Only the most qualified

Faculty

Traveling School faculty create magic in and out of the classroom! More than just educators, they are mentors, role models and guides along the journey of a Traveling School semester. Our faculty are passion-driven, and go above and beyond to ensure students have the support and resources they need to thrive.

Arden Simone

Program Coordinator & Lead Teacher

Base Camp: Bay Area, California
Semester: Southern Africa Fall 2023
Courses: Honors Global Studies, Honors Literature & Composition

Arden Simone’s educational journey began in Pennsylvania, where attending an all-girls school from 3rd through 12th grade ignited her unwavering commitment to all-girls education. She later graduated from Davidson College with a degree in Psychology. Her most recent role at Khan Lab School (KLS) in the Bay Area involved teaching Humanities and co-leading the department. While at Khan, Arden also founded and directed KLS Outdoors, an expeditionary learning program that provides outdoor experiences to the student body, fostering a deeper connection to nature and experiential learning.

Prior to KLS, Arden taught in diverse educational settings across twelve countries, guiding U.S. high school students through Southeast Asia, Europe, Western Africa, and the United States. At The School for Field Studies, a study-abroad program for U.S. college students in Cambodia, she spent a year overseeing risk management, student well-being, and field research. She also taught in northern India and at a Friends School in the United States. In fall of 2019, she served as Program Coordinator and Lead Academic Teacher for The Traveling School’s Southern Africa Semester, where her passion for transformative international education deepened further.

In addition to her educational pursuits, Arden loves traveling (of course!), backpacking, skiing, mountain biking, cooking, going out for dim sum, and chatting with friends around a campfire. She is thrilled to rejoin The Traveling School, recognizing it as an extraordinarily powerful, joyful, and transformative opportunity for young women.

Morgan Comey

Logistics Coordinator & Lead Teacher

Base Camp: Bozeman, Montana
Semester: Southern Africa Fall 2023
Courses: Statistics, Leadership & Life Skills lead

Originally from Wyoming, Morgan’s childhood was defined by mountain air and spectacular vistas. Exploration and independence were encouraged in her, and she quickly cultivated a passion for wild places. In high school, Morgan traveled to Ecuador and Ghana, and caught the travel bug. Throughout college and beyond, she traveled as much as possible; immersed in new cultures, countries, and landscapes, she found curiosity, intrigue, and community engagement.

Morgan graduated from Montana State University with a degree in Mathematics and a minor in Ecology. Since then, she has dedicated herself to outdoor education. She presently teaches backpacking, rock climbing, canyoneering, backcountry skiing and avalanche education courses to youth and adults with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). She has also tutored math and statistics, taught health education, washed windows, worked as a community organizer, and tracked North Atlantic right whales. Morgan loves to share the outdoors, learning and travel with other people. She taught for the Traveling School in fall of 2018 on TTS’ southern Africa semester and is thrilled to be back–she can’t wait to meet the next generation of amazing Traveling School students, and to discover new skills, joy, and challenge alongside them. Besides teaching, Morgan loves homemade mugs, long chats with friends, bicycles, pie, all things mustard yellow, and sleeping outside.

Meredith Nass

Student Life Coordinator & Academic Teacher

Base Camp: Durango, Colorado
Semester: Southern Africa Fall 2023
Courses: Honors Global Studies, Honors History & Politics

Graduated with her Master’s in Education from University of Colorado, Boulder with a focus on Ethnic Studies and Educational Policy, Meredith has spent her career tackling critical questions related to justice work, with an emphasis on reimagining the roles of transformative educators. A dedicated mentor, Meredith finds inspiration working with young people and specifically in utilizing liberatory pedagogies in experiential settings. She previously worked as Assistant Director of Camp Glenbrook in New Hampshire, and for Gap at Glenbrook, facilitating programming on a rural farm with graduated high schoolers taking a gap year. In the spring of 2022, she taught for The Traveling School’s Western US semester. She adores her previous students and looks forward to teaching for The Traveling School in the fall of 2023 and spring of 2024. When she’s not teaching, Meredith loves to dance, do yoga, bike, ski, practice Spanish, garden, cook, read, and spend time with friends and family in the mountains and desert landscape of her home-base in the Southwest.

Leslie Sandefur

Academic Teacher

Base Camp: Driggs, Idaho
Semester: Southern Africa Fall 2023
Courses: Honors Environmental Science, Physical & Outdoor Fitness lead

Leslie grew up in a small town on the Maine coast. After two years at Boston College, where she began her outdoor education career leading hiking trips, she found herself living in Southern Africa. She traveled the region for a year, interning on a conservation project and working as a qualified field guide in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The incredible people, landscapes, and wildlife deeply impacted Leslie and she is thrilled to rediscover this corner of the world with Traveling School students. Leslie went on to complete her degree in Conservation Biology at St. Lawrence University, where she worked in the field on a variety of conservation projects, including studying human-elephant conflict mitigation in southern Kenya and salmon ecology in Southeast Alaska.

Leslie found her way back to outdoor education when she joined the High Mountain Institute (HMI) in Leadville, Colorado. At HMI, she taught natural science in the classroom to high-school juniors, and led backpacking, canyoneering, and winter camping/backcountry skiing expeditions. With a background in ski patrolling and river guiding, Leslie is presently a field instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). She is also passionate about wilderness medicine, and has worked as a medical assistant at a rural health clinic. She holds a Wilderness Emergency Medicine Technician (WEMT) certification.

Leslie strongly believes in the transformative power of experiential education. As a self-proclaimed “non-science person” until college, she now loves teaching place-based environmental science and connecting students to the land around them. When she’s not working in the field, you can find Leslie playing on rivers or in the mountains, stockpiling new books to read on trips, and scheming up the next big adventure.

You should know that The Traveling School did a masterful job of finding superlative instructors – ones so good that they will, without question, rank among the best of the best of [our daughter’s] entire K-12 (and probably beyond) educational experience.

John, 2018 Alumnae Parent