Directory

Mac Caplan has taught Upper School English since 2005 and currently serves as department chair. He also advises upperclassmen, coaches golf, coordinates the senior speech program, and serves as a course counselor. He previously coached girls’ soccer and baseball, chaperoned the New Orleans service trip, and served on the leadership committee, among other responsibilities. He received the Mida van Zuylen Dunn Award for Teaching in 2011 and was named a Senior Teacher in 2017. Mac earned a BA from Yale University and an MA from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. Outside of school, he is a competitive squash player, avid golfer, and voracious reader.

Juliet Bailey P’23 joined the Rivers faculty in 1997 and currently teaches English and drama, directs Upper School plays, and advises eleventh and twelfth graders. She received the Mida van Zuylen Dunn award for teaching excellence in 2005. Before coming to Rivers, Juliet taught and directed at Millbrook School and Wyoming Seminary and earned a Fulbright Teaching Exchange Fellowship, which took her to Budapest, Hungary, for a year. A graduate of Bates College, Juliet holds an MA from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.

Meredith Caplan teaches Upper School English and serves as ninth-grade dean. Prior to joining Rivers in 2013, she taught and coached at Newark Academy in New Jersey and at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. She also worked for The Steppingstone Foundation in Boston. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Bowdoin College and a master’s degree in the teaching of English from Teachers College at Columbia University. She has traveled to Romania with Rivers students to work with Romanian children. In addition to advising underclassmen, Meredith is the assistant coach for varsity girls’ soccer.

Before coming to Rivers, Ross Gormley was a teaching assistant in creative writing courses at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he also served as a director and counselor at UNCW’s Young Writers Workshop for high school students. Ross earned a BA in English and environmental studies from Wesleyan University and an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from UNCW. Ross teaches tenth grade English and senior electives and coaches skiing.

tc Hanmer joined rivers after several years of teaching high school English, most recently at Pomfret School. In addition to teaching Upper School English, they serve as an advisor and assist with the JV girls’ basketball team and the varsity softball team. tc earned their BA in Afro- American Studies and English at Smith College and graduated from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English with an MA in English. Outside of school, tc is an avid reader, a music lover, and a movie buff.

Katie Henderson has a BA in English and communications as well as an MEd in secondary education in English from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently a candidate for a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, where she has served as supervisor of student teaching. Previously, Katie taught English at the Woodside Priory School. She teaches Upper School English and is an assistant coach for the girls’ cross-country team.

Jennie Hutton Jacoby joined the English department in 1995 and currently teaches eleventh and twelfth grade English in addition to running faculty evaluations. Before coming to Rivers, Jennie taught at the Breck School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Cincinnati Country Day School in Ohio. Jennie was the recipient of the Mida Van Zuylen Dunn Award for teaching in 2000, and in 2011, she was selected to join the Berwind Circle of teachers. She also serves on the Cum Laude Society Selection Committee. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Kenyon College.

Evan Massey has a BA in philosophy from the University of Mississippi and an MFA in creative writing at Virginia Tech. He served as an instructor for numerous sections of freshman writing as a graduate teaching assistant at Virginia Tech and has taught multiple levels of middle school English. Evan’s poetry, fiction, and essays have been widely published in literary journals, and he is in the finishing stages of a novel inspired by his time serving in the US Army. Evan teaches ninth and tenth grade English, advises ninth graders, and coaches JV boys’ soccer.

Mary joined the English department in 2008 and currently teaches eleventh- and twelfth-grade English in addition to advising students in eleventh and twelfth grades and leading the Freshman Honors English Seminar. Her previous teaching experience includes both private and public schools, along with four years teaching composition and teacher education courses at the University of Michigan, where she spent time doing graduate work. She earned a BA from Georgetown University and an MEd from Wake Forest University. She co-advises the Rivers Gender Sexuality Alliance and co-facilitates the WALLIES (the white ally affinity group on campus). Mary also has an interest in mindfulness meditation, which she incorporates into her classes, and she is a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance.

Meghan Regan-Loomis has been a member of the English department since 1992. The author of Juggling Twins, she has a particular interest in the teaching of writing. Her free time is spent reading, hiking, and playing competitive tennis. She is the 2018 recipient of the William F. Gallagher Teaching Chair and the 2002 recipient of the Mida van Zuylen Dunn Award for Teaching. An enthusiastic Kenyon College alumna, she received an MAT from Tufts.

Dan St. Jean earned a BA from Yale University and an MA from Middlebury College. Prior to joining Rivers, he spent 12 years teaching English and served as a college counselor at Germantown Academy in Pennsylvania, where he also served as a college counselor. He shares Rivers’s commitment to student-centered education, to the principles of equity and inclusion, and to teaching that fosters depth of inquiry and joy in learning. In addition to teaching Upper School English, he also helps coordinate the senior speech program and serves as assistant coach of the alpine ski team.

As an English teacher and interdisciplinary studies department chair, Julian teaches tenth and twelfth grade English and interdisciplinary electives. He is a student advisor and a faculty advisor for the bioethics club, and has been a bioethics fellow at Harvard Medical School, a Yale-Hastings Scholar in bioethics, and a future of learning fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. Prior to coming to Rivers, he held teaching positions at James Allen’s Girls’ School, King’s College London, and Birkbeck College London. He earned a BA from Oxford University and both an MTh and a PhD from King’s College London.