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Stephanie Aktipis
Hi! I'm Stephanie, and I'm looking forward to my fourth year as a tutor at Cabot House! I just completed my Ph.D. in the biology from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and I also have an MSc. in science policy from the London School of Economics. Basically, I love thinking about how science affects the public and vice-versa, and hope to work in the field of science policy next year. I'll be spending this year job-hunting while advising you!
I spent my childhood on both the East Coast and in the St. Louis area, but after six years in Cambridge, have come to love New England sports teams, walking around Fresh Pond and trying to roller-blade on Memorial Drive on sunny Sunday afternoons (although I have to admit that I'm still working on loving Boston winters). I have a weakness for animals, especially marine invertebrates, so I'm always happy to talk about the anything nature-related. I attended The George Washington University for college, and was a varsity swimmer there, so I love rooting on all the Cabot athletes. After two shoulder surgeries, I am now left exploring dry-land activities, especially dancing with my husband Michael or attending exercise classes at Hemenway Gym. You'll be able to find us at the Cabot dance studio, the dining hall, and our flat, E-211. Stop by anytime for discussions about biology, science policy, mixing academic disciplines, impromptu dance lessons, or trashy television!
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Michael Aktipis
- Field: International Relations, Law
- Charges: Pre-Law, Fellowships
- Phone: 3-5907
- Room: E-211
- Email: maktipis@law.harvard.edu
My name is Michael Aktipis and I'm now a fourth year tutor in Cabot House. I'm originally from suburban
Chicago, but spent my
summers as a kid in my parents' childhood homes of Vienna and Athens. Since graduating from Northwestern in 2002 with a
degree in Economics, Political Science and German, I've lived in Europe, first in Vienna where I spent a year as a Fulbright
Scholar at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and more recently in London where I recently completed my Ph.D. in International
Relations at the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar. I'm now in my last year at Harvard Law School, my final
hurrah as a graduate student, I promise! If you are interested in applying for any overseas fellowships or just want to know
more about what they entail just let me know. In the many years I've lived in Europe I've also picked up a few foreign
languages, so if you're a fan of European languages and want some practice, I'm always up for a chat (German, French, Modern
Greek and a few other random ones)! As a Salsa instructor for the last seven years, you might find me in the Cabot Dance
Studio where I hope to teach some dance classes for residents throughout the year - you're all welcome to join! |
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Tom Barnet-Lamb
Hello! I'm Tom, and I'm a math resident tutor. I just graduated from the Math PhD program here, and I now teach at Brandeis. I hope I'll be able to help people with their assorted math queries and problems, and even branch out into CS, Econ and Physics. (If it has equations, I'm game!) Outside the classroom, I sing (bass), and I hope to get involved with all the wonderful music going on in the house. As an Englishman, I also hope to be able to further the house's collective appreciation of tea (and British comedy). And finally, I have been accused of being an inveterate conversationalist, on topics as diverse as European politics and the philosophy of mind --- and I hope to be able to have many stimulating conversations with you all in the dining hall!
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David B.
My name is David and I'm very excited to be starting my second year as a BGLTS tutor and sophomore advisor at Cabot. My fiancé Stephen and I just moved into Cabot a year ago, so like many of the Juniors we're still learning about the house in many ways. Since our first week at Cabot last September, though, we've both felt incredibly honored to be part of this very diverse, close-knit, and supportive community. Outside of the Harvard setting, I am a psychotherapist in private practice in Boston and I study psychoanalytic theory and moral philosophy as part of a postgraduate training institute. I'm also currently doing work in preparation for doctoral study in social work and counseling related to cultural studies, adolescent suicidality, and BGLTQ cyber-subculture. My other academic and clinical interests relate to gender, religion and the role of belief, how we narrate what we consider to be the truth in different contexts, grief and loss, depression, anxiety, and compulsive gaming/ internet use.
Don't worry, though --- I try not to be a total downer in the dining hall! I also love poetry and awkwardly bad stand-up comedy, almost everything on Bravo (a few exceptions), movies, and just talking. If you don't see me around and want to talk about anything or nothing, just send me an email or a text! I also love cooking (and eating) and we're always really excited to meet new people and have students over for dinner or dessert. Our cat loves to shed all over our visitors, too. It's how she shows she cares.
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Monique-Adelle Callahan
- Field: Comparative Literature
- Charges: Writing and Public Service
- Phone: 3-3527
- Room: H-100
- Email: mcallah@fas.harvard.edu
Hey...I'm Monique. I recently received my doctorate in Comparative Literature here at Harvard. I am passionate about literature and languages. Right now I am revising my dissertation project--a comparative study of African American, Afro-Brazilian, and Afro-Cuban poetry--into a book. Before coming to Harvard, I received a BA from Wellesley in English and Africana Studies (translates most closely to Harvard's African and American Studies category). I'm here to help you with any African-American Studies queries or general literature questions. Come chat with me in the cafeteria or come by room H-100...read some poetry and share it with me...write some poetry and share it with me...we can talk about the process of publishing a book, or se você quer we could talk Olodum and feijão or si tú quieres we could talk Malécon and Morejón...see you in the dining hall!
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Fiery Cushman
Hi, I'm Fiery, and I'm excited to be the psychology tutor for Cabot
this year. This will be my fifth year as a tutor, and my tenth at
Harvard since arriving in '99 as a freshman. I am a post-doc in the
Moral Cognition Laboratory in William James Hall, and my research
focuses on the psychological basis of moral judgment and behavior. As
an undergraduate I lived in Pfoho and majored in biology. I also did a
lot of work with Harvard Model Congress as an undergrad, but these
days I like to occupy my spare time with music, reading, cooking &
eating well, and of course the Red Sox. One of my Cabot roles is to
help manage residential housing, along with Susan Livingston, so feel
free to ask any questions about that. I'm eager to meet everyone in
Cabot House and I hope you'll drop by Barnard Hall where my wife Julie
Kobick and I live in room N-11, to say hello.
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Maryam Monalisa Gharavi
- Field: Comparative Literature, Film & Visual Studies
- Charges: Fellowhsips
- Room: C-22
- Phone: 3-5848
- Email: gharavi@fas.harvard.edu
My name is Monalisa, and I am based in the Department of Comparative Literature with a Secondary Field in Film and Visual
Studies. I am serving as a first-year resident tutor, sophomore adviser and fellowships adviser, with plans to revive a
Portuguese language table. In addition to teaching this year, I will begin writing my dissertation on representations of
bandits and outlaws in Brazilian cinema. I will also serve as a Graduate Student Associate at the David Rockefeller
Center for Latin American Studies. On the non-academic side, I am founder and co-chair of GSAS Capoeira Angola, which
integrates with other groups in the Boston area in order to reach youth in critical need through the Afro-Brazilian
dance/fight form.
I graduated from the University of California-Berkeley in English
literature and film, writing my thesis on subjectivity
and female authorship in cinema in Iran. Growing up in the U.S. as an immigrant and studying and living abroad (in
Brazil, Italy, North Africa, the Gulf and the Levant) were happily disorienting experiences that made room for an
inside-outside point of observation that have become useful in my primary scholarly and creative interventions: writing
and filmmaking.
My non-resident cats Suma and Ulysses help keep it real.
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Tyler Goodspeed
- Field: Economics, History
- Charges: Fellowships
- Phone: 3-5743
- Room: N-31
Address: 570 Cabot Mail Center
- Email: tgoodsp@fas.harvard.edu
Greetings, Cabot! I'm Tyler, and I am eager to join Cabot House as a tutor in history and economics. I return to Harvard --- where I was a joint concentrator (the last of a breed) in economics and history as an undergraduate --- after a year at the other Cambridge on a Gates Scholarship. A first-year PhD, my focus is economic history and the history of economic thought, though I'm easily lured into other fields of both history and economics.
When not at study, chances are you will find me plying the hills of Belmont, racking up hundred-mile weeks in marathon training. I welcome company on runs, so if you're game for 6-minute mile pace, feel free to come along; history, economics, finance, fellowships, running, and politics are all prime candidates for conversation.
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Kate Harris
- Field: Biology/Earth Sciences
- Charges: Fellowships
- Room: C-32
- Email: kjharris@mit.edu
My name's Kate, and I'm a nomad who loves unfenced countries and unguessed-at life. As a second-year grad student in the geobiology program at MIT, I am interested in biosignatures on all scales and all planets, from molecular to morphological, from Earth to Mars. My greatest love is exploring the alien and extreme, wherever it may be found, and then writing about it. My greatest fear is having to get, heaven forbid, a cubicle job. I have so far managed to postpone this possibility by remaining a perpetual student, first a biology undergrad at UNC-Chapel Hill, next a grad student in the history of science at Oxford University, and now a slave to science at that other school downriver from Harvard. When I'm not in the lab, classroom, or field wondering on the nature and meaning of life, I can usually be found on a bike, on a mountain, in some far-flung country, or preferably all of the aforementioned at once. I'm so excited to be a Res Tutor at Cabot and I can't wait to get to know you all, so please swing by my room to say hello, enjoy a cuppa, and talk adventure and exploration on all seven continents.
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Richard Johnston
Hi everyone, my name is Richard, and I'm looking forward to returning to Cabot for my third year as Resident Tutor. I am a fourth-year PhD student in English, and I study Romantic literature and culture. I'm writing my dissertation on how
Romantic literature grapples with changing attitudes toward death and dying at the turn of the nineteenth century.
I am originally from Spartanburg, SC. After finishing high school, I went to Princeton, where I majored in English and creative writing (poetry). A fellowship took me to the UK, where I studied English at Sussex and then Oxford. After three years of graduate study, I needed a break from school, so I moved to Japan and taught high school ESL for two years. Then I moved back to South Carolina and taught English at a small liberal arts college while I applied to graduate school. And here I am.
When I'm not reading or working on my dissertation, I'm either pursuing one of my many hobbies or acquiring a new one. These days, I spend a lot of time listening to records, tending my garden on the Shepard St side of Eliot Hall, and watching birds. I'm aggressively domestic; I brew my own beer and make my own pesto, yogurt, and jam. (Next on the list is bread.) My most enduring love is baseball. I played for fifteen years, and while I was only a mediocre player in the US and Japan, I was pretty good in the UK, where I played shortstop for the Oxford Kings and even occasionally batted cleanup.
I look forward to getting to know you in the months ahead. If you ever want to talk about literature, fellowships, baseball, vinyl, birds, or really anything at all, then please seek me out! I live with my cat Neko in J-11.
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Julie Kobick
Hi everyone! My name is Julie and I'm excited to be back at Cabot for my third year as a Resident Tutor. I'm a 3L at Harvard Law School, concentrating on education, government, and civil rights law. I'll be one of your pre-law tutors this year. Before law school I got to teach wonderful classes of second and third graders in the Bronx as a Teach for America corps member. I loved my students and my years teaching, so if anyone is thinking about teaching after college, I'd be more than happy to talk about it with you. I spent my undergraduate years at Harvard and lived in Winthrop (I know... boo river houses!). I was a government concentrator and kept otherwise busy working with Harvard Model Congress, the IOP, Let's Go, and tutoring throughout Boston. I'm looking forward to long dining hall conversations, lots of IM soccer and ultimate Frisbee games, and getting to know all of you! Fiery and I will always have our door open for visits --- please stop in and say hi.
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Samuel Lipoff
Hello! I'm Sam, and I'm in the fifth year of the Chemistry PhD program at MIT, and this is my fourth year as the Chemistry and Physics resident tutor, having also been an undergrad in Cabot House ('04). I hope I'll be able to help people with their assorted chemistry queries and problems, and even branch out into physics, history of science and East Asian studies. Outside the classroom, I read (books), take photos, eat scallion pancakes, and love gadgets of all kinds. As a Republican, I also hope to be able to further the house's collective appreciation of alternative political arguments. And finally, I have been accused of being an inveterate conversationalist, on topics as diverse as Chinese history and the philosophy of food --- and I hope to be able to have many stimulating conversations with you all in the dining hall!
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Devarati Mitra
Hi! I'm Devarati and I'm looking forward to returning to Cabot for my second year as a Resident Premed Tutor. I'm
currently
a
4th year MDPhD student, starting my second year in the PhD world where I'm studying cancer biology. I remember going through
that oh-so-tough process of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life not that many years ago, so if you're trying to
figure out if medicine or basic science (or both or neither!) is right for you, or if you think you know exactly where
you're
headed but just aren't quite sure how to get there, I'd love to talk.
I never quite know where to tell people I'm from, so I end up giving everyone the brief autobiography of my life: I was
born
in Berkeley, California, moved to Belgium when I was 10, and then to Washington DC when I was 14. I went to college at
Stanford University and now here I am in Boston and looking forward to calling Cabot home for the next few years. I'm a big
theater fan, so if you're interested in checking out pretty much any show in town, just let me know. Ditto with any of the
great museums we have around us. I'm also a bit of a Daily Show/Colbert Report junkie but I think one of my favorite
past-times has to be talking about absolutely nothing/everything with anyone I run into. I'm really looking forward to
meeting everyone in Cabot this year!
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Tafadzwa Muguwe
- Field: Medicine
- Charges: Pre-Med
- Phone: 3-5833
- Room: C-45
- Address: 573 Cabot Mail Center
- Email: tmuguwe@fas.harvard.edu
Hi! My name is Tafadzwa and this is my second year in Cabot. I was born in
Gweru, Zimbabwe, and left home for Swarthmore
where I graduated with a major in biology. After college I spent 2 years in Oxford studying global health and
immunology. I
am now in my 3rd year as a medical student and doing clinical rotations at MGH. My favorite board-game is Settlers of
Catan
and I enjoy running, soccer, and tennis. I look forward to meeting you!
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Dustin Saldarriaga
Hello Cabotians! I'm Dustin and I'm excited to join Cabot as one of your resident pre-law tutors this year. When I was an undergrad in Cabot, I never hesitated to take advantage of the res tutors, and I hope you won't either.
As an undergrad, I studied History and spent much of my time mentoring kids, promoting microfinance, and finding ways to work and study abroad. I spent my junior fall in Mongolia and had an unforgettable experience there, consuming mutton and salted milk tea, living with a monk, and tracking down nomadic reindeer herders. Since then, I haven't been able to shake an affinity for the nomadic lifestyle.
After graduating, I taught English and did research in Uruguay on a Fulbright. Even though I now speak Spanish with a funny accent, I always love to practice. Prior to coming back to school, I futilely tried to satisfy the nomad in me by riding a motorcycle around the country, then backpacking Africa, Asia, and Europe for six months. These days I'm a 2L, balancing classes with episodes of Entourage, experimenting with new recipes I find on epicurious.com, and daydreaming about being on a motorcycle in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Whether you want to trade travel stories or recipes --- or talk about anything that's on your mind --- my door is always open. I'm looking forward to meeting you!
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Zirui Song
Hey everyone, I'm Zirui and I'm very excited to return to Cabot for my second year as
a resident tutor! I've finished the first two years of medical school at HMS and am now in the second year of a Health
Policy PhD program, studying health economics, after which I will complete med school. I grew up in Wisconsin, went to high
school in Rochester, N.Y., and went to college at Hopkins. At Cabot, I'm one of our pre-medical tutors,
and I work closely with Devarati and Tafadzwa to help you apply to medical school. From your early stages of thinking about
medicine to the actual process of personal statements and interviews, we are here to help guide you through this long, but
ultimately rewarding process. In addition, I help to provide advice for students interested in health policy or public
health, and also really enjoy working with our economics, careers, and other tutor teams in the house.
I'm a sports fanatic. Growing up in Wisconsin, I became a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks, and
Milwaukee Brewers. I'm always up for lively debates about current sports, sports history, or trivia. When I first met our
house master Jay, he quizzed me "Do you know who Bill Russell is?" Right then, I knew Cabot was the place to be! Basketball
and ultimate frisbee have always occupied much of my life, and you can often find me throwing frisbees around on the quad. I
played on the Harvard men's ultimate frisbee team for two years, and I currently play for a Cambridge area men's club
team. I love medicine for its human connection between physicians and patients, and I love economics as
a way of thinking about our world. At their intersection, health economics and health policy are the study of things we can
do to improve health care, both in the United States and abroad. Our health care system is complex, but at its core is the
fundamental physician-patient relationship. Understanding this relationship---and its extension into health care quality and
cost --- through the lens of economics, psychology, and other social sciences is a fascinating task. My
door is always open. Feel free to stop by for anything that's on your mind. I look forward to meeting all of you. Best
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Stephen Vider
- Field: History and Literature
- Charges: BGLTS and Writing
- Phone: 3-5854
- Room: C-11
Address: 579 Cabot Mail Center
- Email: svider@fas.harvard.edu
My name is Stephen and I'm very excited to start my second year as a BGLTS tutor and sophomore adviser at Cabot along with my fiancé David and our cat Aviva! I'm in my third year in Harvard's History of American Civilization doctoral program (it's sort of blend of Social Studies and History and Literature). My academic interests are pretty broad--sexuality, ethnicity, gender, food history, popular fiction, Yiddish theater and literature, television, film, sometimes all at the same time. This year, in addition to teaching, I'l be starting to plan my dissertation, tentatively a comparative study of African-American, Jewish, and gay self-mockery from 1910-1979.
I grew up in Long Beach, New York, on the south shore of Long Island. As an undergraduate at Yale, I was a double major in English and Psychology, and wrote my senior thesis about crowd psychology. Before coming to graduate school, I worked for three and a half years in New York as a writer and editor for a web magazine about Jewish literature and culture, and wrote occasional book reviews for the Village Voice and Newsday. When I'm not teaching or straining my eyes in the library, you'll most likely find me in the dining hall avoiding my work or reading in the Briggs common room. I love long conversations about publishing, journalism, queer politics, and movies. So please stop by to say hello, wave to me on the Yard, or email if you want to get a meal sometime!
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Ben Wikler
Hi! I'm Ben. I'm a Cabot House lifer: This is my first year as a Cabot House resident tutor, but I've also been a senior common room member and, most importantly, an undergraduate. (I used to live two floors down from my current room.) While living at Cabot House the first time around, I co-founded what is now the Harvard College Global Health and AIDS Coalition --- where I met my wife, Beth. Cabot has been good to me.
In my day job, I run climate change campaigning and oversee the tech team for Avaaz.org, a 3.5-million member multi-issue global online advocacy organization. (Avaaz means "voice" in a bunch of languages, none of which, unfortunately, I can actually speak.) Previously, I worked with now-Sen. Al Franken on his books, radio, and TV programs, and did various other things in politics, comedy, nonprofits, and the internet. Outside of work, I'm an enthusiastic --- if not terribly proficient--swing dancer, photographer, and Mac/gadget tinker-with-er. (But rest assured: I hold no grudges against Windows people, benighted though they may be.) Come by and say hello!
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Beth Wikler
Hiya Cabot House! I'm Beth. I am a new tutor this year, and am entering my second year in Harvard's Health Policy PhD program. I love politics, and I care a lot about health care --- so any time you want to talk about the health reform debate, I'm game! I became interested in health policy as an undergraduate, concentrating in Social Studies and taking courses through Harvard's Health Policy Certificate Program. After graduation, I researched NYC's Food Stamp Program as a Congressional Hunger Center Fellow and worked in the health policy department of Families USA, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.
On a more personal level, I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and am a proud fair-weather razorbacks fan. I love to cook (and generally talk, read, or think about food), pretend I know how to swing dance with my husband Ben, and exercise. I've run two marathons and done one triathlon, am considering another, and am always on the lookout for running buddies. Drop by our room anytime --- Cabot E311 --- to talk about health policy, politics, life in DC, Social Studies, or anything else. We are very excited to meet all of you!
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Elizabeth Wood
- Field: Biophysics, Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Charges: Physics, SASH
- Room: L-41
- Email: ewood@mit.edu
This is my first year in Cabot as a tutor and my third year studying theoretical biophysics at MIT. Using biological
engineering, I try to turn the CO2 that comes out of power plants into useful building materials. I also try to predict the
mechanical behavior of engineered cells using atomistic modeling.
As an undergraduate, I lived in Cabot. After graduating, I ran a small social enterprise that manufactured and sold
low-cost
ceramic water filters, first in Cambodia and then in the Northern Region, Ghana. Now, in addition to my research, I help to
run a clean energy entrepreneurship competition and grapple with science policy.
Interests: stochastic processes, astrophysicists, spatial information design, painting, folk wisdom, Bertam, projects.
Come
and visit.
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Inna Zakharevich
- Field: Math
- Charges: SASH
- Phone: 3-6670
- Room: E-411
- Address: 550 Cabot Mail Center
- Email: cabot@innaz.org
Hi! My name is Inna, and I am a second-year resident tutor here at
Cabot. I'm currently a third-year MIT student in the math department
there, so really I am an MIT student pretending to be a Harvard
student. (Actually, since my advisor is at Harvard, I'm really an MIT
student pretending to be a Harvard student pretending to be an MIT
student, but that's neither here nor there.) I am the resident
computer science tutor and a SASH tutor, and I am happy to answer any
questions about computer science, knitting, math, knitting, SASH
concerns and knitting. I also run the craft circle here at Cabot.
Tom and I live on the fourth floor of E entryway, and we are always
happy to have people come by and talk to us. We have a wide selection
of teas for you to enjoy (we even have a menu!) as well as an evil cat
that will enjoy eating your feet. (I'd say our door is always open,
but it isn't because of the cat. You should still act like it is,
though.) I also have a store of science fiction books that I'm
willing to lend to students who are willing to admit to liking them.
I'm very excited to be here for another year, and I hope that the new
schedule/course system/semester is exciting and fun for everyone!
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