All Faculty

While at Trinity College Dublin, Marina has been focusing on her medical studies. She herself was a Putney Pre-College student in Amherst College and is very excited to be back this time as part of the Putney staff. In high school, at the American School of Barcelona, Marina was actively involved in medical community service and volunteer initiatives. She organized and established a CPR course program for the school community. Marina also volunteered on a Medical Mission to Peru, assisting U.S. medical students and doctors providing free healthcare in Iquitos and in remote Amazon riverside communities. There, she translated for doctors, managed patient intake and helped set up a women’s reproductive health clinic. She has also volunteered as a teacher’s assistant in a Catalan school. Marina is fluent in English, Spanish, and Catalan, and is at an intermediate level of French. She loves traveling and has visited 20 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In her free time, Marina pursues her love of art and she enjoys playing soccer.

After earning master’s degrees in Economics (in Serbia) and Cognitive Science (in Vienna), Luka came to Oxford where he earned a doctorate in Experimental Psychology. His research focuses on the interplay between passions and reason, and he has taught innovative courses at both the university and secondary school levels—including summer programs in Oxford—since 2014.

While at Taylor University, Kelli studied English with a focus in creative writing and spent a semester in Ireland studying Irish culture, history, and literature. After graduation, she led programs at the YMCA of the Rockies in Rocky Mountain National Park before continuing her education at Vanderbilt University in Higher Education Administration. At Vanderbilt, she became passionate about access to higher education and worked in the office of undergraduate admissions evaluating student applications. After finishing her graduate work, Kelli traveled in southeast Asia, visiting Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia. She now works with high school students at an independent school where she has coordinated a Writing Center, led student travel to Belize to study wildlife and Mesoamerican archaeological sites, taught courses in English and creative writing, and worked as a college counselor, helping students craft applications to highly selective colleges. This fall she will return to her work with high school students and begin coordinating a writer-in-residence program to foster collaboration between students and professional writers.

While at Harvard, Katherine studied Latin literature and Roman coinage. She enjoyed leading tours of Harvard’s campus with the community service group “Crimson Key.” As a member of Key, she also led a variety of activities for Harvard’s freshmen during their orientation week—including a first-year talent show and a ‘70s-themed screening of the infamously terrible movie Love Story. Katherine now studies Classical Archaeology at New College Oxford, focusing on Roman Provincial coinage. This fall, she will be returning for the last year of her MPhil. When not studying, Katherine loves running, reading, and traveling. Katherine has previously led programs for high school students in Oxford.

During his undergraduate, Gonzalo specialized in human rights through his academic activity and volunteering in a shantytown, accompanying victims of police harassment, abuse, and violence. As a lawyer, he worked for three years in the Chilean State in the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality, where he participated in the professional team responsible for decriminalizing pregnancy interruption. Then he did his LLM in LSE, where he got training in Social Sciences and Law and Society. In October 2020, Gonzalo began his PhD at Oxford Centre for Criminology, researching policing, police forces, and democratic theory. He is on the Board of a Primary School. In his spare time, he participates in literary discussion groups, cycles, and plays football (soccer).

At Oxford, Max wrote his doctorate on twelfth-century Byzantium and the Crusades, for which he carried out extensive fieldwork in the Balkans and the Middle East. He then became a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, where he continued his research with expeditions to Israel-Palestine, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Serbia, and Kosovo. He has since become a lecturer in Tokyo, while also being a research associate at St. Benet's Hall, University of Oxford. He is a keen rower and rowing coach, and in addition to teaching on various summer programs has lectured to the Defence Academy of the UK, and worked in outreach programs to homeless people. He speaks several languages, half of which are no longer actually spoken.

Alex graduated this spring Magna Cum Laude from Muhlenberg College with a double major in Theatre (Acting Concentration) and Media and Communications. While at school, Alex was the music director of both her a cappella group and performance ensemble. With an intention to come to college to study theatre, she developed a strong appreciation for the study of performance as a lens to understand and question the world. She brings that ability to explore from an artistic space to everything she does and looks forward to sharing these perspectives with others.

While at the University of Belize, Abbie focused on her activism and volunteerism that took her to El Salvador, Germany, and Kazakhstan. At this time, she observed and addressed complex social, environmental, and political issues. Since moving to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, her focus is on the intersection of police violence and youth mobilization in Belize and Nigeria, which derives from her intrigue for engaging in the intersections of culture and activism. Abbie founded Yellow Bee, an NGO based in Belize, to innovatively address issues of gender, climate, and health. She is also passionate about youth mentorship as she believes youth should be foregrounded in issues that affect them through encouraging free and open dialogue. As a member of St Antony's College, Abbie is also a part of a global community of scholars engaged in diplomacy, area studies, and the humanities.

At Columbia University, Sarah is pursuing a Ph.D. in sociology. For her master’s thesis, she researched permaculture in Costa Rica as a method of sustainable development and its relation to gross national happiness. Sarah has served in professional roles for Fulbright and the American Museum of Natural History. She has led adolescents and young adults throughout Central and South America; for Putney, she has led community service programs in Costa Rica, Peru, and Ecuador. Her passion for farm to table and food led her to the Natural Gourmet Institute, a health supportive cooking school where she received a chef diploma and subsequently cooked in several high-end kitchens. Last summer, Sarah taught Farm to Table seminars in Vermont for Putney. She enjoys swimming, surfing, yoga, hiking, and cycling. She is fluent in Spanish and proficient in French.

While at California Institute of the Arts, Julian focused on experimental theater performance where he worked and collaborated with many international directors and performers from France, Mexico, China, and Poland. During his tenure at CalArts he devised an original piece with his professor which toured internationally and performed at the 8th Theater Olympics in India, workshopped at the Grotowski Institute in Poland, and performed at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. In addition to performing, he has been able to lead workshops at the University of Hyderabad, and Summerhall in Edinburgh. Julian has lived in London, Paris, and Mexico and has been a keen student of everything international cities have to teach. Currently, he is a school administrator and a French bilingual substitute teacher at the Lycée International de Los Angeles. This fall, Julian will be teaching several acting courses to freshman undergraduate students and high school students. He is fluent in French and Spanish, and proficient in Italian.