Recruits from diverse backgrounds introduce themselves to U-High

Ms. Alligood taught Spanish at Francis W. Parker School and ChiArts in the past year. Before that, she taught at the Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania for seven years. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “I really love how diverse Spanish speaking communities are around the world. There’s so many different countries and cities with their own uniq...

Dr. Baker taught history at The Nueva Upper School in San Mateo, California, for three years and The University of Iowa for seven years. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “I like sort of engaging with these ideas about why communities come together, like what allows communities to form because they’re kind of miraculous in a lot of ways because they�...

Dr. Biederman, a 1999 alumna, taught writing at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, for three years. She authored “The Walmart Book of the Dead,” inspired by trips to the Oriental Institute. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “Writing is a way to think and to be and to understand the world and to understand yourself, so through working with other people�...

Ms. Clendenning managed volunteer programs at Habitat for Humanity for five years and planned service projects at Chicago Cares for six years What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “To see the world through somebody else’s viewpoint for just a little while, I think that’s important for all of us to do, especially this day and age, and so I’m excited to...

Ms. Debarlaben taught math and computer science at Loyola Academy for five years and wrote software at companies like General Electric and Northrop Grumman for over 18 years. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “I was writing software for a lot of different companies and noticing that students who I talked to, when I went to the high schools, were really...

Dr. Del Rio conducted research in the history of pharmaceuticals  within the Department of Behavioral Science and Social Medicine at the Florida State University College of Medicine. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? [In research] you have a tendency to focus on one topic for so long that sometimes you feel somewhat rigid. I think just on a personal point, I think tea...

Ms. Jones is pursuing her doctorate in English Language and Literature, with a focus in African American literature, at the University of Chicago. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “We can kind of use words and storytelling to not only create. We can use it to create the world that we kind of want to see but also kind of venture into someone else’s worl...

Ms. Nead taught math at Lewis University for two years and Morgan Park Academy for one year. Her past courses have covered topics like statistics, calculus and geometry. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “I’ve always just loved math. Math and science have been my favorite subjects. And I like teaching strange math: how math is applied to the real world....

Dr. Nihill taught chemistry at North Central College for two years and conducted research in atmospheric chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for three years. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “It’s just these huge instruments that are crazy, and you get to play with all sorts of different things and just explore things that you would...

Mr. Ortiz has taught Spanish since 2007 at institutions such as Northwestern University, Loyola University and Triton College. He has substituted at Lab since 2016. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “As you keep using it [Spanish] and as you keep studying more and more about it, you’re discovering how beautiful it is, how extensive. In school, you don�...

Dr. Samuels taught history at The State University of New York Geneseo for three years and Kenyon College for two years. His past courses have covered history from South Asia. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “I spent different parts of my life in England and in India, which is where my folks were from, and so understanding history and culture was a way...

Mr. Sudderberg worked at the University of Illinois Chicago for two years. He taught ninth grade writing courses and did marketing work at the Institute for the Humanities. What makes you excited about your subject, and why do you like teaching it? “Reading and writing obviously teach great critical life skills, but then they also do this cool other thing, which is teach you how to be critical of t...

Victoria Jueds was the head of school at Westtown School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, since 2017. Before that, she was the senior associate dean of undergraduate students at Princeton University. Ms. Jueds’ favorite interactions with students are the random ones. She is interested in people’s stories and backgrounds. Ms. Jueds is a professionally trained singer and has both a dog and cat. ...

Nicole Williams served as the senior research analyst at UChicago Consortium on School Research. She researched programs in Chicago Public Schools and wrote frameworks for student success. Her current agenda is engaging with diversity, equity and inclusion peer facilitators and leading professional development. She likes to read fiction and spend time by the lake.

Zilkia Rivera-Vazquez taught comparative government and politics and history at Commonwealth-Parkville School in San Juan, Puerto Rico, since 2019. She has taken both administrative and teaching positions during her career. As assistant principal, she enjoys talking to students and helping teachers support students. She plays piano and likes watching films like “Sound of Metal” and “Attack on T...