CHARLIE HOMET moved to New York City in 1982 after majoring in English at Connecticut College. He has been married to his wife Meredith for 17 years. Their daughter Alden, now in the third grade, entered LREI as a FoursK student. During Alden’s first year, Charlie served on the Halloween Fair Committee and also the Faculty/Staff Appreciation committee. The next year he was a parent rep. Starting when Alden entered first grade, Charlie has volunteered each year for the Annual Fund and this year was appointed co-chair of The Fund for LREI. In this capacity, he has also participated on the Board’s Development Committee. This involvement in the school springs from a deep appreciation of the culture and philosophy of the school, and of the environment that has allowed Alden to flourish and develop a love of learning. Charlie is an associate broker focused on residential sales and new development for Halstead property. Meredith is an Executive Director of Retail and Fashion at Conde Nast with GQ magazine. They have lived in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo for the last ten years.
PURVI PADIA is a first generation IndianAmerican who graduated with honors from the University of Michigan where she played Division I tennis. She also met her husband, Harsh, while studying at Michigan. Upon graduating, she moved to NYC and worked in design in the beauty and fashion industry for over 10 years. She then went on to get a Masters Degree in Interior Design at Parsons. She opened her namesake interior design firm in 2008 — Purvi Padia Design. In addition to design and her family, her biggest passion is philanthropy with a focus on education. She feels education is power and the best way to empower those in need is to educate them. She sits on the NY Board of UNICEF, serves as a member of the Student Sponsor Partners, is a founding member of a girls-only college in India and has also sat on the board of Girls Inc NYC. At LREI, Purvi has been part of both the Auction Committee and the Faculty/Staff Appreciation Committee and was a member of the Lower School Principal Search committee, as well as being a parent rep. Purvi lives in Tribeca with her husband and their two children, third-grader Rehan and Reven in the Fours.
Faculty & Staff
AWARDS | HONORS | PRESENTERS Sarah Barlow and Sara-Momii Roberts
EIGHTH-GRADE HUMANITIES TEACHERS Social justice work and activism have always been core values of the LREI experience. Together, Sarah and Sara-Momii presented on the Eighth Grade Social Justice Project at the NYSAIS Diversity Conference.
Elaine Chu and Jessie Kirk
THIRD-GRADE TEACHERS
Mark Silberberg
DIRECTOR OF LEARNING & INNOVATION Elaine, Jessie, and Mark presented on how design, making and imaginative inquiry support the third-grade curriculum at the Design and Maker Class Colloquium conference in Los Angeles. They also wrote a soon-tobe-published chapter on this work.
Cari Kosins
DIRECTOR OF AFTERSCHOOL AND SUMMER PROGRAMS
Seth Eastman
AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM COORDINATOR Cari Kosins served as the Chair of the Planning Committee for the NYSAIS Afterschool Directors Conference. Seth Eastman served on the same committee, and together they presented a workshop on Supporting the Gender Spectrum in Afterschool.
Suzanne Cohen and Matthew Rosen
SEVENTH-GRADE HUMANITIES TEACHERS Suzanne and Matthew presented at the NYSAIS Teaching with Technology Conference. They shared their learning about the process of adding a wiki-based digital museum to the physical seventh-grade Colonial Museum project.
Beth Binnard and Diane Kidder
FOURS TEACHERS Beth and Diane also presented at the NYSAIS Teaching with Technology Conference. They presented on their pilot of a digital portfolio program in the fours classes.
Moises Morales
INTERIM COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Moises Morales graduated with a degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from Baruch College. He earned the distinction of receiving
the symbolic degree given by the Dean of his school for being the highestranking undergraduate (4.0 GPA) and was seated on stage throughout the commencement ceremony as part of the platform party for the Class of 2016.
Matthew Rosen
SEVENTH-GRADE HUMANITIES TEACHER Matthew Rosen was awarded the Gallatin MA Prize, which is awarded by the faculty to one member of the graduating MA class for outstanding academic achievement, from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study within NYU. The thesis was titled: V. S. Naipaul, Postmodern Postcolonial: A Critical Look at Shame and Derangement in The Mimic Men (1967) and The Enigma of Arrival (1989).
Michel de Konkoly Thege
SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO ADMINISTRATION AND HIGH SCHOOL HUMANITIES TEACHER Michel de Konkoly Thege’s thesis was awarded Wesleyan University’s Samuel Hugh Brockunier prize for the best writing and reflection on a social studies topic. The thesis was titled: Paul Reynaud and the Reform of France’s Economic, Military and Diplomatic Policies of the 1930s.
Shauna Finn
HIGH SCHOOL 3-D ARTS TEACHER Shauna Finn was awarded a 3-week artist residency by the Cill Rialaig Project in County Kerry Ireland. Cill Rialaig artists focus entirely on their artistic practice in the restored ruins of a 1790s pre-famine village situated on the very edge of the Atlantic.
Ileana Jiménez
HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER Ileana Jiménez was invited to speak on the opening plenary of the inaugural International Girls Studies Association (IGSA) conference held at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, the first time a full panel of high school feminism scholars was featured at an international girls studies conference.
Kelly O’Shea
HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS TEACHERS Kelly O’Shea presented two workshops at the New York State Master Teacher Program in Buffalo: Developing Metacognitive Skills Through Reflective Journaling in Science and Math Classes and Graphical Solutions: Kinematics.
LREI NEWS | Summer 2016 15