soccer team and worked three years as the Assistant to the Dean of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life.  During his junior year, he studied abroad at the Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen, Germany.  While in Tübingen he worked at the regional German-American Institute as a translator, librarian and member of the USA Advisory board.  He is an original member of “Rent-An-American,” a program based in Tübingen, which engenders discourse between German high school students and visiting American undergrads.  After graduating college, Benjamin received a Fulbright to teach English and perform research in Germany.  There he taught American Studies at a German high school, and conducted research on the relationship between German soccer and German national consciousness while playing in the 9^th division of the Bundesliga.  In his free time Benjamin enjoys learning new languages, drinking good coffee, and doing The New York Times’ Monday crossword puzzle.  Benjamin has taught on Excel for three years.

Ben graduated with a double major in East Asian Studies and French Literature and Translation from McGill University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Originally from Upstate New York, he got the travel bug after a trip to Brazil when he was 15 years old to visit friends from a previous summer program. After graduating from high school, he was a Rotary International exchange student in rural France. Since then, he has traveled extensively on four continents and lived on three. Since 2009 he has called Beijing home, first as a student and then as a language specialist at ORBIS International, a non-profit seeking to eradicate curable blindness. Ben is fluent in French and Mandarin and enjoys swimming, volleyball and skiing. He has led Excel China.

After obtaining a bachelor’s degree, Bill joined the Peace Corps. He was placed in the rural village of Kinampanda, Tanzania where he taught biology and chemistry to high school students. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, he also wrote several grants to implement both health and environmental programs in villages outside of Singida, Tanzania, helped to lead seminars concerning HIV/AIDS education and coordinated a health conference for high schools in the surrounding villages.  After completing his Peace Corps service, Bill moved to New York City and completed a Masters in Science Education while teaching science in a 6-12 public secondary school in the Bronx. Currently he is teaching biochemistry at a public high school in Lower Manhattan, where he focuses on community service and mentoring. In 2009, Bill received a Fund For Teacher’s Grant to do HIV/AIDS research in India. He used this opportunity to draw connections between the epidemic in India and East Africa. In 2011, Bill led a group of high school students to China, visiting Beijing and Xi’an and working at a local Chinese orphanage as part of a large community service project. He has been on every continent with the exception of Antarctica and promotes the idea of travel among his students, stressing its importance for personal growth and cultural education. He enjoys photography and running. Bill is proficient in KiSwahili. He has led Community Service Tanzania.

While studying at St. Lawrence, Bob took an interdisciplinary approach focusing on anthropology and environmental studies. Led by his intellectual pursuits and drive to explore, Bob went abroad to Kenya in the fall of 2009. During this time he worked with the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy in the Nairobi’s Kibera slum to help bring awareness and funding to their cause. He has also spent a month in the city of Jinja, Uganda researching the interplay between culture, tourism, development, and the environment. That winter, he was part of a team funded to travel to Kigali, Rwanda for a comparative study of post-genocide politics in Nairobi, Kampala, and Kigali – three major East African cities with very different histories.  He is proficient in KiSwahili.  Bob spends most of his time outside, and plans to continue exploring, paddling, and doing the things that make him smile. Bob has led Community Service Tanzania.

Brenna’s interest in Latin America was sparked during her time studying at the Universidad de San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador, and teaching simultaneously at a Center for Working Children. She has since traveled throughout Central and South America, both on her own and leading programs for Putney in Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina.  Brenna was the Sparks Fellow at the University of Notre Dame where she completed an M.F.A. in Creative Writing.  There, Brenna founded a weekly writing group for adults at South Bend’s Center for the Homeless, was recognized by the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) for outstanding non-fiction writing, and received the university’s Distinguished Graduate Student Award, in part for her teaching excellence.  Brenna has managed communications for non profit organizations in Seattle and Washington, DC.  She worked for two years in the Putney Student Travel office managing  programs in Latin America and heading up our new media outreach efforts. Brenna is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English at Duke University.  She is fluent in Spanish. Brenna has led Community Service programs in Ecuador and Argentina, taught Creative Writing on our National Geographic Student Expeditions program in Peru, and served as Director for Foundations Costa Rica.

A versatile professional musician based in the Pioneer Valley, Brian studied at U.C. Berkeley before graduating from the New England Conservatory in 1993 with a degree in Contemporary Improvisation. Brian has taught Jazz Ensemble, World Music Appreciation, and Music Theory at Suffield Academy, the Williston-Northampton School, the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter High School, the Berkshire Hills Music Academy, and elsewhere. As a performing and recording artist for a range of groups—the Wholesale Klezmer Band, Black Rebels (African Reggae), the Pangeans (World Music), the World Beatniks (World Music), Little Shop of Horas (Klezmer-World Fusion), Fiddle Hill (Celtic), Big Bandemonium (Celtic), the Brian Bender Quartet (Jazz), the Gumbo Jumbo Dixieland Band—Brian has performed in venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, the Presidential Inauguration of Bill Clinton, Israel, Alaska, the Cape Verde Islands (West Africa), France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Holland, the United Kingdom, and the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Brian has been teaching music at Excel for nine summers.

During high school, Brian participated in community service trips to Sonora, Mexico, which fostered a desire to learn more about Latin American cultures, peoples, and idioms. Prior to enrolling at Tufts, Brian spent the year in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student. He spent a summer teaching English at the Center for Exchange and Solidarity in El Salvador. Later, he continued his teaching in Boston at the Brazilian Immigrant Center, and returned to El Salvador to research community-based microfinance institutions. He has traveled and studied in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Uruguay. A passionate soccer fan and player, Brian has played semi-professionally in Argentina, and earned regional honors playing at the collegiate level. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where his work involves enforcing equal employment opportunity legislation. Brian led Putney programs for two summers. He is fluent in Spanish.

Bridget is a recipient of the 2006-2008 San Francisco Art Institute M.F.A. Fellowship Award, and studied with renowned artists Doug Hall, John Priola and Tony Labat.  In 2008 she was awarded first place for color photography in the Paul Sack Photography Competition.  In June of 2010 she was included in the 16^th Annual Juried Exhibition curated by Joerg Colberg at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts.  Additional exhibitions have included: The One, an online exhibition curated by Peter Max Lawrence; The Photo Review 2009, an online exhibition; Vernissage – SFAI Graduating MFA Exhibition at Herbst Pavillion, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA; Spring Show 2008, Still Lights Gallery, San Francisco, CA; The Big Tiny, Red Ink Studios, San Francisco, CA; Girls, Trees, Teeth, Meat and Strangers, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Evocation, Gallery 4222, Port Jefferson, New York; The Token Women Show, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA; America, Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington, New York; Portrait of my Mother . . . Things Left Unsaid, Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, CA.  She has lectured about her work at SUNY New Paltz and the Fine Arts Academy at Missouri State University.  Her affinity for the fine arts also led to work as studio manager and photographer with Spinnato Art Gallery and photography studio and assistant photographer with both Macy’s Photography Studio and the photographic artist Will Faller.  Bridget has taught at Excel at Amherst for three years.

Bridget’s first trip to Spain, as a junior in college, awoke passions that would guide her towards countless adventures in the years to come. After graduation, Bridget spent three years living in Spain, teaching English and organizing summer immersion programs. She has also taught Spanish at Saint John’s Preparatory School in Minnesota, the Fountain Valley School of Colorado, Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, and at the Vail Mountain School in Colorado.  In her work as an educator, Bridget has worn many hats, including the roles of Spanish teacher, residence hall director, academic advisor, study abroad leader, and coach of soccer, basketball, track, and rock climbing teams. Her mountaineering pursuits have taken her to places such as the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, the European Alps, the Colorado Rockies, Mount Rainier, the Pyrenees and Picos de Europa in Spain, and the Patagonian Ice Cap and Cerro Aconcagua in Argentina. In addition to her alpine endeavors, she has spent time volunteering in Chile and Bolivia. As a resident of Vail, Bridget enjoys skiing, mountain biking, rock and ice climbing, hiking, and anything else that gives her an excuse to be outdoors. In the past two years, she has taken her class on Spanish immersion trips to Guatemala and Costa Rica. Bridget is fluent in Spanish and is a certified Wilderness First Responder. She has led Community Service Peru and Language Learning Spain

During his undergraduate studies, Brock lived and studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain at La Universidad Internacional de Menendez-Pelayo where he developed a love and passion for Spanish culture and language. On campus, Brock was the Spanish Club president for three years and was very involved with service learning projects including time spent as a volunteer teaching weekly Spanish lessons to local elementary students.  He also led student volunteer trips to Memphis, Tennessee, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in central South Dakota, coordinating activities and travel details. Brock currently teaches Spanish courses at the University of South Dakota as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. He enjoys playing music, reading, and cycling.  Brock is fluent in Spanish. He has led Language Learning Spain.

Cara graduated from Boston College in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and an intensive study of the Italian language and culture.  During a family vacation to Italy in 2002, Cara fell in love with Italy and was determined to return.  She spent her spring semester of 2007 of Boston College in Parma, Italy, living with a host mother and immersing herself in the culture.  Cara returned to Italy for the third time in 2008 to teach English to Italian children at summer camps in the north, using songs, art projects, and games.  Cara plans to get her Masters in Waldorf Education.  She is passionate about traveling and enjoys sharing the excitement of discovery with others. She is fluent in Italian. Cara has led Excel Oxford/Tuscany.

Caroline’s passion for language learning and travel started in high school when she participated in an exchange program to a small town outside of Madrid, Spain. Since that trip she has been traveling, studying, participating in community service, and teaching abroad. During her time at the University of Delaware she was president of Study Abroad Ambassadors and co-President of the Italian club (Il Circolo Italiano) which focused on conversation skills, culture, and current events. Also while at UD, Caroline participated in study abroad and community service programs in Costa Rica, Panamá, Spain, and Argentina. In the fall of 2009, Caroline started a masters degree in Spanish Literature and Pedagogy where she researched the fascinating how’s and why’s of foreign language learning. This past year she has been living in Madrid, Spain and teaching first grade at the American School of Madrid.  While living in Madrid she has had the wonderful opportunity to travel to many parts of Spain and Europe, including Galicia, Andalucía, Pais Vasco, Belgium, Holland, and Sicily. Caroline spends her summers tutoring Spanish and coaching a local swim team. She loves working with students and inspiring the young and old to travel and learn new languages. Her other interests include running, hiking, photography, yoga, and meeting new people.  Caroline is fluent in Spanish. She has led Language Learning Costa Rica.

During college, Christopher spent a glorious semester abroad in Dakar, Senegal, where he had the opportunity to work with some of the country’s most prominent political figures and HIV/AIDS advocates.  Christopher also worked at Empire des Enfants, a shelter that takes in victims of child trafficking and reunites them with their families. While there, Christopher gained a valuable understanding of an incredible organization that has truly defied the most oppressive odds.  He currently works for the Crime Victims Treatment Center of St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Hospital, which provides services, free of charge, to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, and other violent crimes.  He is a New York State Certified Rape Crisis and Domestic Violence Advocate.  In his free time, Christopher enjoys his friends and family, card playing, puzzles, and good coffee.  He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine at the Tri-State College of Acupuncture.  Christopher has led Community Service Senegal for three consecutive summers.  He is proficient in French and Wolof.

Claire is interested in how culture informs inequality in education, and she has worked in schools and nonprofits in the United States and India. While at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Claire spent a semester at the University of Hyderabad in southern India studying anthropology, religion and Urdu language, and she returned to Hyderabad on a research grant to study non-formal schools for Muslim girls run by NGOs. Claire then spent a semester working at a charter school for formerly incarcerated youth and studying international education in Washington, DC. She also taught college-level writing and sang in classical choir while at UW. After graduation, Claire coordinated youth development projects in Madison, Wisconsin public schools, libraries, farms, and community gardens; she then relocated to Washington, DC and taught documentary photography and organizing in DC public schools with Critical Exposure, an arts-education nonprofit. Claire recently completed her Masters degree in International Education Policy at Harvard, focusing on schooling for marginalized youth, especially those from religious minorities in India and racial minorities in the United States. Her other interests include biking, yoga, knitting, and rock climbing.  Claire is proficient in Urdu and conversant in Hindi. She has led Global Awareness in Action India

Corey’s passion for Latin America began 8 years ago on a trip to Costa Rica and has since led her to unexpected and exciting places. Looking to combine her love of the region with a future career in medicine, Corey has worked with physicians from Tufts University Medical School in a rural clinic in Nicaragua, volunteered at a home for disabled children in Cusco, Peru, and does ongoing translation work in clinics and hospitals in North Carolina. As a sophomore, Corey helped found LEAD – Latina Empowerment, Achievement and Development – helping Latina women develop their resume and interview skills and instilling them with the confidence to join the workforce. She also enjoys sharing her passion for this community with others, and taught Spanish classes to homeschooled students of all ages during her junior year at Davidson.  Corey’s interest in Spanish also extends to the literary realm, with her senior honors thesis on contemporary Latin American exile poetry. Most recently, she has published research on pediatric medical error education. Corey is from Massachusetts and enjoys running, hiking, playing outdoors and pretending to be a vegetarian chef. She speaks Spanish and is studying Portuguese. Corey has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Cuong has been living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for the past nine months, where he has been teaching English and spearheading human resources projects for a transnational IT company.  In college, Cuong studied studio art, focusing on representations of the diasporic Vietnamese experience in installation-based and painting pieces.  After graduating, Cuong gained experience working as a substitute teacher at economically disadvantaged high schools, and during this time he discovered an affinity for teaching and working with troubled youth.  His other work experience includes two years as an IT manager for a mid-size software company.  Cuong enjoys photography, classical music, building race engines, fishing, and tennis. He grew up in a bilingual household and speaks fluent Vietnamese. Cuong has led Community Service Vietnam.

Dallas participated in a foreign exchange program in Germany during high school. Since then, he has developed a great desire to travel and learn about other cultures, especially Spanish culture. At the University of Texas, he participated in the Mexican American Culture Committee and was a Resident Assistant for three years. He was a student on an exchange program in Monterrey, Mexico at El Tecnológico de Monterrey.  Dallas also studied and traveled throughout Spain. In 2008, Dallas began work as a Spanish teacher through Teach for America in Los Angeles, California. After only one year, his dedication to the Spanish department was so well demonstrated that the school’s principal named him Department Chair. After three years, he still works there, doing what he truly enjoys and sharing his passion with his students, in the hope that they too will treasure Spanish language and culture.  Dallas is fluent in Spanish. He has led Language Learning Spain.

Damen was one of two U.S. recipients of a Princess Grace Award for Acting in 1996. Since 1997, he has worked as an actor, playwright and teacher for the Irondale Ensemble Project, an improvisation-based, political theatre company in NYC (www.irondale.org). He has also acted at the Lincoln Center Theater in NYC, the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, and the Granary and Firken Crane Theatres in Cork, the Republic of Ireland, among others. Damen has written four plays that have been produced in the U.S., Ireland, and Northern Ireland. He has taught courses in Shakespeare, acting, and creative writing at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, UC San Diego, Manhattanville College, Marymount College in Manhattan, numerous NYC public high schools, and the Port Stewart Community Center in Port Stewart, Northern Ireland. He worked as a sportswriter for the Pasadena Star-News, and is a self-diagnosed international and political news junkie. Damen has taught Journalism, Creative Writing and World of Shakespeare at Oxford-Tuscany for ten years.

Dan majored in History and minored in Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth, where he was an Undergraduate Advisor for the colleges’ Office of Residential Life and worked for a year as “the in-school suspension guy” at Hartford High School just over the river in Vermont.  He was an on-air color commentator for the Men’s Hockey team on the Dartmouth Sports Network, and served as Program Director and General Manager of a small commercial rock radio station, 99Rock.  Dan taught SAT preparation courses for The Princeton Review. He spent a year teaching U.S. and Modern World history at Darlington School, a small boarding school in Georgia.  In 2004, he moved to Washington, DC, to be a Program Instructor (and later Program Supervisor) for the Close-Up Foundation, using the city as a classroom and teaching government and grassroots activism to high school students from all over the country.  In 2007, Dan returned to a more traditional classroom at Bullis School in Potomac, MD, where he taught U.S. history and journalism and served as the advisor for The Bulldog, Bullis’ student newspaper.  This past year, Dan decided to return to Close Up to work with their innovative Teacher Program, instructing teachers from around the country how to conduct experiential education and use the amazing resources of Washington, D.C.  In addition to his academic interests, Dan enjoys local music, entering various 48-hour film contests, and anything relating to the preparation or consumption of good food.  Dan spent seven summers at Excel Amherst, five as the Resident Instructor of Philosophy and Ethics, and two as the Assistant Director. He has most recently spent two summers teaching Excel Oxford/Tuscany.

After graduation college, Danielle spent a year and a half living in Costa Rica and working as an adventure photographer at a local nature park.  Danielle is also a proud Americorps National Civilian Community Corps alumna.  In that job she combined her passion for travel with her interest in community service.  Through this experience she was able to complete varied service projects across the country in locations including New Orleans, Baltimore, Rhode Island and New York.  She currently works as an outdoor educator and ropes course facilitator in Texas.  She is fluent in Spanish. Danielle has led the community service portion of Foundations Costa Rica.

Deepa is originally from California, where she has lived for the majority of her life – enjoying the sunny skies and spending time on its beautiful beaches. She attended the University of California, Irvine, for her undergrad years, where she received her B.A. in History and Political Science and during which time she became very involved with the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2008. Deepa then went on to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California in pursuit of her dream to become a teacher. Last December, Deepa married Vijay in India and is now living in and adjusting to life in less-than-sunny Chicago. Deepa enjoys watching movies, listening to music, traveling, DIY art projects, and working with younger students, especially high schoolers. Deepa is a dedicated traveler, with recent trips to London, Germany, France, Italy, and India. She visits India at least once a year, if not more, and speaks fluent Gujarati and Hindi. Deepa has led Community Service India.

Derek’s passion for community service led him to seek volunteer opportunities during his time at Dartmouth which ranged from work with the Special Olympics, to elementary school mentoring, to international service trips in Central America. Derek initially fell in love with Tico culture over the course of three months spent exploring the Costa Rican jungle studying tropical biology.  During this time he noted the precarious balance between humans and the local ecosystem and was troubled by the level of poverty and lack of access to quality healthcare. He returned to the region during his senior year on a community health brigade to Nicaragua, and later traveled to Honduras in both 2010 and 2011 as the leader of Dartmouth-sponsored trips to establish a regional library in a rural village, staff the local clinic, and complete construction projects. Since his graduation in 2010, Derek has worked at Children’s Hospital Boston, supporting continuing education for medical professionals throughout the hospital. While at Dartmouth, Derek was a two-year starter for the men’s varsity soccer program, making three straight NCAA appearances and winning an Ivy League Championship in 2008. He also played lead alto saxophone in the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble for four years, and enjoys ocean kayaking, spending time with family and friends, and trying to teach himself to play the guitar. He is spending the year working for an NGO in Zimbabwe before continuing his studies at Harvard Medical School next year. Derek has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Eileen is currently a PhD student in the East Asian Literature Department at Cornell University where she is studying Vietnamese culture and history through film and literature. She studied abroad in Vietnam during college and worked there after graduation as a Sales and Operations Manager for a leading shoe brand where her responsibilities included consulting brand image and establishing the company’s sales and operation policies. Her travels have taken her throughout almost all of Asia. She led Putney’s Vietnam Community Service program in Tinh Hoa in 2008 and 2009. Eileen is fluent in Vietnamese, including the dialect of the Quang Ngai region where Putney’s program is based, and has intermediate knowledge of Khmer, Chinese and French. She also loves to cook and eat fine food. Eileen has led Community Service Vietnam.

Eli Evans is a writer and a PhD candidate in the Comparative Literature Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also teaches for the Writing Program. In his academic work, he focuses on twentieth century and contemporary Spanish literature. His dissertation is provisionally titled “Hope and Exile: Altermodernities in Twentieth Century Spanish Literary Culture.” In his non-academic work, he writes about just about anything he can come up with. Essays, fiction, and interviews have been widely and internationally published in magazines and online venues such as n+1, truthout, Zg Press, Quimera, Glimmer Train, and many others, and he has given readings of his work at Book Soup in Los Angeles and BookCourt in Brooklyn. This will be his eleventh summer with Putney Student Travel. He spent nine extremely excellent summers with Excel Madrid/Barcelona, including the final two as director, and two with Excel at Amherst College.

During his time at Connecticut College, Eric focused his studies on sustainable agriculture, community development and education, and worked as a bilingual teaching assistant for two after-school programs in New London, CT. He spent the fall of 2007 in Ecuador, studying themes of development, international relations, and cultural anthropology. While in Ecuador, Eric served as a sustainability intern for CASA (Centro Interamericano para las Artes, el Sustento y la Acción). With CASA, Eric worked in the small village of Pucará to establish an integrated waste management system and a communal food garden. In the summer of 2008, Eric traveled to northern India to serve as an agricultural intern with the Federation of Damanhur.  That same summer he traveled to Malawi, where he worked with World Camp for Kids as a videographer, and with local NGO Never Ending Food, interviewing households and organizations about the process of establishing permaculture gardens. Eric has lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming since the fall of 2009. In the wintertime, he coaches nine and ten year olds in alpine racing for the Jackson Hole Ski Club.  He currently works as an outdoor educator for Naturalists At Large, leading week-long trips for students in scenic areas throughout California. Eric has led Community Service Ecuador.

Erika majored in Spanish and Italian at Kenyon, where she was a member of the Kenyon College Chamber Singers and lettered in both Field Hockey and Lacrosse. She spent two summers working for Case Western Reserve University’s Upward Bound program, most recently as Residential Director. Erika has worked as the Director of Diversity at the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where she is currently Assistant Director of Admissions and Director of Financial Aid. She coaches lacrosse, sings karaoke whenever she gets the chance, and consumes sushi frequently and voraciously. Erika has traveled extensively in Italy and Spain and is fluent in Italian. Erika has been with Oxford-Tuscany for nine years.

Evan first discovered his love of travel during a high school trip to Costa Rica.  As an undergraduate, he spent a semester in the Netherlands at the University of Amsterdam, focusing is studies on the differences between Dutch and American social policy.  Following his semester there, Evan traveled throughout Europe visiting Germany, the Czech Republic, and Hungary.  He has worked with middle and high school students as a counselor at Mt. Hood Snowboard Camp, and mentored undergrads as a teaching assistant in the Psychology Department at the University of Vermont.  After graduation, Evan spent a year traveling in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.  While there, he volunteered in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest, helping to construct an eco-village and to accelerate conservation efforts in the area.  He also lived and worked with a fishing family, managed the kitchen at a hostel on the coast, taught English to primary school students, and discovered a passion for surfing.  Evan led a Community Service Costa Rica Program for Putney in the summer of 2010. Following the program he extended his stay to travel and work in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador. Evan is fluent in Spanish. He has led Community Service Costa Rica and Community Service Peru.

In addition to his academic studies at William and Mary, Franklin taught English to adults and worked on the campus literary magazine.  He spent the spring of his junior year studying Spanish in Santiago, Chile (as well as adventuring around mountains, glaciers, and volcanoes).  He liked South America so much that he stayed for three more months, working on an eco-tourism venture in Patagonia, a goat cheese farm in central Chile, and at an under-resourced school in Peru.  Franklin has held a wide variety of other summer jobs, from leading volunteers on trips building hiking trails in Vermont, to working in a food pantry, to building boardwalks on the Florida coast.  After graduation, Franklin moved to Badajoz in western Spain, where he has spent the past year teaching English in an elementary school and a high school.  He grew up in Tampa, Florida and in his free time, he likes to backpack, meditate, and write stories.  Franklin is fluent in Spanish. He has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Haley completed a double major in Spanish and Anthropology at Skidmore College, where she graduated magna cum laude, received the Sonja P. Karsen award for excellence in Spanish, and was inducted in the Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Delta Pi, and Periclean honors societies.  She spent her junior year studying at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and has spent the last eight summers in Spain working for Excel Madrid/Barcelona.  She is currently completing her Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  Her dissertation, focusing on literary journalism in Spain, combines literary analysis with theories drawn from cultural and media studies. While at UC Santa Barbara, Haley has also taught Spanish language and culture courses and studied language pedagogy. She has taught on the Excel programs for seven years.

Hannah graduated with honors in Anthropology-Zoology from the University of Michigan, where she studied chimpanzee behavior and vocalizations. She worked with bats at the University of Maryland and at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. before moving to Costa Rica to study the social behavior of the white-faced capuchin monkey. Hannah remained in Costa Rica for six years serving as the field station manager for the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. In Costa Rica she worked closely with the community where she lived, and succeeded in bringing conservation education to local school children. Hannah now works as an Associate Director at Putney, helping to coordinate programs in Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand, and overseeing staffing for Putney’s Excel programs. Hannah is fluent in Spanish and proficient in German. 2011 was Hannah’s fifth summer with Putney. She has led programs in Costa Rica, Ecuador and the Galápagos, Peru, and Australia, New Zealand, Fiji.

Jamie has been exploring other cultures since a young age, seeing first-hand how poverty affects the developing world while living in Indonesia and Peru. After living abroad for 11 years, Jamie returned to the U.S. to attend Barnard College, where she focused on History and Latin America. While in New York City, she interned at Major League Soccer, but soon found that the sports world alone didn’t satisfy her original passion for development work. She quickly found her true calling at Right To Play, an international organization that uses sport and play to teach disadvantaged children life skills. Jamie then transitioned into teaching kindergarten at the Horace Mann School, using her time as an assistant teacher to learn about early childhood education and behaviors. At Horace Mann, Jamie also coached the High School Girls Varsity Volleyball team. This fall, Jamie will begin graduate studies in international affairs at Columbia University, focusing on economic and political development. Jamie is half Chilean and half English and is bilingual in Spanish and English. She is also proficient in Portuguese and French. Jamie has led Community Service Peru.

Jennifer has always had a love for travel and passion for Africa, both of which came together during college when she spent a summer in South Africa, and a semester abroad in Ghana.  During her stay in Ghana, she interned at an NGO, working on projects designed to help stop violence against women, experienced university life in another culture, and absolutely fell in love with the country.  She returned to Ghana on her own in 2009 and spent three months volunteering for local NGOs, teaching English and Computer Science to third and fourth grade students, and assisted with micro-credit finance loans associated with the Kiva program.  During this trip she also began to bolster her language skills in Twi and understanding of Ghanaian culture by living with a host family.  In the summer of 2010 Jennifer traveled to Ghana again, this time doing research for her MA thesis and taking formal language courses.  Jennifer loves writing, reading, exploring new cultures, and going on adventures.  She is proficient in Twi. Jennifer has led Community Service Ghana.

Jennifer is an actor, producer, and teaching artist who lives and works in New York City.  She is the Artistic Producer of The Grid Theater, producing and performing in the award-winning plays “Things Beyond Our Control” by Jesse Kellerman, and “Dogs” by Norman Lasca. Teaching always has been an important part of her professional life, as she has worked with The Shakespeare Society, Brandeis University, Actors Shakespeare Project in Boston, the Cambridge School of Weston, the JCC in Scarsdale, New York, and with Shakespeare on the Sound in Long Island. She has extensive acting credits in theatre, television, and film in cities across the country including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Austin, New Orleans, and even the very tip of Wisconsin in the dead of winter!  Jennifer appeared in the Duplass Brothers film “Baghead”, called the “breakout film” of Sundance 2008 (Sony Pictures Classics), and recently starred in their upcoming film “Do-Deca Pentathlon” (Fox Searchlight). 2010 was Jennifer’s fourth summer with Putney Student Travel.  She taught Acting and Theatre Production for Putney’s Excel at Williams College program and has co-led the Theatre in Britain program for three summers.

While at St. Lawrence Jesús was involved in many community service, human rights, and social justice campaigns. He also worked with Oxfam, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, and the Latino Multicultural Alliance. Jesús completed a year-long study abroad program in Madrid, Spain during his sophomore year and a semester-long program in San Jose, Costa Rica his junior year. He has traveled widely, including a four month long trip through Southeast Asia. His best travel memories include hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, riding camels by the  Pyramids of Giza, seeing the Mayan ruins of Tikal, going to the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, trekking for 20 days through five countries in Central America, hiking a volcano in Lombok, Indonesia, and crawling through Vietcong tunnels in Vietnam. Jesús was recently awarded a Fellowship at the University of Buffalo to undertake a Master’s degree in Caribbean Cultural Studies. 2011 was Jesús’ third summer with Putney Student Travel.  He led our Language Learning Costa Rica program in 2009, Community Service Costa Rica in 2010, and Community Service Dominican Republic in 2011.  Jesús is fluent in Spanish.

Joey took full advantage of his school’s international opportunities while studying at The College of Wooster. He first went abroad through the Lilly Foundation, travelling to Belarus to work at a rural orphanage for children affected by the Chernobyl disaster. The following summer, he traveled to Ghana on a grant from the Noble Foundation, where he assisted at a rural hospital, researched student crowding at a nurse’s training college, and prepared a grant proposal for new student housing. Additionally, he conducted research in Switzerland for his senior thesis on the rhetorical strategies of developing nations campaigning to host the Summer Olympics. Since graduating with honors from Wooster, Joey has worked in a variety of roles—he led teenagers on bicycle trips in Maine and Nova Scotia, taught outdoor education at a Kentucky state park, and guided school groups at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Alabama. In 2010, Joey completed a year on the road driving cross-country in Oscar Mayer’s promotional Wienermobile. He has led Community Service Ghana.

Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela and transplanted to Alabama at a young age, Jonathan grew up eating two of the best foods in the world: arepas and BBQ pork.  Before attending graduate school he spent four years working in the world of international education, developing accessible programs of student exchange for universities in Latin America. He later returned to school in search of innovative poverty and inequality reduction strategies in Latin America, where he found a like-minded community of students addicted to The Economist magazine’s biting analysis and snarky humor. Recently, Jonathan has spent much of his time between Boston and Brazil, helping to launch a market-based program for educational inclusion in low-income communities in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In his spare time he will stop everything at the drop of a hat for a pick-up game of soccer, is trying to learn every samba song ever written on guitar, and loves hanging out and drinking coffee. Jonathan has led Community Service Argentina and Community Service Peru.

During his junior year in college while studying abroad in Madrid, Spain Jorge first became interested in working with students. His experience teaching English to Spanish students left a lasting impression that would ultimately lead him to an AmeriCorps teaching fellowship with Citizen Schools at the Brooklyn School for Global Studies in New York. As a Fellow, Jorge has worked closely with volunteers to develop high-level, engaging apprenticeships that highlight college and career connections for at-risk middle-school students that range from blogging with Google volunteers, to mock court sessions with New York City litigators, to running a popular Manhattan coffee shop for an entire afternoon. Jorge has traveled extensively throughout much of Latin America, including Cuba, Venezuela, and Guatemala. He enjoys reading, running, and cooking.  He is currently spending this spring on a gastronomical tour of Italy, France, and Spain (his grandfather’s birthplace). Jorge is fluent in Spanish. He has led Community Service Argentina.

Josh has his BA and MA in philosophy, and is currently working on his PhD as a Presidential Fellow at Boston University.  Josh studied Czech language and literature in Prague as an undergraduate, and returned to the Czech Republic as a Fulbright Scholar in 2007.  He has taught philosophy, literature, and history at St. Paul’s School (NH), The Maine School of Science and Mathematics (ME), and the Darrow School (NY). Josh has also worked as a research assistant for UNICEF in New York and in Coimbatore, India. Josh’s interests include soccer, hiking, and cats. Last year, Josh lived in France and immersed himself in the French language. He has spent five summers with Excel on both Excel at Amherst and Excel Oxford-Tuscany.

Josh was born in New York City and has over 3 years of experience working with finance and startup companies. In 2009 he worked for Waddell and Reed Financial Advisors where his primary responsibilities involved equity analysis, and portfolio management. In 2010 he worked as a financial analyst with The Boeing Company where he used his knowledge of corporate finance and accounting to help manage the finances of multi-million dollar contracts. In 2007 Josh started a for-profit website to facilitate used textbook exchange on the Carnegie Mellon Campus. In 2011 Josh has been involved in the funding stages for a reverse auction, Groupon clone startup, having developed the financial plan and operational strategy. Josh has spent one summer with Excel at Amherst College.

Before leaving for the unpredictable cold weather of New Hampshire, Juan was born and raised in Quito, capital of Ecuador. During his high school years, he complemented his schoolwork with social service, particularly with organizations that helped children who lived on the streets, or who had suffered different types of abuse.  At Saint Anselm, Juan focused on political philosophy and coordinated ‘Inti-Soccer’; a Manchester-based organization that provides soccer and academic training for children of refugees.  During the summer of 2010, besides rooting for Argentina in the World Cup, he conducted research on postmodernist thought and its implications with sexuality, marriage and society. Juan is fluent is Spanish. He has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Julia has always loved getting off the beaten path and has traveled extensively through Europe. During her time at Boston University, she spent a semester living and studying in Paris. She lived with a French host family, took classes, and interned on a péniche (boat on the Seine) that hosted private events called La Balle au Bond. Julia has also lived and worked in New Zealand where she led weekend getaway trips for GOOT! (Get Out Of Town!) going to off-the-map places and exploring hidden beaches and waterfalls. In the summer of 2008, Julia rode her bike from Boston, Massachusettes to Santa Barbara, California with Bike & Build after raising over $6,000 to be donated to affordable housing groups. Needless to say, Julia loves cycling. She also loves capoeira and cultural exploration. She has led Cultural Exploration Switzerland, Italy, France, and Holland and Language Learning France. Julia is fluent in French.

Karen caught the travel bug between high school and college while spending a year as an AFS exchange student, living with a host family in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.  At St. Lawrence, she studied abroad in France and Senegal, focusing her studies on francophone literature and culture. She worked as a writing mentor, teaching assistant, and French tutor, ran track, and was an active member of the Laurentian Singers and the Swinging Saints — a student run swing dancing club.  Karen has traveled throughout Europe, the United States, West Africa, the South Pacific, and Australia.  She currently works full time at Putney Student Travel as an Associate Director coordinating programs in France, Switzerland, Italy, England, Senegal, Nusa Penida, and Dominica.  In her free time, she enjoys running, making pottery, rock climbing, and playing yogaball soccer.  Karen has led five Putney trips. She has led multiple Language Learning France programs and our Community Service program in Senegal.  Karen is fluent in French.

Kartikeya’s research interests include climate change and energy policy, the geopolitics of energy use, transportation, and wildlife. He has authored many articles focusing on energy, climate change, the citizen sector, and the role of youth movements including his Master’s thesis on access to energy for rural communities in India through decentralized renewable energy systems. Prior to coming to Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Science, Kartikeya was a consultant with the Environmental Defense Fund. He is the co-founder of the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) and started the blog, “What’s with the Climate?” as a space for voices of the budding youth climate movement from across South Asia. He has been involved with the international climate negotiations since the UN climate talks in Bali, Indonesia and has most recently served as part of the negotiating team of the government of Maldives at the climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009, Tianjin, China in October 2010 and Cancun, Mexico in December 2010. This September, Kartikeya will be enrolling at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy for a Ph.D. in International Affairs with a focus on climate solutions and emerging markets.  Kartikeya has traveled extensively in India and is fluent in Hindi. He has led Global Awareness in Action India.

Kathleen is obsessed with languages. She studied Spanish for seven years before starting to study Chinese during her freshman year at Middlebury College. She loved it so much that she ended up choosing Chinese as her major. Kathleen studied abroad in Kunming, China during the spring of her junior year at Middlebury. While there, she spent her spring break doing community service in a rural Miao minority village in Guizhou Province. Kathleen enjoys running, photography, and music of all kinds. In addition to Mandarin Chinese, she speaks proficient Spanish and basic Arabic.  She has led Excel China.

Katie’s enthusiasm for travel began early.  At age five she accompanied her family on a year-long sabbatical in India. In high school, she took a service-learning trip to Dominica to volunteer, which ignited a passion for intercultural exchange. While in college, she studied abroad in Parma, Italy, and lived with a local family. After graduation, Katie headed to Cape Town, South Africa to volunteer with an HIV/AIDS peer education program. She continued work in the public health sector spending two years fundraising for the Colorado AIDS Project in Denver. Katie then spent six months in East Java, Indonesia where she taught English at a secondary school and lived with a family.  More recently, she took a position working with a local NGO in Cambodia on climate change education in rural schools. During this time, she has traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Katie is currently residing in Battambang, Cambodia, where she has lived for over a year, establishing a start-up social enterprise project. She is proficient in Italian, Indonesian, and Khmer. Katie has led Community Service Nusa Penida.

While at St. Lawrence, Kelsey spent her junior year in Madrid, Spain, studying literature, art history, ecology, and theater at El Colegio Mayor Isabel de España.  Back on campus, Kelsey worked as a peer tutor in the Spanish Writing Center, a teacher’s assistant for the Spanish department, and in the International Office for the Spain Study Abroad program. She was a member of the women’s lacrosse team and the Outing Club. 2010 was Kelsey’s tenth summer with Putney Student Travel.  She has led a Language Learning program in Spain, worked coordinating Putney’s Global Action programs at Yale University, and led Community Service programs in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Ghana.  Kelsey works full time at the Putney Student Travel office as an Associate Director.  She is responsible for organizing Putney’s programs in Spain, Ecuador, and Ghana, and for coordinating our marketing efforts.  When she isn’t traveling, Kelsey sings in her band, dances West African dance, hikes, bikes, skis, reads, and makes art.  Kelsey developed the Ghana program in collaboration with her cousin who lives and works in the group’s home-base village, Cape Three Points.

Upon finishing his teaching certification and Master’s degree, Kevin embarked on a three month European backpacking trip, ending with a five month stay in Seville, Spain.  Little by little, five months has turned into six and half years as Kevin’s love of southern Spanish life has kept him from returning to his native New York City.  He has held a number of positions as a teacher of English as a second language and currently works as a teacher in a bilingual program in Seville, Spain.  An avid traveler, he spends most of his free time backpacking and has logged trips to Russia, Egypt, Israel, and Morocco. Kevin is fluent in Spanish. He has led Excel Madrid/Barcelona.

While at Georgetown, Laura’s studied the role that culture plays in various forms of government and in the creation of national identity. In pursuit of her academic interests, Laura studied abroad in Dakar, Senegal during her junior year of college. While in Senegal, Laura taught English at a community center, interned at a women’s right NGO, and traveled extensively throughout the country. During her college years, Laura served as a Senior Editor of The Hoya, the main campus newspaper, and interned for former Senator Russ Feingold, at Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, and at ABC News.  Following graduation, Laura lived in Hong Kong as a Princeton in Asia fellow teaching English at Shue Yan University and writing for Time Out Hong Kong Magazine. Laura is currently working as a consultant in West Africa where she is writing a report on poverty reduction and the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals for the Economic Community of West African States with an additional focus of assessing and showcasing investment opportunities in the transport sector for the Federal Ministry of Transport of Nigeria. Laura is fluent in French and speaks conversational Mandarin and Wolof. 2011 was Laura’s third summer with Putney. She has led Community Service Senegal, Language Learning France, and Cultural Exploration Switzerland, Italy, France, and Holland.

Originally from Monterrey, Mexico, Lilia moved to Houston, Texas at a young age. During high school, she dedicated most of her free time to volunteering and doing community service for organizations including Habitat for Humanity at sites throughout Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi. At Brandeis she was the treasurer and president of ¡AHORA!, the Latino and Hispanic culture organization. She was also the founding member and treasurer of MLK Jr. and Friend Club, an organization dedicated to living the teachings of MLK Jr. through community service and peace awareness events on campus. Currently, Lilia is a Teach for America Corps Member completing her second year in Houston as a 7th grade Intro to Algebra teacher at YES Prep Public Schools.  Lilia is bilingual, and can often be found visiting relatives in Mexico – her interests include immigration law, Spanish literature, dancing, reading, and cooking. She has led Language Learning Argentina.

Liliana’s dedication to traveling and social justice is a direct result of her multicultural background – she hails from Botswana, with Romanian parents and a Cuban step-father, and has traveled to many parts of the world including Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, China, and Argentina.  During her time at St. Lawrence, she worked as a Teaching Assistant, Admissions Ambassador, and a Peer Tutor for Spanish, and was involved in several organizations and clubs including the African Student Union and GLOCAL – a peer review journal of student research papers dedicated to investigating local and global issues.  Liliana studied for 6 months at the University of Costa Rica, and in addition to her coursework, found time to dance with three different performance troupes, including the National Dance Company.  In December of 2010, she traveled to Argentina on a Travel Research Grant to investigate the effect of creative expression and arts in promoting awareness, critical thinking, and solidarity in the public realm, with a special focus on the role of youth.  Liliana’s passions include dance, music, drawing, squash, and participating in any outdoor activity she can find.  She is fluent in English, Spanish, Setswana, Romanian, and French. She has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Lily first caught the travel bug when she had the opportunity, at age 16, to intern in Kenya with outreach healthcare organizations.  Since then, she has spent a summer working in rural Peru with the VivePeru Foundation, traveled to Mexico for three months of intensive language study, and lived for a semester in Ecuador where she worked with the Yanapuma Foundation mapping an indigenous jungle community to prevent encroachment and provide a tool for sustainable land use management. Back at Dartmouth, Lily spent her weekends teaching English to Vermont migrant farm workers and was an advisor for Dartmouth students interested in interning abroad.  During her senior year, Lily became the Educational Officer for Dartmouth’s service program to Nicaragua, preparing seminars on topics of sustainability and cross cultural competency.  Lily has worked for years as a sexual health advocate and educator and has mentored HIV+ teens as well as planned campus-wide STD prevention campaigns at Dartmouth. Lily is currently completing a Community Service Fellowship in the Office of Community Health at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. She plans to become a Nurse Practitioner with dual degrees in Health Communications and/or Urban Planning. Lily grew up in Vermont and loves hiking, dance, Spanish, and anything to do with cheese and good music.  She has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Liz’s love of nature led her to St. Lawrence University and St. Lawrence led her to her other passion: teaching. Liz majored in Environmental Studies, and minored in Educational Studies, and spent those years at school balancing her teaching endeavors with outdoor pursuits, returning every summer to the Catskill Mountains to work at NYS DEC Camp DeBruce.  During her freshman year Liz began studying Kiswahili, in anticipation of a semester abroad.  While in Kenya, Liz participated in a month-long field experience in Lake Nakuru National Park, worked with the rangers in the Rhino Unit, and learned about their conservation efforts. After graduating from St. Lawrence, Liz headed west to work for a winter in Yellowstone National Park, and then taught at an outdoor education facility in the Southern Adirondacks.  Liz worked in California for two years at San Mateo Outdoor Education before returning east to attend graduate school at Brooklyn College,  where she student-taught in Harlem, and received her NYS teaching certificate.  When Liz is not teaching, she enjoys running, biking, playing music, and dreaming up new adventures. Liz has led Community Service Tanzania.

During his undergraduate studies, Lucas focused his work on the Spanish language, identity development, motivation, and sports psychology.  His research has allowed him to interact with diverse immigrant populations in the state of Georgia. For the past four years, Lucas has worked as a child advocate and counselor in the Atlanta Public school system as well as an ESOL and Spanish teacher.  An avid soccer player, Lucas enjoys the connection between mental and physical challenge. He has served as a mentor for Soccer in the Streets, where he coaches underserved youth and offers them academic help with their language skills. In addition, Lucas coaches professionally for Georgia’s #1 ranked St. Pius X High School soccer team and he was awarded the 2011 Coach of the Year award by the Georgia Soccer Association.  Lucas was born to Colombian parents in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He has trained with professional soccer teams in Mexico and has traveled extensively trough Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Spain, Germany, and France. Lucas was raised bilingual and has a basic knowledge of French.

During her time at University, Lydia took part in an exchange program to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. There, she became involved with the University’s Academic Enrichment Upward Bound Program and worked as an R.A., supporting local high school students in education, career choices and personal goals. After graduating, Lydia’s passion for education prompted a move to Washington D.C. to intern in administration for a Government based think tank for policy and education. She has since held various teaching positions, including Kindergarten Art and 3rd grade after school. Lydia is currently working for the youth exchange department of a student travel company, coordinating tours throughout america for foreign academic exchange students studying in the US. In her spare time Lydia loves to travel and watch Iron Chef. 2011 was Lydia’s third year with Excel at Amherst College.

Maggie developed her passion for both art history and Italian during her junior year of high school, when she studied with the School Year Abroad Program in Viterbo, Italy. Returning to Italy in the fall of her junior year of college, Maggie studied at the University of Bologna. After college, Maggie worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Drawings and Prints Department.  At the Met, Maggie had the great pleasure of assisting on The Drawings of Bronzino, an exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings. Maggie has worked at several other art institutions, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, The Frick Collection, and The Lyman Allyn Art Museum. Currently, Maggie teaches fourth grade at a charter school in Philadelphia.  In the fall, she will begin her graduate work in Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University.  Maggie’s favorite things besides Italy and art include New York City, great food, and a sharp personality. She is fluent in Italian. She has led Excel Oxford/Tuscany.

A former National Geographic intern, Maggie studied abroad in Austria in college and worked in the Czech Republic upon graduation. She also served as a coordinator and student leader for National Geographic’s Student Summit programs in Washington, D.C., and has led Putney programs in Dominica and at Amherst College. She has traveled throughout Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, and beyond. Maggie is a full time staff member in the Putney Barn, coordinating programs in North America and Turkey, and is also part of the Admissions Team.  She enjoys trivia, riding her bike, and playing frisbee.

Born in Quito, Ecuador, Maka started traveling at age 11, and has since lived quite a nomadic life, learning to appreciate the beauty of cultural differences in all their myriad forms. She has done research and traveled as far away as Cambodia, Russia, and Greece, but has also been immersed in community development programs in Manchester, NH and in her home country. During college, she participated in an alternative spring break program to build houses in Costa Rica and later worked for an international development bank in Washington D.C. She then took on a project for the Ecuadorian government, traveling around the Amazon rainforest and the Pacific coast, addressing issues of development and poverty alleviation. During her Master’s degree studies, Maka discovered a passion for the vast array of historically and culturally transmitted ideas, languages, and ways of life. Maka will start a Ph.D. program in Anthropology in London this upcoming academic year. She is fluent in Spanish, English and French and is studying Catalan. Maka has led Community Service Ecuador.

Since graduating from Wheaton, Mammi-Ama has lived and worked in New York City, organizing her many talents, including personal styling, eco-fashion designs, photography, videography, and social media services under the online moniker “Purple Vintage Space Princess.” She is the creator of “Garment Colors Knitwear Accessories,” and her collaborations have been featured in Glamour, Paper Magazine, and Kaboodle, as well as on the USA, UPN, FOX, and Lifetime TV Networks.  In addition to her prolific work in design and styling, Mammi-Ama is also a recording artist, with an upcoming EP release of original songs on the French label StillMuzik, and hosts the online “Purploptimisms Radio Show.”  2011 was Mammi-Ama’s first summer with Excel Amherst.

Philippine-born and Metro-Detroit raised, Mark Anthony’s interest in the French language began in fourth grade, following a Michigan history class which highlighted the state’s francophone heritage. He studied French formally in both high school and college and within his first two years of undergraduate studies, Mark Anthony travelled to Noisy-le-Roi, France, New Orleans, and Québec. During the fall of 2008, he studied abroad and conducted independent research throughout South Africa, and spent the following spring studying abroad in Paris and interning in Fontenay-sous-Bois Cedex. Upon his return to campus, he compiled his research into an honors thesis which addressed the upcoming English translation of the Roman Missal and its effect on South Africa’s multiethno-linguistic Catholic population. At the forefront of Mark Anthony’s personal and academic interests are cooking and the notion of “learning through food.” In addition, he is interested in ethnography, cross-cultural communication, and African art, as well as tennis, film, and jazz. He is currently the Program Coordinator in the Office of Multi-Cultural Student Affairs at Denison University. Mark Anthony is fluent in French. He has led Language Learning France.

Masha graduated with honors from Princeton University in 2010 where she studied Slavic Languages & Literatures and the Visual Arts. For her senior thesis she shot and edited a 55-minute documentary film, “Orange Hangover”, about the after-effects of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Through interviews with city officials and market vendors alike, the film took a look at the way public perception of the Orange Revolution has shaped the people’s understanding of national identity and political agency. The film won the departmental award in Visual Arts at Princeton and was screened as part of the Boston International Film Festival in April 2011. Masha currently lives in Paris where she is pursuing a masters degree in Film Studies and Anthropology at the École Normale Supérieure. She continues to focus on Eastern European cinema, writing her masters thesis on the history of Polish documentary film. She is fluent in French and Russian, and speaks some Spanish and Polish as well. She has led Excel Oxford/Tuscany.

A recent graduate of Yale, Michael has spent nearly half of the last three years in Asia.  Michael first began studying Chinese as a freshman; after his sophomore year, on a Richard U. Light Fellowship from Yale, he spent an entire year studying Chinese at intensive language programs in Beijing and Taipei.  Over the past two summers, Michael has interned in Beijing and Singapore engaging in marketing and market research.  In college, Michael was active in planning events, trips, and concerts as the Yale College Council Events Director.  Having been to over 11 countries or territories in Asia, Michael loves traveling and experiencing new cultures and cuisines. He is fluent in Mandarin. Michael has led Excel China.

After completing his undergraduate studies at Willamette University, Michael took an adventurous spirit, a desire to better listen and understand, a camera, and bag full of anti-malarials on the road, spending twelve months on a Watson Fellowship traveling and researching across the African continent, including substantial time in East Africa. During that year, he met with priests, nuns, lay people, theologians, professors, bishops, and even Masai market men as he tried to better understand how people reconcile their identities as Africans and their identities as Catholics. Upon completing his year of travel and research, Michael became a high school educator in France, teaching oral English skills to the French students at Lycée Albert Camus in Nantes, France. In 2008 Michael led the inaugural Global Awareness in Action Rwanda trip, thrilled by the chance to open up this country to his students. He spent three following years studying his masters, pushing him to deeper reflection on ethics in daily life, sending him to study religious pluralism in India, and granting him the chance to serve as a chaplain extern at the UIC Medical Center. Michael reunited with the Putney team in 2011, leading Global Awareness in Action once more. Michael is fluent in French, and orally proficient in Kiswahili.

Mike has taught and traveled extensively in Israel, Europe, and Asia, and co-led Putney’s Global Action China trips in 2008 and 2009.  Before joining the Putney team, he served in the Peace Corps in China. He was stationed in Guizhou, China’s poorest province, where he taught classes in English and American culture. Mike was also on the Guizhou Provincial basketball team, earning the nickname “Shaq”" despite being only 5’11”.  A memoir of his experiences–entitled Kosher Chinese–was published by Henry Holt this summer to much acclaim.  He currently teaches history at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, and is helping to create the curriculum for the global Avenues School, set to open in 2012.  He is highly proficient in Mandarin. Michael has directed Excel China and the Yale University portion of our Global Action programs in India, Cambodia, and Rwanda.

Upon graduating from Penn State, Mike received a scholarship that in the past, recipients have used for a week of travel to study a famous design space or site. Mike instead took the opportunity to plant himself deep in the Central American rainforest where he spent three months criss-crossing the continental divide, living without electricity, and milking goats as member of a self-sufficient mountaintop community in an effort to understand the many opportunities for ecotourism and “VolunTourism.”  After a brief time back in the U.S., Mike returned to Central America with the Peace Corps in Honduras, where he focused on a program of municipal development and ecotourism. Resettling in Baltimore post Peace Corps, Mike worked for several years at an urban planning firm focusing on designing LEED/green-buildings, some of which are currently under construction in Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and New York.  While working, Mike also completed his MS degree, which took him to such far-flung places as Nanjing, China to study sustainable water resources and issues. Presently, Mike is pursuing a Ph.D. at Temple University in Philadelphia, continuing to focus on issues of climate change, sustainability, and green building practices.  Mike is fluent in Spanish. He has led Community Service Costa Rica.

Mike is an actor, director, playwright, and teacher who has worked in the professional theatre for over ten years, and has played major roles on stages all over the United States.  He is the Artistic Director for Stages on the Sound, a company dedicated to international classics and artist exchange in Brooklyn. He is also a founding member of Tax Deductible Theatre, a New York company dedicated to new, actor-generated works.  Mike teaches senior-level acting at the Professional Performing Arts High School in New York, and at Commedia Dell’Arte in Hartford University’s International Studies department.  He has taught Shakespeare with the Times Square Group, undergraduate theatre classes at Ohio University, Storytelling at The School at Columbia University, and has been a teaching artist with The Shakespeare Society.  2010 was Mike’s fourth summer leading Putney Student Travel’s Theatre in Britain program.

Morgan Faust has worked in film and television for over 12 years in New England, New York and across the globe taking on projects that range from narrative films to musicals to documentaries on the state of the health care system in Tanzania. Morgan started her career working for acclaimed documentarian Errol Morris on his IFC series “First Person.” Inspired by Morris’ work, she moved to Lynchburg, VA in 2001 where she shot her first film, the award-winning documentary “Treasure of Thomas Beale” about treasure hunters seeking the famed Beale treasure. Back in New England, Morgan produced a number of projects, including two narrative features; “Shout it Out!” (2008 – HD Musical) and Andrew Bujalski’s “Mutual Appreciation” (2005 – 16mm Feature Film), and associate produced “They Made America” (2004 – PBS documentary) and “Funny Ha Ha” (2003 – Feature Film). Most recently, she wrote and directed a short fantasy film “”Tick Tock Time Emporium”", now on the festival circuit. When not directing, Morgan spends her time in the edit room, and in 2010 edited Eric Mendelsohn’s “3 Backyards” – a feature awarded the Best Director prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. In the last six months she has edited the Madison Square Garden arena video for the New York Knicks, as well as ad campaigns for NBC, New Balance and DEVO. She has led Global Awareness in Action Cambodia.

Natalie graduated from Penn in 2009, receiving honors for her senior thesis, a Classics-Anthropology-Art History synthesis focusing on Ancient Roman cartography. She studied abroad in Athens, and during that time she traveled to most of Greece and Italy’s most notable archaeological sites. In summer 2008, Natalie worked on an excavation at Pompeii and spent two months exploring the ancient city.  This past year she has really flexed her travel muscles, spending 8 months in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, before teaching Archaeology on Oxford-Tuscany. Natalie is proficient in French and modern Greek.

Nicole grew up in Los Angeles in a traveling, multi-lingual family from Mexico and Argentina. She attended the George Washington University where she received a B.A. from the Elliot School of International Affairs in 2008. Nicole speaks fluent French, Spanish, and Korean. She has traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Latin America including a year in Seoul, South Korea after she was awarded the David L. Boren Scholarship by the National Security Education Program in 2007. Her great passions are photography, fashion, travel, and design, and she is currently pursuing a career in magazine publishing. After interning at Vanity Fair in New York and U.S. News and World Report in Washington, D.C., Nicole won a Young Artist Grant in 2010 from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and founded her own fashion and photography print publication titled Worn Magazine. Nicole currently works as Editor in Chief of Worn Magazine in Washington, DC and is a freelance fashion writer and editor for NBC. She has led Excel Madrid/Barcelona.

Patrick graduated cum laude from Georgetown, where he received the Retablo prize for excellence in Spanish theatre and was a founding member of Hoya Computing, the university’s first computer store. He spent his junior year of high school in Barcelona and his junior year of college in Sevilla.  After college, Patrick spent three years living in Madrid, where he was a bookstore owner, a free-lance writer, and the product manager for the Bit-Bang Network – a computer consulting firm.  He took advanced courses at the University Complutense of Madrid and translated screenplays for Lola Films S.A.  More recently, he has co-produced the short film “Tick-Tock Time Emporium”.  Patrick spent five summers with Excel in Spain, and has directed Excel at Amherst College, Excel China, and Excel Spain. Patrick works full time at Putney Student Travel.  He loves hiking, basketball, and local Vermont politics.

Ever since his college days, Paul has looked for ways to express and share his love of the outdoors.  This has taken him and his camera from wilderness and adventure guiding in Southeast Alaska and Northwest Canada, to canoeing through the Yukon, to rafting the Grand Canyon.  Paul currently owns and manages his own video production company, Murry AdVentures, which focuses on outdoor exploration, education, and preservation.  Based in Skagway, Alaska, he has worked on audiovisual projects for clients such as St. Kitt’s Railway and Temsco Helicopters. Paul is a dedicated world traveler, with 36 countries under his belt, as well as an avid tennis player and amateur ukulele strummer.  2011 was Paul’s first summer with Excel Amherst.

Growing up in a bilingual Spanish-English home, Raquel has always loved languages. In high school, she studied Spanish, French, Latin and Ancient Greek. During college, her studies focused on the literature and civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. She interned on an archaeological dig in Greece, and wrote her senior thesis on freedom of speech during the Athenian democracy. She fell in love with Spain on trips to visit family in Asturias and Galicia, and finally became a citizen of Spain last year. In the fall, Raquel will be entering a one-year Master’s program in Classics at Oxford University on a Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship. She has led Excel Madrid/Barcelona.

Rob is a screenwriter and Los Angeles native.  As an undergraduate art history major, he was assistant arts editor for the Daily Bruin, and wrote for the upstart magazine Hot Spots.  In film school, he worked such disparate jobs as phlebotomist, middle school English teacher, and realtor.  He has written for several television series and has just completed a pilot (“Valley Blvd.”) for cable.  He has two feature-length scripts in development: “Vortex” at Warner Brothers with Joel Silver (“The Matrix,” “V for Vendetta”) producing and “Windfall” with Max Wong (“Bring it On”) producing.  He recently entered the spec market with an action/comedy (“Two Truths and a Lie”) and a female action picture (“Recoil”), and is currently working to secure independent financing for his thriller “Detour.”  Rob has spent fifteen summers with Excel.

Entering college as a freshman, Rob had no idea what he wanted to do.  In his first year at NYU, he was mesmerized by the architecture and urban jungle of New York City, and decided architecture would be a good fit for him. After transferring to Brown, he discovered his love of energy science and historic New England architecture and decided to focus his studies on sustainable design and historic retrofitting.  He completed his senior research project on the thermal comfort issues of a historic building in Bristol, RI, and has expanded his architectural eye to classic and contemporary architecture.  Rob considers himself as much an artist as an academic, and has experience in glass blowing, sculpture, free hand drawing, and computer aided design.  He was also the music director of the Brown Derbies, has arranged various songs for the Derbies and performed countless concerts over the years, as well as led them on their tours of Texas and Mexico.  Rob is also a dancer experienced in West African and step, as well as an actor and karaoke fanatic. He currently works at Google. He spent the summer of 2011 with Excel at Amherst College.

Robert Gill is a visual artist working in multiple platforms of lens-based media. His photographic efforts include journalism, social documentary film, and more recently, documented duration performance art. Robert currently serves as a Teaching Assistant at Harvard University’s Visual and Environmental Studies program, where he received the “Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.” He is also an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. While living in New York, Robert worked as a photojournalist for the New York Daily News and freelanced for various other magazines and publications. His fine art photography has been exhibited and collected around the U.S. as well as abroad, in France, England, Russia, and Brazil.  Robert has taught travel photography with Excel Oxford/Tuscany.

Russell has worked with teenagers in a variety of contexts.  He was a group leader and supervisor at the New Dominion School in Oldtown, Maryland, a wilderness therapy school for at-risk teenage boys. He has tutored students in math, and has taught mathematics at Twin Valley High School in Wilmington, Vermont and Vermont Academy in Saxons River.  He coaches basketball, skiing, and track & field.  This past year he started an ultimate frisbee club and a Scrabble club.  In his free time Russell keeps himself busy with music (keyboards mostly) and baking bread. 2011 was Russell’s third summer with Putney. He has led Community Service Dominica and Cultural Exploration Australia, New Zealand, Fiji.

In college, Sarah studied at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, lived and worked at an orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, led orientation trips for the Dartmouth Outing Club, and managed the Dartmouth Organic Farm during her senior year. Upon graduation, she worked as a campus minister at Dartmouth, then as an environmental educator at the Hulbert Outdoor Center in Fairlee, Vermont. Sarah moved to Rwanda in 2007 to work with Partners In Health (PIH)/Inshuti Mu Buzima, where she helped to coordinate pediatric programs and develop an agricultural training center and outreach program to address systemic malnutrition. While in Rwanda, Sarah also studied psychosocial approaches to peace-building through the School for International Training. She is currently completing a Masters of Divinity at Princeton Seminary, with an emphasis on the intersection of religion and mental health. Sarah has traveled throughout East Africa, India, Latin America, and Europe. She loves to backpack and bird watch, and is a certified Kripalu yoga instructor. Sarah has led Global Awareness in Action Rwanda.

During her studies at College of Charleston, Sarah opted for a truly nuanced education – majoring in three different subjects and taking classes on modern African history, Spanish literature, Extremist Politics, and Esoteric Religions. While in college, she studied abroad in Trujillo, Spain and Tangier, Morocco and was also a member of the College of Charleston varsity soccer program. In graduate school, Sarah continued her international studies, with a semester in Prague, where she studied Czech and Eastern European politics at Universitat Karlova, and worked for Amnesty International as well as Civic Concepts International.  Next, Sarah traveled to Madrid, Spain, where she studied EU immigration policies. After graduating, Sarah moved to Houston, TX where she began to work with YES Prep Public Schools, teaching 6th grade Spanish, Social Studies, Art, and Yearbook.  She is the district course leader for Social Studies, Model UN coach, and the coach of the boys and girls soccer programs. Sarah is excited to return to the Dominican Republic, where she spent several weeks last summer coordinating a professional development program for teachers. Sarah is fluent in English and Spanish, and has studied Czech, Arabic, and Italian. She has led Community Service Dominican Republic.

While at Dartmouth, Schuyler spent two semesters abroad, studying Spanish art history in Barcelona and drama with coaches from the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. After performing and teaching theatre in San Francisco for two years, he moved to Madrid to teach English and acting to Spaniards. Now in his eighth year in Madrid, Schuyler still teaches, but also runs a bilingual theatre company he founded.  A Vermont native, Schuyler enjoys hiking, swimming, and yoga. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and Central America.  Schuyler has spent twelve summers with Putney; his trips include Cultural Exploration Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Cultural Exploration Switzerland, Italy, France, Holland, Community Service Hawaii, three summers directing Foundations Costa Rica, and five summers with Excel Madrid/Barcelona. He is fluent in Spanish and Italian.

During college Scott spent a semester in Seville, where he studied Spanish culture and arts at the Universidad de Sevilla and lived with a host family. At the end of the semester, Scott spent a month backpacking throughout Europe and Morocco. In addition to studying abroad in Spain, Scott spent two years living in Monteverde, Costa Rica, teaching English to young adults and working in tourism. Scott has also worked as a freelance photographer, and as a photographer at an adventure tour park near Cancún. He currently teaches Spanish at a private K-8 school in his hometown of Chicago, where he also coaches basketball and volleyball. Scott taught Spanish on the Foundations program in 2009 and 2011, and Photography at Excel Madrid/Barcelona in 2010. He is fluent in Spanish.

Sean fostered his love of writing, literature, and philosophy, as both a Presidential Scholar at Loyola University in Maryland and an exchange student studying at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Sean recently completed the Ph.D. in English program at the University of Notre Dame where his particular project focuses on the introduction of new technologies in Irish and British Modernist Literature. He has worked as a Writing Instructor at the University of Notre Dame, a Managing Editor of the academic journal, Religion and Literature, and an Editorial Assistant at the prestigious Field Day Review in Dublin. Sean has been awarded the Mitchel Award in Scholarly Writing, the Cornell School of Criticism and Theory Fellowship (which allowed him summer study at the preeminent program of critical thought), Notre Dame’s Dissertation Year Fellowship, and most recently, the external Josephine de Kármán Fellowship.  Sean’s work has appeared in such academic journals as Field Day Review, and Éire–Ireland, and is forthcoming in the edited collection, Visualizing Dublin: Visual Culture and the Making of Modern Dublin. Sean taught Philosophy and Creative Non-Fiction at our Excel at Amherst College program in 2011.

In college, Shannon’s art courses took her to Tuscany, Paris, and Taos, New Mexico where drawing always provided visual records of her journeys. In graduate school at the University of Notre Dame she worked at the Snite Museum of Art, where she published a catalog on the art of George Rickey, and now serves as the museum’s Young Alumni Advisor. Her Master’s thesis analyzed photographs taken in Paris during the French-Algerian War. Shannon has taught art classes in several elementary schools, art history to high-school students in Chicago, and English in three primary schools in Verdun, France. She currently lives in Chicago where she works for the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. In her spare time she enjoys reading, running, drawing, writing, and cooking. Shannon has spent two summers with Excel Oxford/Tuscany. She is fluent in French.

While at Bard, Simone focused her studies on painting, printmaking, and Spanish. She spent a winter session abroad studying Spanish in Oaxaca, Mexico. After graduation, Simone received a grant from the Spanish Education Ministry to teach English at a public elementary school in Málaga, Spain. Completely enamored with the vibrant culture and people of Spain, she has traveled the country extensively– hiking the Camino of Santiago in Galicia, exploring the Pueblos Blancos of Andalucía, eating seafood along the coast of Asturias and skiing in the Sierra Nevada in Granada. Simone has taught printmaking classes at a transitional residence for foster children and arts and crafts to youth from New York City homeless shelters. She is currently teaching at an elementary school in Madrid while pursuing a degree in Artistic Education at La Universidad Complutense. Simone enjoys painting, basketball, biking, teaching, yoga, traveling, and museums. She has led for Putney for three summers.  Simone taught a Spanish Conversation course at our Excel at Amherst College program in 2009, and led Language Learning Spain in 2010 and 2011. Simone is fluent in Spanish.

Soriya was born on a refugee camp in Thailand which was set up for Cambodians escaping the genocide taking place during Pol Pot’s destructive campaign in Cambodia. The difficulties and obstacles he experienced at an early age have formed the basis of his desire to mentor students, and Soriya has dedicated his time to supporting academic and humanitarian organizations that work with an array of young immigrants residing in America. During his studies in Penn State University Soriya was recognized for his volunteer work with organizations such as The Salvation Army, The Special Olympics, Habitat for Humanity, and The Philadelphia Food Bank, and received The Congressional Award of bronze, silver and gold medals. In 2010, Soriya traveled to Cambodia in support of a charity project to restore a temple in a small village near Battambang. Continuing his dedication to service, Soriya is now finishing the academic year working closely with the government of Georgia in Eastern Europe, where he is restructuring the English department in several public schools and developing programs for youth. Soriya is fluent in Khmer. He has led Global Awareness in Action Cambodia.

During her undergraduate studies, Stephanie spent time as an English teacher at El Centro Ensenanza de Lengua Inglesa in Realico, Argentina where she oversaw the education of 120 students from beginner to advanced levels.  She worked as a student mentor and liaison for AFS Intercultural Programs strengthening communication and group unity and volunteered as a tutor and mentor for PALMA (Proyecto Avance, Latino Mentoring Association) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Stephanie has lived in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Senegal, Russia, Uzbekistan, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland. She is currently living in Kraków, Poland as a Fulbright Scholar Research Grantee at the Jagiellonian University where she is documenting the cultural revival of the Lemko national minority by conducting archival research, interviews, and visits to Lemko towns and villages.  Her final project will be a report and photo-documentary about contemporary Lemko culture. She is passionate about cooking, enjoys learning new languages, and loves to wind up in unexpected places. Stephanie speaks Spanish, Polish, Russian, and French, and is learning German, Italian, and Ukrainian.

Tara discovered her passion for Latin-American language and culture when she graduated a semester early from high school and interned at El Centro de Educación Creativa, an environmentally focused K-12 school in Monteverde, Costa Rica. While there, she tutored students in English and Math, facilitated the creation of a mural project, and taught theatre classes. She delved further into her interest in Latin America during her junior year of college, while studying educational policy in Chile with the School for International Training. She completed a month long independent study at a school for marginalized high school students in Buenos Aires, where she researched the role of community in fostering healthy learning environments. At Bennington, Tara explored leadership and facilitation styles in her creation of numerous student dance and theater productions. In the year following graduation, she taught drama at a K-12 public school on a small island off the coast of Maine where she began an after-school dance program and directed numerous student and community productions. Knowing she needed to reinvigorate her passion for the Spanish language and Latin-American culture, Tara returned to Santiago, Chile where she is currently managing a restaurant, translating a play, and acting in a theatre company that donates its proceeds to charity. In addition to her love for cultural exchange and the performing arts, Tara is inspired by eating locally grown foods, hiking, and writing. She is fluent in Spanish. Tara has led Foundations Costa Rica.

Tara lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband. She teaches Mandarin at the Shady Hill School, where she is designing and implementing the curriculum.  Before moving to Cambridge, she lived in Portland, Oregon, where she helped to coordinate the Portland Public Schools/University of Oregon K-16 Chinese Flagship Program.  She loved her West Coast stint, but she is a New Englander at heart; she grew up in Bridport, VT, and is grateful to be close to home again.  While at Middlebury, Tara majored in Chinese Language and Literature and wrote a senior honors thesis on a 1940s Shanghai woman writer. She attended the Middlebury College Language School for Chinese in the summer of 2004, and studied in Beijing and Hangzhou with the Middlebury College/C.V. Starr School in China during her junior year. Tara also took several creative writing classes and won a student scholarship to attend the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference.  Tara is happiest when swimming in Vermont rivers, traveling, spending time with friends and family, cooking, reading, writing, and running. She has worked for Excel China for three summers. Tara is fluent in Mandarin.

Tavia’s film work includes several personal projects for which she has been involved in writing, directing, filming and editing. She has done editing work for the nationally distributed, award-winning documentary Out of Balance. She is a 2008 Undergraduate Research Conference Award of Excellence winner for a rhetorical criticism of film research project, and a 2007 Undergraduate Research Conference Honorable Mention for a short-form documentary. She is also the 2008 Wilburn Sims Memorial Award recipient; the highest honor awarded by the University of New Hampshire Department of Communication. Her acting resume ranges from Shakespeare (Twelfth Night) to modern theatre (How I Learned to Drive). She has most recently been studying voice for actors at the Berkeley Reparatory School of Theatre. Tavia has spent two summers with Excel at Amherst College.

After graduating from Kenyon College, Ted served as a Fulbright Scholar in South India. There, he researched the social movement of the Aravani community, focusing on the ability of community leaders and activists to utilize creative technology and event programming to promote their agenda to the public. During his tenure as a Fulbright fellow, Ted had the opportunity to present his research and also perform Karagattam, a South Indian folk dance, at various conferences and Fulbright alumni association events in India, Pakistan, and Nepal.  After returning to the United States and spending a year as a Marketing Associate at the Corporate Executive Board in Washington, D.C., Ted was named a Peace Fellow by The Advocacy Project. As a Peace Fellow, Ted spent six months working with the Jagaran Media Center, a Dalit rights advocate in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he helped revitalize their print media division and led creative projects profiling the arts of lower caste communities. Ted is currently a third year doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C. 2011 was Ted’s fourth summer with Putney Student Travel. He led Community Service India in 2008, Community Service Vietnam in 2009 and 2010, and Global Awareness in Action Cambodia in 2011.

Tom is an educator and theatre professional with extensive educational leadership experience. For over twenty years he has worked with teenage actors at the Storm King School in New York, the American Conservatory Theater and the Hamlin School in San Francisco, Camp Laurel in Maine, and the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. Tom has been directing the Oxford/Tuscany program since 2000; previously he co-directed the theater program at Excel at Williams College. Tom is currently the Head of the Theater Department at the Middlesex School, where he lives with his wife, Samantha, and daughter, Zoe. Tom has been with Excel for fourteen years.

Troy recently returned from a year teaching English at a public high school in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. This was his second Andalusian adventure, having spent a semester studying at Universidad de Granada while in college. Troy has worked as a staff writer for La Voz, a Spanish language newspaper in Poughkeepsie, New York, and as a writer and editorial intern for VIVA Travel Guides, a guidebook company located in Quito, Ecuador. He  has traveled extensively in Europe and Latin America and has now settled in Vermont to work at the Putney Student Travel barn. Troy has led Language Learning Spain and the community service portion of Foundations Costa Rica. He is fluent in Spanish.

During her time at University of Texas, Veronica served as Editor of The Texas Travesty, the largest student-produced humor magazine in the country. Upon graduation, Veronica became a freelance photographer for various magazines, bands, and weddings, and she spent a summer interning for Annie Lebowitz. Veronica then spent a year in Granada, Spain working as a high school Culture and Language Assistant. While in Spain, Veronica traveled to neighboring Portugal and Morocco, and traversed most regions of Spain, even venturing to the north to complete the Camino de Santiago trek. Most recently, Veronica was in Peru where she taught photography to Peruvian teenagers for the non-profit organization Fairmail. Veronica is a lover of The Simpsons, Neil Young, Surrealist art, crawfish boils, and critically-acclaimed romantic comedies featuring a strong female lead. Veronica is fluent in Spanish. She has led Excel Madrid/Barcelona.

In addition to Vijay’s formal studies, he has spent two years in India studying philosophy and culture at an alternative residential educational institute near Mumbai.  He has taught at the Multilingual Institute of Chicago, Ralph Ellison High School, and Farragut Career Academy, instructing a diversity of courses ranging from World History, to US History, Civics, Economics, and Pre-Calculus.  Vijay is a National Merit Scholar, an accomplished a capella singer, and plays both the piano and traditional Indian tabla percussion.  With two years of coaching experience in basketball and volleyball, Vijay makes an effort to remain active, not only in the classroom but in the school environment and community.  He is fluent in Hindi, Gujarati, and Marathi. Vijay has led Community Service India.

Born and raised in Taiwan, William came to the United States during high school for an exchange program in Pennsylvania. Later, he continued his higher education in the Midwest. At Luther College he gained a strong sense of community and appreciated the Norwegian heritage background. During his junior year, William was able to travel overseas to study Norwegian and Scandinavian cultures in the Telemark region; two hour southeast of Norway’s capital, Oslo. The beauty of Norwegian landscapes and fjords inspired him in pursuing career in travel and documentary photography. Later in the semester, he joined a group of Luther students in Italy and France learning about breaking bread and making peace in the rural communities of Assisi and Taizé. William has extensive travel experience and is passionate about different cultures, languages and photography. He is fluent in Chinese, Taiwanese, and conversational in Norwegian. William has led Excel China.