Lawrenceville Welcomes 2022-23 New Faculty

The Lawrenceville School is pleased to welcome new faculty for the 2022-23 academic year. In addition to the highly qualified newcomers, Lawrentians will be delighted to see some of their favorite former Penn Independent School Teaching Residents at the Harkness table as full members of the faculty as well as past teachers who have returned to campus. 

Prior to Saint Andrew’s, Cetrulo was part of the founding team and the English and Humanities Department Chair at Brooklyn Prospect, a “diverse-by-design” charter school whose original vision was inspired by a desire to undo school segregation in New York City. In this context, he taught English and History in the International Baccalaureate program and established the Brooklyn Prospect lacrosse team, a project for which he was recognized by the Positive Coaching Alliance with a National Double-Goal Coaching Award in 2011. In 2016, the inaugural graduating class elected him as their commencement speaker.

Cetrulo began his career as an English teacher and a coach at Episcopal High School (EHS) in Alexandria, Va., where he also served as the first Director of the EHS Young Writers’ Workshop. 

David M. Chamberlain served most recently as a social studies teacher at Burke Mountain Academy (East Burke, Vt.) and is an Advanced Placement exam reader in U.S. history. He has also taught at Whatcom Community College (Bellingham, Wash.) and Kennett High School (Conway, N.H.).

Chamberlain has received numerous fellowships to further history expertise, including the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (three times), the Gilder Lehrman Fellowship (twice), the James Madison Memorial Fellowship, the Horace Mann-Abraham Lincoln Fellowship, the Barringer Research Fellowship, the Dar al Islam Institute Fellowship, and the National World War II Museum Fellowship. A widely published academic reviewer, Chamberlain is a member of the American Historical Association and National Council for the Social Studies (for which he is a member of the Awards Committee).

Sangeeta Dhawan comes to Lawrenceville from Greens Farms Academy (GFA) in Westport, Conn., where she was an Upper School French teacher/advisor and served on a number of committees, including Equity and Inclusion. She founded and mentored the students who produced GFA’s “B@BEL,” the K-12 world language student magazine, a topic she discussed at the 93rd annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF) in July. Dhawan is the interim Vice President of the AATF Connecticut chapter and has been a board member since 2013. She is also a French Language and Culture Advanced Placement Reader for Educational Testing Service. Before working at GFA, Dhawan was the World Language Department Chair at Chadwick School (Palos Verdes Peninsula, Calif.). She’s taught French since 1986, instructing at the University of Toledo (Toledo, Ohio), University of Georgia (Athens, Ga.), Penn State University (State College, Pa.), University of Kentucky (Lexington, Ky.), and the Alliance Française de Delhi (New Delhi, India).

While Long Ding comes to Lawrenceville from the Pennington School (where he has taught math since 2018), he is a familiar face on the School’s campus. In addition to his work as a Lawrenceville Educational Support Specialist, Ding served as the Enrollment and Academic Coordinator for Lawrenceville’s Summer Scholars Program and previously coached Big Red football, wrestling, and lacrosse. He also lives in the Kirby House where his wife, Christi, serves as the Assistant Head of House.

Before teaching at Pennington and Lawrenceville, Ding was a mathematics faculty member, dorm parent, and coach at Canterbury School (New Milford, CT) and Cardigan Mountain School (Canaan, N.H.) Ding also taught English as a second language and Mandarin.

Outside of the classroom, Ding worked at Tencent as a National Football League (NFL) Draft Media Consultant and Host. He was also an assistant to the NFL China Media Director for Super Bowls 48-49. Ding served as the Director of the Strength and Conditioning Program for the Elite Hockey Camp (Northfield, Vt.) from 2015-19. A member of the Norwich University (Northfield, Vt.) football team, Ding was named All-American his senior year and was invited to the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL mini-camp.

Elizabeth Ferguson has been part of The Lawrenceville School community since 2007, serving for the past 12 years as Associate Director of Community Service. In this role, she helped administer 25 weekly on- and off-campus service projects and cultivated institutional and personal partnerships with local agencies. She guided students to develop annual, weekly, and one-time projects to match their passion with community interest and need. Ferguson also coordinated the yearly MLK Day of Service and collaborated on intra-office and departmental events (including work with the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Religious Life Council, and the Hutchins Institute for Social Justice).

Ferguson has taught classes in Lawrenceville’s interdisciplinary, history, and religion and philosophy departments. She has led Harkness Travel trips to Guatemala (twice), Bolivia (twice), and Florida. In 2022-23, she plans to lead students on service learning trips to the California--Mexico border and Costa Rica. Additionally, Ferguson has served as a leader in Lawrenceville’s multi-faith Religious Life program.

Before coming to Lawrenceville, Ferguson was the office director/volunteer coordinator for Arm & Arm (Princeton, N.J.) She has held a number of positions at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville (N.J.), including ordained elder and deacon. She was the inaugural co-chair of the Church’s Love thy Neighbor (Anti-Racism) Committee and is completing her last year of a certification in spiritual direction. She has led the boards of the local PTO and Woman’s Club of Lawrenceville and currently serves on the Lawrence, N.J. Black in Lawrence committee, advocating for Black students and families in the Township.

Anton Fleissner returns to Lawrenceville, where he was previously a Woods Teaching Fellow from 2012-14, teaching math, coaching varsity and junior varsity fencing, and serving as a Second Form Advisor and House Assistant. He was also an organist for weekly Catholic masses and a teacher for the Lawrenceville Summer Scholars Program.

In his most recent position at the Waring School (Beverly, MA), Fleissner taught math, computer science, Latin, and humanities, in addition to co-coaching the First Tech Challenge robotics teams.

Fleissner previously taught math and French horn at the Baylor School (Chattanooga, TN) and the Morristown Beard School (Morristown, NJ), where he also instructed modern Hebrew. Prior to that, he was a summer instructor at the YingHua Princeton Language and Leadership Institute and taught immersive Koine Greek I at Polis: The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities.

Michael Friedman returns to Lawrenceville after having served as a Woods Teaching Fellow in 2010-12. He taught most recently at Princeton Day School (Princeton, N.J.) as a history instructor, where he led the development of a new World Religions course and wrote the curriculum for the Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics classes. In 2020, he received the University of Chicago Outstanding Educator Award and was selected as the Princeton Day School commencement speaker. Over the past decade, Friedman taught at Sidwell Friends School (Washington, D.C.), Phillips Academy Andover (Andover, Mass.), and Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.), and was a Wexner Graduate Fellow during his doctoral work. Outside the classroom, he has published chapters in the National Council of Social Studies Bulletin and was a guest speaker at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies Religion Teaching Fellows Program. Friedman has also been a Scholar-in-Residence at both the Center for Spiritual and Ethical Education and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies as well as a Lowenstein-Weiner Research Fellow at the American Jewish Archives. 

Cynthia Frances Chi Hill worked most recently at Harvard University where she taught expository writing and the program in sustainability, earning the Dean’s Letter of Commendation for Distinguished Teaching Performance in the Harvard Extension School. As a personal editor at Harvard Medical School, Hill worked with students to become more effective communicators.  She also served as a graduate teaching assistant in biology where she taught an introductory biology course, and focused on developing students’ critical thinking skills via discussions and written work. Her research has been widely published. At Choate Rosemary Hall, she taught biology, chemistry, and anatomy and physiology. She also coached rowing and swimming and was a violinist in the Wallingford Symphony Orchestra.

Hill will be a familiar face to some Lawrentians as she served first as a teacher, then as the Director of Academics, in the Lawrenceville Summer Scholars Program where she oversaw teaching faculty and taught a course on DNA, mutations, and the biology of cancer.

Emily G. Khanna comes to Lawrenceville from The Hun School of Princeton where she was a member of the English Department. In addition to teaching, she revised the School’s Honors Junior English curriculum to include additional and more diverse voices in American literature and literary theory. She was a student advisor and coached junior varsity girls’ tennis, cross country, and track.

Before teaching at Hun, Khanna was a curatorial administrator in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Modern and Contemporary Art Department.

Jason Leong graduated from Colby College with a bachelor of arts degree in History and Biology. During his senior year at Colby, Leong completed an honors thesis in history studying the development of national identity in colonial Myanmar. This project earned him the Jack D. Foner Prize for best undergraduate history thesis. As a Colby undergraduate, Leong was a member of the Student Government Association and History Department Review Board, as well as Hope Happens Here Colby (which works to destigmatize mental health issues for student-athletes). He also served as a mentor in the Colby Cares About Kids program. Leong was a member of Colby’s varsity rowing team and worked as a summer coach for Community Rowing Inc. in Brighton, Mass. Last summer, he was a teaching assistant at the Brewster Academy Royal Thai Scholar Program where he taught courses in history and scientific writing. 

Gabrielle Lescadre is a recent graduate of Rollins College (Winter Park, Fla.), earning her A.B. in English with honors. As a student, she curated her first book of poetry, prose, art, and creative writing. She was a Peer Mentor and her duties included co-teaching three classes of transfer students (under the supervision of a faculty advisor) and serving as on-call crisis responder for her mentees. Lescadre won the Rollins English Department’s highest honor, the General Charles Reeve award for excellence in writing. She is a graduate of The Frederick Gunn School (Washington Dept., Conn.), where she was a Prefect.

George E. Long served most recently as a college counselor and English teacher at Northfield Mount Hermon School (Gill, Mass.). Among his many accomplishments as a college counselor were his appointment to the School’s steering committee for “College, Culture, and Career Exploration Tour,” a spring excursion for juniors. He also designed the “College Essay Jumpstart Program” to help juniors with their college application processes. As an English teacher, Long taught courses in humanities, world and American literature, diversity and social justice, and managed a Capstone class titled “Recreating Representation of Asian Immigrants in American Literature.”

He was the recipient of the 2021 Northfield Mount Hermon Faculty Fellowship by the School’s board of trustees for his outstanding work as a dorm head. Long was a member of the Strategic Planning Committee for Campus Life, the Dean of Students Search Committee, the Committee for Awards and Prizes, and the Judicial Council, a mixed group of students and faculty tasked with using a restorative justice lens to respond to student misconduct. He also coached both varsity girls’ basketball and boys’ varsity baseball.

Long was a member of Lawrenceville’s Summer Scholars teaching faculty in 2018-19.

Patrick Loughlin joins the Lawrenceville faculty as a French teacher and a football coach, positions he held at the Peddie School (2018-2022) in Hightstown, N.J. and Culver Academies (2014-17) in Culver, Ind. At both schools, he was also a dorm supervisor. Between his time at Culver and Peddie, Loughlin spent a year abroad in Paris, France with Middlebury College’s masters program. He earned his French masters degree with a specialization in Civilization, Culture and Society. Outside of education, Loughlin has also spent a year as an External Scout for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, where he prepared scouting reports for the Browns’ front office to aid in their evaluation of college student-athletes and worked on USA Football’s Football Development program which educates youth and high school football coaches on best practices.

Nicholas Martin has completed his two-year Boarding School Teaching Residency (through the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education) at Lawrenceville and will now join the faculty as an English teacher. In his role as a Teaching Fellow, Martin taught both Third and Fourth Form English, including Advanced Poetry, Personal Essay, and Novels courses. He has coached Second Form basketball and was a Dickinson Duty Team Member during his two years in the Fellowship. Now, Martin will serve as one of the Assistant Heads of House in Upper House while teaching Third, Fourth, and Fifth Form English as he introduces a new elective in the fall term, Science Fiction: Imagined Futures. 

After a decade away, Ken Mills returns to Lawrenceville to teach Biology. Most recently Mills was the Head of School at Gifft Hill School (Cruz Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands) where he partnered with the board of trustees and the leadership team to implement and articulate the school’s mission to students, faculty and staff, parents, alumni/ae. He was also responsible for ensuring every element of school life reflected the principles of equity, justice, and the dignity of each individual. Prior to leading Gifft Hill School, Mills served at the Head of Upper School at Ransom Everglades School (Miami, Fla.) where he fostered an educational environment consistent with the school mission while leading a comprehensive re-visioning that included a new STEM building. His focus on dialogue led to  curriculum development resulting in a place-based teaching and learning environment and the creation of a “seven-year curriculum.” While at Lawrenceville, Mills served in numerous roles including science department chair, Circle level director, and head football coach.  

Michael Niu joins The Lawrenceville School faculty this fall, after teaching and designing the curricula for introductory through advanced placement Latin at the Canterbury School (New Milford, Conn.). During his tenure, he was the head coach of the boys’ varsity tennis and girls’ junior varsity soccer teams, as well as assistant coach for varsity swimming and diving, varsity water polo, and track and field squads. Niu was also a dorm parent, faculty advisor, and form leader. He served on the School’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council and was faculty advisor to the student-led African, Hispanic, Asian, Native American club.

Celeste Payne comes to Lawrenceville from Westtown School (West Chester, Pa.), where she had been an upper school science teacher since 2008. She taught a variety of courses, including chemistry, biology, ecology, and environmental science. Celeste created two biology courses, including Biology of Disease, which included significant diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice content.

Payne was also the inaugural Upper School Equity and Inclusion Coordinator, serving as point person for faculty and students to discuss and problem-solve diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice issues, among other duties. She also served on a number of diversity, equity, and inclusion committees at Westtown as well as the admission, disciplinary, professional development, and search committees for senior administrative leadership positions.

Payne’s other faculty leadership roles were Upper School Faculty Clerk, 360⁰ Evaluation Committee Clerk, and Peer Coaching Program Co-Clerk. During her time at Westtown, she also served in a variety of other roles, including Duty Administrator, Day Student Head, Student Leader Election Coordinator, Class Advisor, Meeting for Business advisor, and Student Council advisor. Prior to Westtown, Payne was an upper school science teacher at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School (Cambridge, Ma.) and Shady Side Academy (Pittsburgh, Pa.).

As a professional saxophonist his music has allowed him to share the bandstand with several artists and musical groups including Eddie Daniels, Terrell Stafford, Billy Kilson, Ed Shaughnessy, Brian Bromberg, Ben Vereen, The O-Jays, The Mills Brothers, The South Bend Symphony and The Virginia Symphony.

Rozek served in the United States Air Force for eight years as a military musician. He performed for President and Mrs. Obama, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, and high ranking military officials. Rozek participated in public relations performances, troop morale concerts and was the musical director and educational outreach coordinator for the USAF’s Rhythm in Blue Jazz Ensemble stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va.

Adam Stokes comes to Lawrenceville from Allentown High School where he taught Latin. Before this Stokes taught at Trenton Stem to Civics Charter School (Trenton, N.J.) and served as senior teacher, providing mentoring and classroom support to teachers. At Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia High School School, Stokes also oversaw the drama, theater and game clubs. Between 2011 and 2017, Stokes was an adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s University, Meadville-Lombard Seminary, and Alvernia University. His work has been widely published and, since 2016, he has been a peer reviewer for Advances in Anthropology.

Elizabeth Sturley will join Lawrenceville’s Religion & Philosophy Department this fall, having finished her Master’s degree at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law & Human Rights. She also served as a consultant with the Global Survivors Fund (Geneva, Switzerland) where her duties included work on the Global Reparations Study, the first study assessing reparations for conflict-related sexual violence. Prior to that, she was a paralegal for gender and racial discrimination cases at Kator, Parks, Weiser & Harris PLLC (Washington, D.C.). Immediately following her undergraduate degree, she received a year-long fellowship to teach English classes at Kyoto’s Doshisha University. As an undergraduate, Sturley was a Peer Advocate for Sexual Respect and a teaching assistant in the Hampshire County (Northampton, Mass.) jail where she provided academic tutoring for incarcerated students enrolled in Amherst’s “Inside Out” course “Shakespeare in Prison.” She’s completed summer internships with the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission (Austin, Texas), the Equal Justice Center (Austin, Texas), and Morrison & Foerester LLP (Tokyo, Japan). In 2023, Sturley will begin work towards her Juris Doctorate at Columbia University (New York City).

For the past 25 years, Paul Terrile has been a mathematics teacher for grades nine-12 at the Singapore American School (Republic of Singapore). He also coached varsity boys’ and girls’ cross country, junior varsity girls’ softball, as well as several middle school and youth sports. Terrile led several interim semester courses, ranging from camping in Western Australia, to trekking in Tasmania, to winter sports in Switzerland and Japan. Terrile advised numerous organizations, including the Spectrum STEM Magazine Club, the Korean Club, and Honor Code Committee. He was an elected representative to the School’s Faculty Senate and faculty liaison to the parent-teacher Association. Before joining the faculty at Singapore American School, Terrile taught math at Andover High School (Andover, Mass) and the Westminster City School (London, England). He has been a College Board Advanced Placement Calculus Reader since 2017.

Check back tomorrow to meet the newest University of Pennsylvania Independent School Teaching Residency Fellows.

For additional information, contact Lisa M. Gillard H'17, director of public relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.