Sapna Chemplavil’s father was raised in India by farmers who didn’t finish high school. Chemplavil herself grew up in Las Vegas and went to Dartmouth. Both she and her dad believe education is the key to social mobility and the ability to think for oneself. Now, as an Abby O’Neill Teaching Fellow, Chemplavil has made it her mission to "work with students who don’t have easy access to institutional power" because "I believe their voices need to be heard most.”
Growing up in the Dominican Republic, Deyrha Mills wanted a career in helping others. As a pharmacology instructor at Universidad Iberomaricana, she was drawn to both neuroscience research and teaching. Now, reflecting TC’s emphasis “on education, policy and creating interventions that translate into practical applications for society,” she's focused on addressing dementia and Alzheimer’s, disorders that “not only affect the patient, but the family as a whole.”
Will Pate’s mom was a piano teacher; his dad, a talented guitar player with a voice to match. Pate hails from Tupelo, a birthplace he shares with fellow Mississippian Elvis Presley. In ninth grade, as a trumpeter with an all-state band, he knew he wanted to help give others the gift of that same experience. Now he's at Teachers College in New York City, living the dream – and developing a taste for Broadway.
Beryl Torthe always figured she'd purse a career in finance – but when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she happened upon a book by TC faculty member George Bonanno, about grief and loss. She rethought her priorities and decided to become a psychologist, and now she's at TC, with plans to pursue a career in thanatology, a field that concerns itself with death and dying.