Education is inquiry and dialogue; we examine conceptions, challenge misconceptions, create and recreate ideas, uncover identities, make alliances, and move our world further towards justice.”
Jolie’s Story
Jolie grew up in Moose Pass, Alaska, a small town where the school is the heart of the community. School is where friendships, adventures, and community change happen.
As a high school student, Jolie was lucky to get to participate in local research on Stella sea lions and orcas. Now, she enjoys facilitating her own students’ involvement in research and community initiatives.
At Stanford University, Jolie majored in earth systems and managed Stanford’s 24/7 peer counseling center. Jolie took time off from her studies at Stanford to manage operations for two organizations in refugee camps in Northeastern Zambia. She worked with refugees to develop life enrichment programs, such as building a solar-powered computer lab and developing businesses run by people with HIV. During summers in Alaska, she helped coach her high school’s running team, researched how to raise king crabs in a hatchery to repopulate wild populations, and worked as a back-country trail ranger.
After graduating, Jolie worked in Burundi as an agronomist and a food security program manager with Village Health Works. After returning to the United States, she worked as an education consultant for The Bridgespan Group. She earned her science teaching credential from Mills College in Oakland in 2014.
Jolie has been teaching physics, earth science, and biology in Bishop, California. Jolie loves seeing her students become leaders in their own communities. Teaching is the best job because it combines deep relationships, nerdy curiosity, long struggles, and huge rewards.
Jolie enjoys mountain running, rock climbing, and playing outside. She volunteers on her county’s search and rescue team. Jolie’s current goal is finishing her young adult fantasy novel.