Alumni
Speaker Series
The Alumni Speaker Series is a program that connects alumni with current students. Alumni are invited to speak at Upper School assembly and visit classes.
Past speakers
Hawa Shir ’12, a Community Health Promotion Specialist from Portland Public Health presented at Middle School Assembly in February.
Jonas Maines ’15 visited campus to present to the Upper School as part of their Day of Dialogue. View the video of his presentation at Assembly.
Elliott Nye ’15 , a recent theater graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, will be joining the cast and crew of the Upper School spring play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and leading a workshop in puppetry.
Chloe Rowse ’12 is an artist, teacher, athlete, hiker and world traveler. This past spring/summer, she thru-hiked the entire 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. As a certified Ashtanga and Vinyasa Yoga teacher, she enjoys working with students of all ages and abilities. For the past 14 years, Chloe has lead summer programs for young girls. She has also coached coed Ultimate frisbee and run several youth Ultimate camps. In 2015, she played on the US Women’s National Team at the World Ultimate Frisbee Championships.
After Waynflete, Chloe went to Colorado College where she double-majored in Education and Studio Art. She has also studied German, French, Italian, and Dutch. Her love of travel took her many places including India, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and throughout Europe. In fall of 2018, she traveled to South America and hiked through Patagonia, played Ultimate Frisbee on the beach in Chile, biked and hiked the Atacama Desert, volunteered in the Amazon Rainforest in Peru, and trekked across an ancient Incan trail to reach Machu Picchu. Read a Waynflete Wire story about Chloe’s Appalachian Trail trek.
Lucas O’Neil ’08 is a New York-based stand-up and writer. After leaving the great state of Maine, Lucas quickly established himself as one of the most promising young comedians in the country — showcasing a delightful mix of playfulness and intellect. He performs in clubs and venues all across the Midwest and has garnered national attention at various festivals – including the prestigious Limestone, Laughing Skull, and Bridgetown Comedy Festivals. Lucas has also had the opportunity to open for some of the best comics in the country – including Nick Thune, Matt Braunger, Kevin Nealon, and most importantly, Nick Thune, again. Most recently, Lucas was named a Comedy Central “Up Next” Comedian for 2018. After Waynflete, Lucas went to Bowdoin College.
Becky Smith ’12 grew up in Freeport and graduated from Waynflete in 2012. She went on to major in geology at Bates College, and spent summers doing field work in California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Missouri. After some close encounters with border patrol, rattle snakes, and brown recluse spiders, she has chosen a safe lab environment as her home base. She now works in the biogeochemistry lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she does climate change research for her MS/PhD.
Joshua Broder ’97 serves as CEO of Tilson, a Portland-based information technical implementation company, which under his leadership, has grown from less than 10 employees to 360, earning a top spot on the Inc. 5000 list for the past consecutive seven years. Josh led several large, successful Recovery Act-funded technology infrastructure projects in for Tilson that included fiber optic broadband smart grid network deployments. Josh cut his teeth in leadership as an Army Signal Officer on missions in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for service in Afghanistan running the tactical communications network for U.S. Forces. Josh holds a Bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College. Josh is a graduate of AT&T’s Operation Hand Salute at JFK University with a certificate in entrepreneurial studies. Josh serves on boards at Skowhegan Savings Bank, Kleinschmidt Associates (a Pittsfield, Maine-based multi-national engineering firm), the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and software start-up NBT Solutions. Josh is is married to Eliza Ginn ’00 and his son, Clayton, is in Kindergarten in Mrs. T’s class (Josh’s K teacher).
Michael M. Givertz, M.D. ’80 received his BA in Environmental Studies from Brown University in 1984 and MD from Harvard Medical School in 1990. He is currently Director of the Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research interests include cardiorenal interactions and novel therapies for advanced heart disease. He is a past research fellow of the American Heart Association and recipient of a career development award from the National Institutes of Health. He is currently a principal investigator in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Heart Failure Network, and a co-investigator in several other NIH-funded programs, including Clinical Trials in Organ Transplantation and Peripartum Cardiomyopathy Network. He has published widely on heart failure pathophysiology and management, with a particular focus on advanced heart disease and mechanical circulatory support. He is married to Joanne Wolfe, a pediatric oncologist and palliative care specialist in Boston, and has three wonderful children (Sam 23, Hannah 21 and Ben 17), a dog named Buddy and a cat named Yaz.
Hugh Freund’s ’06 lifelong interest in design and technology began to solidify while attending Upper School at Waynflete. In 2006, he entered Roger Williams University’s Architecture program. Freund states, “Understanding the process of learning is one of the biggest takeaways from my time at Waynflete.” Freund recently represented the United States in the three-person Sonar class at the Rio Paralympic Games. Coming away with a victory in the final race of the event, his team won a silver medal.
Formerly a journalist in Beirut, Will Donovan ’03 has built strategic supply and logistics platforms for the Department of Defense in four continents, lived as an expatriate in five countries, and is currently CEO of a digital media startup. He graduated from the George Washington University with a Degree in Religious Studies after attending Waynflete as a “Lifer” from Preschool to twelfth grade.
Caitie Whelan ’02 is the Founder/Noter-in-Chief of The Lightning Notes, a short daily post to “help move the world forward.” It features ideas and stories to remind us that we matter and that improving the world is our matter. Prior to The Lightning Notes, Caitie was a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor in Congress, co-founded a school in India for lower-caste musicians, and raised pigs in Italy. She is a graduate of Brown University where she co-launched their Social Innovation Initiative, and the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, where she co-founded and chaired the Salt Alumni Board. She is a Truman Scholar from the State of Maine.
Margo Davies Walsh ’82 grew up in Cumberland, Maine and after earning a BA in Psychology from Wheaton College, moved to New York City where she began a career in College and MBA recruiting. With over 20 years of experience in recruiting, staffing and employee development, Margo worked initially for the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs and later for the international human resources consulting firm, Hewitt. In 2011, she launched MaineWorks after volunteering at the Cumberland County Jail and realizing that, without a job, most just-released inmates don’t have a chance. MaineWorks is a temporary labor staffing company specializing in the field of industrial construction.
Jonathan Asen ’05 grew up in Portland and attended Waynflete School for 14 years, graduating in 2005. He received his bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. While at Trinity he took time off to work on Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2009, he moved to Washington and worked at the White House for five years. He served in various capacities in the Office of Presidential Correspondence, the Chief of Staff’s Office, and the Office of Legislative Affairs. Jonny moved back to Maine in January to work as the Senior Advisor to Maine House Speaker Mark Eves. Jonny lives in Portland with his wife Annie Reiner. They met at Waynflete.
Maggie Christie Keohan ’89 earned a B.A. with honors in Russian Studies from Amherst College in 1993, where she was a Samuel Wally Brown Scholar. She went on to receive an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. For the last 15 years, Maggie has been a financial advisor to high net-worth individuals, foundations and endowments throughout New England from Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s office in Boston. Previously, Maggie managed multimillion-dollar reform projects in the former Soviet Union for the US Agency for International Development and the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank. In addition to her work at Goldman Sachs, Maggie currently serves on the investment committee of the Maine Community Foundation. She also chairs the investments committee and is a member of the board of the John T. Gorman Foundation. Maggie lives in Hingham, MA with her husband and two teenage sons.
Eleanor Callott Whitney ’00 is an entrepreneur, writer, rock musician, and educator who is living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the proud recipient of a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Baruch College. For over a decade, Eleanor has worked with world-class museums. As a Program Officer for Fiscal Sponsorship at the New York Foundation for the Arts she managed and expanded a national program that enabled artists to increase their fundraising capabilities. She has also worked at the Brooklyn Museum, the Rubin Museum of Art, and at POV/American Documentary. She is currently the Community Outreach Coordinator at Shapeways, a 3D Printing community and marketplace and is the author of Grow, a practical field guide for starting a creative business. You can see a video of her February 2015 presentation at Upper School Assembly here.
Jedediah Morfit ’92 received his MFA at Rhode Island School of Design in 2005, and recently was the recipient of the Dexter Jones Award from the National Sculpture Society in both 2011 and 2012. He completed a public commission for ‘Artlantic,’ an installation in Atlantic City curated by Lance Fung in 2013. His work has been exhibited widely across the United States and in the Waynflete Gallery January 2015. Morfit lives and works in New Jersey, and is Associate Professor of Art at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. You can see a video of his December 2014 presentation at Upper School Assembly here.
