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Meet the Fellows 2022

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Sofia Hauser

Sofia Hauser is a 17-year-old and a rising senior at Brookline High School. Sofia loves music and she can play piano, which she has been learning since she was five. She also loves sports and plays both ice hockey and rugby. She helped found the girls rugby team. However, her favorite activity is writing. She is the Longform Managing Editor for the student-run newspaper at her high school, where she can explore many important social issues and their effects on her community. Sofia participated in the BHS Moth Story Hour as a sophomore and spoke at the Day of Dialogue, the school-wide celebration of gender and sexuality diversity. She is overjoyed to have the opportunity to pursue her passion in writing with such a wonderful and talented group of people.

Ava Varrell

Ava Varrell is 17 years old and a rising senior at Brookline High School. She fell in love with art at a young age and could nearly always be found with a marker in hand or bracelet making supplies at an arm’s reach away. Along with art, Ava’s passion for writing and reading grew in second grade after first being introduced to The Baby-Sitters Club series and later reading all 13 of the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events in one month. Along with always being on the search for a new mystery book to read in one sitting, Ava’s passion for writing has brought her to being part of the senior staff of The Sagamore. Outside of school, Ava can be found getting into an intense game of ping-pong with her cousins, playing tennis, or trying to find the best place for ice cream in the Brookline area.

Nate Hanaghan

Nate Hanaghan is a 16-year-old rising junior at Brookline High School. For most of his life, Nate has had a book in his hand (and a stack more at home). While not always an active person, as a former Boy Scout, he has always spent time outside. More recently, he’s become involved in his school’s Speech and Debate Team, as well as teaching English through the nonprofit Language Virtual. He has also become enamored with volleyball and is rigorously preparing for tryouts in the spring. Nate has enjoyed creative writing since elementary school, writing elementary-school quality fiction stories throughout his early education. He is almost obsessively interested in space and hopes to pursue a career in an astronomy-related field in the future. He is thrilled to be part of the Whipple Fellowship and looks forward to working with the other Whipple fellows to improve his writing skills and create a meaningful and insightful piece of writing.

Nate Parry Luff

Nate Parry Luff is a senior at BHS. Nate likes rowing, playing soccer, and programming in his free time. Nate is an editor of the BHS newspaper, director of computer science at gbSTEM, and spends a lot of my time at practice for the crew team at BHS. Being surrounded by climate claims and products, Nate became interested in the behind-the-scenes of these companies. His journey into his topic began with a simple shopping experience and continued into an exploration of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Crisis. Nate is hoping to help people understand the ways to recognize and combat greenwashing.

Serena Ibanez

Serena is a dedicated student in 12th grade at Brookline High School. She is passionate about decoding the world that surrounds beings and is a believer in what Socrates once said: all I know is that I know nothing. We don't know if the colors we see are the right colors or if everyone is living in a dream, and that, she says, is the beauty in life, that there is always a mystery hidden beneath the surface. Serena aspires toward making a better world where everyone has the same opportunities, equity for all is abundant, and every living creature lives together in harmony. She is on the journey of accomplishing her aspiration, and the Whipple Writing Fellowship is one big step in this journey. Serena strives that with her writing, she will unravel more elements of this mysterious world so it becomes better.

Alejandro Gonzalez

Alejandro is a rising senior at Brookline High School. His love for writing began in fourth grade when he wrote fantasy short stories in his downtime. From being a member of BHS’ newspaper The Sagamore to fun notes app poetry, writing has always been one of his key forms of expression. He fell in love with reading and mythology ever since he picked up his first Rick Riordan book. Since his first years of elementary school, Alejandro has explored ancient cultures and myths. He is grateful to channel his passion for mythology into his writing in the Whipple Fellowship. When he’s not reading outside or listening to music, you can find him drawn to bookstores like a moth to light and working at a local bakery.

Alice MacGarvie Thompson

Alice is a 17-year-old rising senior at Brookline High School. In school, she is passionately involved in the Climate Justice Club and Student Government. Outside of school, she is an active member of pro-housing and anti-prison organizations. Alice is deeply invested in social and racial justice. She is especially passionate about housing justice, climate justice, and anti-prison organizing. She is a prison abolitionist who realized the importance of writing to the abolitionist movement from reading authors like Mariame Kaba and Angela Davis. She is incredibly grateful for this opportunity and hopes to spend this internship combining engaging storytelling with advocating for specific local policies around decarceration.

Stella Charbonneau

Stella Charbonneau is a 16-year-old rising junior at Brookline High School. She loves to paint, although she’s not entirely good at it; read high fantasy books; and write creative short stories, preferably horror. She also enjoys Mitski and indie pop, as well as some 80s rock if she's in the mood. She hopes to become a children's author and illustrator one day and would like to expand on her drawing and writing skills before college. She is excited that she has been given the opportunity to participate in the Whipple Fellowship and can’t wait to expand and share her writing over the summer.

Tali Lissai

Tali Lissai is a 15 year old rising junior at Brookline High School and an avid lover of stuffed animals. She first started writing in third grade after her teacher said she would be good at it and hopes to become an author to share her stories with others. Since then, she has used writing as a tool to talk about things she cares about and emotions she doesn’t want to deal with. During the school year, Tali dances at Boston Ballet School five days a week and is the Co-Director of New Media for Off Brand Zine. When she isn’t busy with dance (which is almost all the time), you can find her in her room watching YouTube, reading books meant for 12-year-olds, and ranting to her friends about why ranch on pizza is good.

Tina Cheng

Entering her senior year at Brookline High School, Tina Cheng is a student who has always felt an immense love for reading and writing. Constantly immersed in her own world of imaginative landscapes and endless possibilities, Tina has enjoyed almost every genre known to man. Outside of her reading world, Tina enjoys playing football and spreading herself across a soft field of grass. At school, she is the co-leader of the Off-Brand magazine and the Neuroscience Club. This year, she has chosen to explore her fascination in the field of biology by diving into an area of reading and writing that she has never experienced before. Connecting her innate love for all sorts of books to her curiosity about everything that surrounds her, Tina is incredibly excited to channel her myriad of ideas into her writing with the Whipple Fellowship!

Kyla Frey

Kyla Frey is 17 years old and a rising senior at Brookline High School. During the school year, Kyla swims for the BHS varsity swim and dive team, tutors ELL students in English, and is a member of the Environmental Justice club. In her free time, she loves traveling, watching movies, and spending time with friends and family. Since a young age, Kyla has always found writing as a way to help her understand past experiences and express her thoughts. She is thankful for the opportunity to participate in the Whipple Fellowship and looks forward to crafting her piece alongside other Whipple fellows this summer.

Maria Balyakin

Maria Balyakin is 17 years old and a rising senior at Brookline High School. She has a wide range of academic interests, including mathematics, computer science, Latin, and linguistics. In her free time she enjoys swimming, fencing, playing renaissance music on the recorder, folding modular origami, keeping fish, and learning constructed languages. Masha has been an avid reader since early childhood and never parts with her Kindle, and writing has been special to her as a way to process and organize ideas. She finds non-fiction writing especially useful as an analytical yet creative way to express her thoughts. She is grateful to the Whipple Fellowship for the opportunity to explore in depth a topic of great personal interest to her, and to meet writers with a variety of interests and approaches to writing.

Created By
Jen Martin
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Created with an image by Nataliia - "Books. Lots of colourful thick open books stand on a dark background"