Welcome, New Faculty and Staff
Each fall, Roxbury Latin welcomes a new cohort of faculty, staff, and students to campus. This year, in addition to new Head of School Dr. Sam Schaffer, six faculty and staff from a variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise join RL’s roster of educators, coaches, advisors, and community members.
Anthony D’Amato joins RL as a member of the Science and Math departments, where he will teach IPS and Math 7 to our younger boys. Anthony is no stranger to teaching and coaching at boys’ schools: He has taught chemistry and coached baseball at Xaverian Brothers H.S. just down the road, and prior to that he taught biology and chemistry and coached baseball at BC High for five years. Most recently, Anthony pursued a career in the corporate world, working in business development and instructional design at Recorded Futures, a cybersecurity company, where his role was developing curriculum and training materials for their products. Thankfully for us the call of teaching was strong, and Anthony was eager to get back to the classroom. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Loyola University in Maryland where he was a member of the Division 1 swim team, and he earned his master’s degree in education at Boston College. At RL, Anthony will also coach middle school soccer and JV baseball.
Jon Doerer joins us as one of two new Penn Fellows. As he works toward his master’s degree in education, he will teach advanced level Algebra to Class V and Precalculus to Class II. Jon earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology and his master’s in management from University of Notre Dame, where he was the kicker for the football team for four years. His undergraduate experience included studying abroad in South Africa, and most recently Jon has served as a middle school teacher in a North Carolina public school, where he has worked to foster a classroom culture of “positive thinking, persistence, and integrity.” An exemplary high school athlete on his football and track teams (named “Kicker of the Year” in Charlotte and ranked third nationally), Jon will help coach both Varsity football and JV basketball.
Lisa Kostur is a consummate generalist, bringing a variety of passions, talents, and expertise to Roxbury Latin. Multilingual (including in French, Italian, and Latin), Lisa will serve primarily as a member of our Modern Languages department, teaching sections of French 2 and French 3. She has taught French at the college level as a teaching fellow at Harvard for the past four years. Prior to that, Lisa was a professional dancer for ten years—a member of the Compagnie Pal Frenak traveling throughout Europe as part of more than 200 performances. Lisa taught dance and dance history in France from 2007 to 2010. At RL, she will teach Class VI Dance and assist with choreography in drama productions, and also serve as RL’s Director of Travel. Lisa earned her bachelor’s degree cum laude in French, with minors in dance and English, from Barnard College, and she earned her master’s in French from Harvard University.
Kerin Maguire joins RL as our new Assistant Director of External Relations, working closely with Erin Berg and Marcus Miller to tell the “RL story” through a variety of media throughout the year. Kerin has spent the last five years in higher ed, working in admission and financial aid at Harvard Kennedy School, and in student programming and campus life at Tufts, where she supported a board of 25 elected students in planning and executing more than 40 events each school year. Prior to that, Kerin was a coordinator for Ali Krieger Football Camps, creating content to market and advertise the camps, running the organization’s social media channels, and developing relationships with vendors and other partner organizations. Kerin earned her bachelor’s degree in English at Dickinson College, and she earned her master’s in sports industry management from Georgetown University.
Erin Sutton will serve as Roxbury Latin’s Chair of the Arts Department, bringing a broad range of skills to both the making and the teaching of art. Named Massachusetts’ Secondary Art Educator of the Year in 2022, Erin has been teaching art to high school students for 14 years, most recently in the Lawrence and Lynn public school systems. She has devoted her career to helping students develop their own artistic voices and agency, competence and confidence, in a range of media, from painting and drawing to glass-fusing and mural-making. An artist in her own right, she has amassed an impressive portfolio of juried group exhibitions, commissioned art projects, and solo exhibitions. At RL she will work closely with colleagues and students across the arts—visual, dramatics, music—to build on strengths and evolve the program in meaningful ways. She will teach students in Arts 7, Arts 8, Arts 9, Mixed Media (Arts 10), Applied Art (Class I and II), and assist with drama and outdoor program trips.
Andrew White, RL Class of 2018, has been a familiar face in our Halls of late, teaching various levels of classical languages in the winter/spring of 2024 as a long-term substitute. That return to RL further kindled a passion for teaching, and this year Andrew will join us full-time as a Penn Fellow and a teacher in the Classics department. Andrew earned his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Classics from Princeton University, and he has taught and worked with young people in various capacities over recent years, including as a fellow at Princeton’s Writing Center and as a lead teacher of RL’s i2 STEM camp. Andrew has further honed his musical, journalistic, and classical chops in a variety of extracurriculars, first seeded at Roxbury Latin (in certamens, Tripod, Glee Club, Latonics) and continuing through Princeton: He was vice president of the Princeton Classics Club, an editor of the Nassau Weekly (Princeton’s student newspaper), and president of the Princeton Tigertones, an all-male a capella group. This year at RL, Andrew will teach Latin 1 and Honors Greek, coach middle school soccer, and assist with debate and drama.
Sam Schaffer is the 12th head of The Roxbury Latin School following an extensive career in education, most recently as Head of Upper School at St. Albans, an independent boys’ school in Washington, DC. Dr. Schaffer graduated from the University of North Carolina summa cum laude and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After spending a year teaching at Groton, he joined the St. Albans community, where he spent six years as a dorm parent, history teacher, advisor, and varsity football and basketball coach. Dr. Schaffer left St. Albans to pursue a graduate degree in history from Yale, earning his PhD in 2010. From 2007 to 2011, he worked as a fellow and coordinator at Yale’s McDougal Graduate Teaching Center, organizing workshops for teachers across disciplines. Dr. Shaffer returned to St. Albans in 2012 as the Assistant then Associate Dean of Faculty, while also serving as Assistant Director of College Counseling, teaching history, and coaching at various levels, before becoming Head of the Upper School in 2021.