Faculty and Staff

Danya is the Lower and Middle School Counselor at Brimmer. She graduated from William James College in 2022 with her doctorate in clinical psychology, focusing on children, families, and Latino mental health. She completed her postdoctoral training in pediatric neuropsychology and clinical psychology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health. Throughout graduate school, Danya trained at a variety of inpatient and outpatient clinical settings, working with children and families conducting therapy and neuropsychological evaluations.

Prior to graduate school, Danya was an AmeriCorps fellow at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and taught Spanish at a charter school in Boston.

In her free time, Danya enjoys spending time with family and friends, swimming, traveling, and going to concerts. 

Dr. Reese has been teaching since 1989, when he taught his first sections of freshman composition as a graduate assistant at the University of New Mexico. He is guided by the belief that students want to learn, and teachers are there to guide them toward what they need to learn next.

Dr. Reese is a self-described transplant from the West; he grew up in Oregon and Washington States and lived in Albuquerque, N.M., for 16 years before moving to New England. After earning his Ph.D. in Early American Literature in 1996, he began teaching high school at an independent school in Albuquerque and found that he loved it. Dr. Reese has been Co-Chair of the Humanities Department at Brimmer since 2007, teaching AP English Language and Composition and English electives for 11th and 12th grades.

He loves the warm, friendly atmosphere of the School and the focus of the School on global education.
Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his kids, writing, playing music with his colleagues, and playing chess.

Jessie is returning to Boston after five years in Los Angeles. She has over 15 years of experience teaching math and science at the middle and high school level. She has worked at Flintridge Preparatory School, Brooke Roslindale, and Excel Academy.

Jessie strives to create a collaborative and inquisitive classroom, ensuring students have opportunities to grow and challenge each other. She centers lessons around foundational knowledge, interconnection between topics, and student voice. Jessie is excited to join the welcoming community of students, parents, faculty, and staff at Brimmer and May.

Outside of school she enjoys running, crafting, cooking with her partner, and reading science fiction.

Nicole hopes to inspire her students to enjoy language learning, international travel, and lifelong learning.  In addition to teaching French, serving on Brimmer’s Global Studies Board, and being Brimmer’s World Language Department Chair, she also teaches Upper School history and global study elective courses, including for the 2025-2026 school year Global Diplomacy, International Relations, and 20th Century Resistance and Imprisonment. Other courses have included: International Manners and Mores, Cultural Intelligence in the Global Context, International Business, and Global Art History.

 

Nicole’s career in education has taken her all over the world: she taught English in South Korea on a Fulbright Scholarship, and she taught with the French-American Commission in Alsace and Paris, France, while earning her second master’s degree in modern European history and advising for the Paris Model UN. She also worked as a bilingual administrative assistant for Middlebury College’s French School and taught high school French in the Boston area. Since joining the Brimmer community in 2011 as a Lower School French Teacher, she has explored more international and public policy work, including advocacy work at the UN and freelance research while doing doctoral work in the History of International Relations. Her recent publication for the HERI journal at the Sorbonne focused on the practice of one women's health NGO in negotiating international public opinion in order to influence global policymaking in the interwar period in NYC and at the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

 

At Brimmer, Nicole appreciates the opportunity to continue to lead the World Language Department, to help plan Winterim trips, and to offer new courses in history and for the Global Studies diploma program.