SAM JACKSON
Western Washington University, Fairhaven School of Interdisciplinary Studies, B.A., Environmental Anthropology

While at Western, Sam studied the relationship between climate change and natural resource conflict. After graduating, he parlayed his education into jobs in environmental education and forest restoration around the Puget Sound in Washington State. A passion for art and storytelling gradually invaded Sam’s stable life of building hiking trails and leading volunteer work parties, and he began developing a science fiction graphic novel set in East Africa. This led Sam in 2014 to spend seven months volunteering as an English teacher at Les Enfants de Dieu (EDD), a school for street children in Kigali, Rwanda. While at EDD, Sam was proud to collaborate with one of his students, illustrating a short story about a Rwandan superhero. Sam’s travels through Africa have taken him to the top of a 12,000-foot active volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo and on a cross-continental road trip from Zanzibar to Cape Town. Currently, Sam is working as an art educator at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and sharpening his illustration skills at the School of the Museum of Fine Art. Sam is conversant in French and has twice led Community Service Tanzania.

ANNA KAYES
The College of William and Mary, B.A., Anthropology

While at William and Mary, Anna studied Mayan archaeology and played on the varsity soccer team. She studied abroad in Guatemala, where she camped in the rainforest and joined excavations at several Pre-Classic Maya sites in Tikal National Park. After graduation, she worked as a research and curatorial assistant in the Department of Archaeology at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., before moving to India and Thailand for a year to teach English. While volunteering in India, Anna lived in a Tibetan Buddhist children’s community, where she ran a youth soccer program and worked with community members to build a soccer field in the local village. She also began a girls’ soccer team at a high school in Thailand, coaching the team through the school’s first tournament in over a decade. During her time in Asia, Anna traveled through Nepal, Cambodia, and Laos. She now lives in Vermont and directs programs for Putney, where soccer and her passion for female empowerment through sport continue to tie her to the community. In the fall she coaches the varsity girls’ soccer team at the local high school, and in the spring coaches a Girls on the Run team at a local elementary school. Anna directs programs in Iceland, Alaska, Thailand, and South Africa. She has twice led Putney’s Community Service program in Dominica and twice led the Cultural Exploration program in Alaska, as well as Cultural Exploration Thailand and Cultural Exploration Iceland programs.