St. Luke’s Welcomes New Faculty and Staff

Rear L to R: Nano Saulnier, Emily Walsh, Lissette Soto, Tony Newsom, Dave Burnham, Mary Kate DeRienzo, Seeley Fancher, Jeanine Haberny, Kimberly Gerardi

Front L to R: Jean Myles, Cynthia Badan, Anna Birinyi, Joshua Schneider, Sasha Mathrani, Maggie Lauer

St. Luke’s welcomed new faculty and staff at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year. They include:

Cynthia Badan — Middle School French
Badan is teaching Middle School French and coaching several sports, including Middle School field hockey and squash. She graduated from Bowdoin, where she majored in French, played field hockey, and swam. After teaching French and coaching at Westminster School, she received a master’s degree in Private School Administration from the Klingenstein Center at Columbia. She has served as an administrator and as Director of College Counseling at several private day and boarding schools in New York, Connecticut, and Michigan. Most recently, she worked at New Canaan Country School and Greenwich Academy.

Anna Birinyi — Upper School English
Birinyi is a graduate of Greens Farms Academy. She was a kindergarten associate at St. Bernard’s School in New York before pursuing a master’s in English at Yale. She also holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia and a master’s degree in early childhood education from Teachers College.

David Burnham — Upper School Mathematics
Burnham cam from Avon Old Farms School where he taught math and coached soccer and swimming. Prior to Avon, he taught in Maryland, and at The Island School. He attended Wilton High School and St. Lawrence University where he also earned his master's in education.

Mary Kate DeRienzo — Admissions Associate
DeRienzo is St. Luke’s Admissions Associate. Most recently, she served as the Admissions Events Coordinator at SUNY Purchase. Before SUNY Purchase, she worked at ArtsWestchester, Drexel University, and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Her professional background includes marketing communications and development. She holds a bachelor's degree in Studio Art, French, and Art History from Holy Cross and a master’s degree in Arts Administration from Drexel University.

Seeley Fancher — Science Teaching Fellow
Fancher graduated from St. Luke’s and will be the 9th Grade Biology Teaching Fellow and Varsity Field Hockey Coach at her alma mater. She graduated from Skidmore College, where she majored in Neuroscience and was a member of the field hockey team.

Kimberly Gerardi — designLab
Gerardi joins St. Luke’s as Middle School designLab Educator. She has an MFA in Design Technology from SUNY Purchase with a focus in Scenic Design. In addition to many years designing for the stage, Gerardi has served as art director for independent film and music video, industrial design (at Wide World of Sports), installations and red carpet events for film festivals (including Tribeca and Hamptons Intl.), print production for Ann Taylor and as scenic artist for Hartford Stage, The Barrow Group, and The Atlantic Theatre Companies. She spent the last six school years at Wooster School in Danbury, where she began as a part-time Technical Director and later helped develop the makerspace.

Jeanine Haberny — Development Associate
Haberny joined St. Luke’s during the past year after spending 22 years at King School in both the Lower School Division and Development Department.

Maggie Lauer — Middle School Band Director
St. Luke’s new Middle School Band Director, Lauer holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music, McGill University, and the University of Montreal.

Before coming to St. Luke’s, Lauer was the Junior School Music Teacher at Kuper Academy in Montreal. As a professional flutist, she has performed with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the National Cathedral Orchestra of Washington, D.C., the Canadian Chamber Orchestra of New York, and with members of New York City’s “Bang on a Can” ensemble and pop group Il Divo.

As an ensemble coach, Lauer has worked with students in the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, the D.C. Youth Orchestra Program and, most recently, the Orquesta Filarmonica of Chonchi, Chile. She has also taught music elective classes at the Latin American Youth Center in Washington, D.C., and served on the faculty at McGill Conservatory. This past year, she was part of the Global Leaders Program, a program that selected 35 fellows from around the world for their commitment to music education and social justice.

Lauer can be heard on recordings from Innova, the American Composers Label, and on NPR performing with the Montreal Symphony at Carnegie Hall. She regularly performs with the DCINY (Distinguished Concerts International New York) Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She works closely with ensembles all around the world as a consultant to help further their education initiatives, and is on the board of the new music group, Ensemble Paramirabo.

Sasha Mathrani — Academic Technologist
Mathrani joins St. Luke’s as an Academic Technologist after graduating from Haverford College in May with a degree in Biology and a passion for education. During her time at Haverford, she worked with faculty and staff in various capacities to improve diversity and inclusion efforts in the classroom.

Jean Myles — Middle School Librarian
Myles will serve as our Middle School librarian. She received her BS in Elementary Education from the Neag School of Education at UConn, and taught Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade for six years. She has worked part-time at the Wilton Library Association and was the school librarian in the Norwalk Public Schools. She was given the Excellence in Education award through the Norwalk Public Schools last year and is currently on the Nutmeg Book Award Selection Committee. Myles has a certification as a School Library Media Specialist and her master’s degree in Library Science.

Tony Newsom — Student Services Associate
Newsom joins the College Counseling Department as Student Services Associate and returns as the boys varsity basketball coach. He attended Niagara University, where he played basketball. Upon graduation, he worked for a New York City investment firm, SunAmerica, for two years and during that time volunteered as a high school basketball coach. He spent 22 years working in coaching basketball at schools such as Princeton University, College of the Holy Cross, Fairfield University, and Quinnipiac University.

Nano Saulnier — Front Desk Receptionist
Saulnier came to St. Luke’s from Vineyard Vines here in New Canaan, where she served as Assistant Manager for the last three years.

Joshua Schneider — Upper School Science
Schneider joins St. Luke's as a Physics teacher in the Upper School Science department. He majored in Physics Education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. After college, he taught physics in Maryland public schools for 13 years, during which he also led a Physics and Engineering team, a VEX robotics team, and a Science Bowl team, while also serving as both technical director and overall director in school theater programs and events coordinator for the county performing arts center. For the last five years, he has taught in England at two different independent schools.

Lissette Soto — Upper School Spanish
Soto joins the Upper School World Language Department as a Spanish teacher, and will also assist with the debate team. For the past 11 years, she was a Spanish Lecturer at MIT, where she worked as a Spanish Lecturer. A native Spanish speaker born in the Dominican Republic, she has her bachelor’s and master’s in Spanish and Latin-American Literature from the University of Alabama.

Emily Walsh – Upper School English
Walsh will teach 9th and 10th grade English, and coach varsity field hockey and junior varsity lacrosse. She comes to St. Luke's from Westminster School in Simsbury, where she also taught English, lived in the dorms, and coached ice hockey and lacrosse. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Vermont, where she was a member of their Division 1 ice hockey team. After college, she spent a year playing professional ice hockey in Germany.

St. Luke's is a secular private school in New Canaan, CT, for grades 5-12. St. Luke's mission is an exceptional education that inspires a deep love of learning, a strong moral compass, the commitment to serve, and the confidence to lead. St. Luke's Center for Leadership advances our mission by helping students develop exceptional leadership ability. Visit today.