My name is Heidi, and this year I'm the First Grade Crew Lead. I’m originally from Latrobe, PA, which is a small town east of Pittsburgh. Fun fact: Latrobe is the hometown of Mr. Rogers! Growing up in rural area meant that I spent a lot of time building forts in the winter, running around barefoot in the summer, and creating my own fun and homegrown expeditions. I started my teaching career in Plano, TX and taught for four years in the 1st and 4th grades. In 2009 I moved to New York City to begin a graduate program in International Education Development with a focus in Peace & Human Rights Education. It was during this time that I learned of Expeditionary Learning (now EL Education). Believing that a high-quality education is a fundamental human right for all children, EL’s emphasis on educational equity and social justice resonated deeply. In 2011 I applied to EL schools across the country and landed at Capital City Public Charter School, an EL Mentor school in Washington, DC. I spent three years teaching in the 6th and 1st grades and then served as the Reading Intervention Specialist in grades 1-4. This is my 12th year teaching, and I am so thrilled to begin my second year at Odyssey alongside some of its youngest learners who are not afraid to ask big questions and work creatively to explore the answers. Outside of teaching I enjoy practicing yoga, training for triathlons, exploring new trails, and sending snail-mail to friends and family.

Hi, my name is Emily and I am a mama to two beautiful souls and I am a passionate educator. After a decade in the K-1 classroom, I began a new chapter with reading intervention. Supporting our readers who need extra practice, confidence, and time has been a beautiful fit and an unexpected gift in my life. This work feeds my soul in countless ways. When not teaching our youngest the foundational reading skills that allow them to crack the alphabetic code and unlock their lives as readers, I am busy playing and laughing with my family. We love skipping stones at our favorite lake, sitting on our porch watching mountain sunsets, and eating too much dough when baking. Parenthood instilled in me the insatiable desire to document my son and daughter’s days, so you may also see me with my camera in tow, trying to capture the unique spirit that is our Odyssey school and community.

I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, but growing up I spent my summers on a sandbar in Lake Erie and my winters on a snowboard in Keystone. When I was 9 my family moved to Warsaw, Poland, for 3 years, and the international community left a lasting impact on my love for new experiences and appreciation for perspectives different from my own.

Growing up in OH-IO as the youngest of six siblings I spent a lot of time trying to keep up with my brothers and sisters on all of their adventures.  After graduating from Ohio University I spent several years teaching in the classroom, as well as guiding and directing various outdoor programs.  As the Director of Adventure Programming at Odyssey I get the unique opportunity to combine my passions for adventure and education.  At Odyssey, "together, students and adults discover they can do more than they thought possible and find aspects of themselves that they didn't know were there."

As an adventurer, athlete and outdoorswoman, I needed to be active to learn. In college, I found my academic home in the Earth sciences, studying geomorphology, glaciology, and paleoclimatology, performing fieldwork in Alaska and the high Canadian Arctic. I spent time in the Colorado Rockies as well, studying plants, rockslides, snow, glaciers, forests and weather. I met my amazing husband Barnabas in Vermont after I graduated and settled down a bit to start a family, but knew I’d return to Colorado as soon as I could. Passionate about sharing what I learn, after moving to Arizona in 1993, I began teaching college geology part time while working for engineers as their staff geologist. After receiving my teaching certificate at Prescott College, I started teaching middle school science in 1999, and other than a few years teaching high school science and two years as an instructional coach, I have been doing that ever since. Many of these years have been at EL schools, allowing me the deep work I hold in such high regard. My interest in the Polar Regions resurfaced in 2006 when I was selected to participate as a PolarTREC teacher in Svalbard, Norway studying climate change near the North Pole. I then earned my Master of Science at Montana State University in Science Education in 2010.  I was honored last year to participate in a month long research project airborne over Antarctica with NASA’s Operation IceBridge, collecting airborne data on land and sea ice thickness and extent. Always excited to network with scientists and share our broader impacts, I often present at professional conferences such as National Science Teacher Association and American Geophysical Union. Getting to teach at Odyssey’s middle school is a wonderful opportunity for me, and I am excited to work with your students and families, sharing my passion for science.

I joined the Odyssey community in 2017 after six years of teaching in Washington, DC. I grew up mostly overseas, attending international schools in Belize, Egypt, and Jordan, before completing high school and college in Virginia. After studying English Literature at the College of William and Mary, I served as an AmeriCorps volunteer in Northwest Washington State, where I worked as a literacy tutor at an elementary school.  After two years in WA, I returned to DC to complete a Master's in Education and discovered EL while completing my student teaching at Capital City Public Charter School, another EL Mentor School.  I taught 6th grade Humanities for four years and 8th grade English for one at DC International School, an IB World School.  Outside of school, you can find me playing music, riding my bike, or playing soccer. I appreciate the opportunity to support middle school students in becoming stronger readers, writers, and thinkers and preparing them for the important transition to high school.