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Guided by Curiosity
The NCS experience instills a sense of curiosity in students that continues to shape them after they leave the Close. Read about seven NCS alumnae for whom curiosity is a guiding principle. These women demonstrate a drive to discover, a passion to learn broadly and deeply, and an openness to reimagine who and what they are.
Reid Jewett Smith ’04
“As an educator and researcher, intellectual curiosity has been a huge driver of my career trajectory,” says Reid Jewett Smith. She earned her bachelor’s in American History summa cum laude from Boston University, crediting her beloved NCS teacher David Sahr and former teacher David Zimand for her deep interest in the subject. She notes that her secondary education at NCS drove her intellectual curiosity, workplace efficacy, and career goals.
Jewett Smith says, “Curiosity around studying history drew me to the classroom,” where she spent the first 10 years of her career. She holds a master’s in American History from Brown University and taught that subject at three New England boarding schools. She then earned a doctorate in Curriculum & Instruction at Boston College Lynch School of Education & Human Development, where she taught for several years and serves as an adjunct professor.
Today, Jewett Smith is Director of Research and Policy at Disability:IN, a global business consulting nonprofit that provides research, benchmarking, and consulting on workplace disability inclusion. Disability:IN has a network of over 500 household corporations that expands opportunities for people with disabilities across enterprises.
Jewett Smith brings a personal connection to her work. She was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis during her first year at Beauvoir and navigated complex health issues during all nine years at NCS. In her view, disability has served as a catalyst for her approach to the world. She says that disability “is a catchall for understanding how adversity has made me resilient, determined, focused, calm, and empathic.” She continues, “Disability encapsulates the traits that I recognize in my colleagues at Disability:IN — alternative ways of seeing systems, keenness for troubleshooting common problems, readiness to work across difference, respect for everyone’s circumstances.”
Alix Schwartz ’90
“I love always diving into a field that I don’t know that much about and figuring it out,” says Alix Schwartz about her career as a curator and professor. As a student who enjoyed writing and studio art classes at NCS, Alix Schwartz became fascinated with art history in college. She majored in the subject and earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan. Since then, she has held several teaching and curatorial positions around the country, focusing on contemporary art and mainly based in New York City.
Schwartz has served since March as curator of modern and contemporary art, craft, and design, at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in Manhattan, and for the last several years as an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. At MAD, Schwartz is currently working on several shows: one with a contemporary artist, two that are more design-focused, and one that is craft-based. She works with outside artists, as well as the museum’s collection which consists of mostly handmade craft objects from the 1950s to the present.
Schwartz had guest-curated a show at MAD in 2019, Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art, featuring works by 35 artists from around the world. Her first project as full-time curator was a one-off project that has garnered much attention: Taylor Swift: Storyteller, an exhibit that showcases the singer’s costumes. Schwartz marvels that the show has shattered MAD attendance records, bringing many new visitors to the museum.
“What keeps it exciting is that I’m always discovering new things,” Schwartz says. “Works of art tell so many different stories not just about the artists, but the history of the time in which they were made, the politics, the economics, the philosophy.” She notes that artists play an important role in society. “Artists are on the front lines of social change often, because they think about things in a very outside of the box way,” she says.
Natasha Sacoto ’11
“Science, engineering—it’s all problem solving,” says Natasha Sacoto. “And I love that!” Sacoto develops and teaches STEM classes at a public elementary school in New York City.
Sacoto always wanted to teach and recalls writing a letter to herself as a Beauvoir first grader in which she stated that she would become a teacher. Yet her focus throughout her education was in the humanities. At NCS, Sacoto won an award for her work as a stage manager in the theater. Sacoto earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester in English, with a focus on creative writing, and psychology with minors in theater and French. She was an “arts person, reading writing, drawing, all of those things.”
She earned her master's in elementary inclusive education and taught fourth grade for years. Then at a time when New York City launched an initiative that requires all schools to have meaningful computer science instruction, her school merged with another, creating a new entity. The principal asked if anyone had any ideas. Sacoto noted that while students use computers for certain purposes, they didn’t have a strong background in typing, research, and basic computer science skills. She proposed a multi-faceted technology curriculum, which was, she says, “a perfect opportunity to fill a need in our students and also a new opportunity to learn something for myself.”
Sacoto designed age-appropriate curricula for students in pre-k to fifth grade. Her youngest students learn foundational skills, including persistence and tinkering. For her older students, a big part of her role is building resilience and challenging them. She pushes her classes to do hard assignments to engage each student.
“Getting kids to feel curious about something, especially as they get older is really challenging,” she observes. “Because the little kids, everything is new to them, and they are so excited.”
Kristine Nielsen ’73
“When I lose my curiosity, when I’m not provoked to investigate something, then I may as well just get in the coffin,” says Kristine Nielsen ’73. If she sounds a bit dramatic, it may be because Nielsen has worked for decades as an actress, primarily in the theater.
Even as an experienced actress, Nielsen is constantly exploring the endless contours of her art form. In her most recent role, Nielsen played Ginnie in Annie Baker’s well-reviewed Infinite Life at New York’s Atlantic Theater Company and London’s National Theater. Though she has performed this role hundreds of times, she continues to uncover new aspects of the character. She says, “I was doing the scene one day and almost started crying. I have no idea what that was about, but I thought, ‘It is a part of a discovery of the humanness of our world.’ So yes, we have to keep digging deeper and discovering paths that you think are closed in your mind.”
Nielsen has acted on Broadway with— and at the direction of—many of the greats: Jason Robards, Christopher Durang, Taylor Mack, Kevin Kline, and Laura Linney, to name a few. She was twice nominated for Tony awards (Best Lead Actress in a play and Best Featured Actress in a Play). Nielsen has also appeared in films and on television.
At NCS, Nielsen recalls that she was painfully shy. She dipped her toe into the theater program and was encouraged by former NCS teachers Ted Walch and Gwendolyn Coney. She says, “Theater helped me by introducing me to a new group of people and making me maybe a little more interesting.”
Lisa Zimmerman ’80
“I was desperate,” says book artist Lisa Zimmerman. “My creative self had been asking to be set free for a long time, and I had almost stopped listening.”
Zimmerman had been one of those kids who made art non-stop and loved acting in NCS/St. Albans productions. And when she moved to San Francisco after college to intern for a theater company, she wanted to become a playwright. But when she got hired as the theater’s development director and moved forward with what turned into a 20-year non-profit marketing/ communications career, her creative voice nearly disappeared.
Hungering for a more creative life, she took a marketing position at an architecture firm and eventually launched her own public art consulting practice integrating art, technology and urban design. But, despite it all, she still yearned for something different. She just didn’t know what.
It was during this "dark night of the soul" that she took her first art class in decades — mixed-media bookmaking— and then took more. Soon she became an art instructor helping individuals with developmental disabilities make “beautiful and amazing” books. A door had opened at last.
Today Zimmerman has reclaimed what she left behind long ago. “My path has been anything but linear, but now I trust that joy will guide the way,” she says with a smile.
Bridgette Zou ’08
“The thing about curiosity that I love is that it helps you embrace the idea that you can be different versions of yourself in different times of your life,” says author, artist, and entrepreneur Bridgette Zou. All the versions she has pursued have centered around artistic expression. When Zou moved to New York City shortly after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, she was hired as a Dreamweaver at 11 Madison Park, one of the top-rated restaurants in the world. In that role, she made curated art experiences called “Legends” for customers, often creating a beautiful, one-of-a-kind keepsake in the time it took for guests to eat their meal.
Now, Zou divides her time among a few creative endeavors. She is a partner in and brand director for Noortwyck, a popular restaurant in New York’s West Village that she and two of her colleagues from 11 Madison Park founded. She is also a principal in Second to None, a business that handles social media and business development for high-end restaurants. And she has written and illustrated a children’s book, Norman and the Nom Nom Factory, that was narrated by Julie Andrews on her podcast.
Zou has found an outlet for her artistic talent with This Feels Nice, a company Zou co-founded to “reactivate [her] creativity and curiosity.” Its website features her blue and white illustrations that she adds to frequently. Zou says “shout-out to [former NCS art teacher] Leslie Eckmann,” who introduced her to blue and white Chinese porcelain and Islamic pottery. The company, that started as a way for Zou to “embrace this new creative path and journey,” now offers its first product: an astrology-themed baby swaddle!
Xanthe Scharff ’98
“Moments of curiosity and listening have been the moments that have been most transformational,” says Xanthe Scharff. She recalls a religions class at NCS: “the first that really lit up my curiosity to understand other people’s view of the world.”
Scharff earned her doctorate from The Fletcher School at Tufts in International Development and worked abroad in different roles. In 2015, Scharff underwent her own transformation. She had been working at the Brookings Institution and also serving as the Executive Director of AGE Africa: Advancing Girls’ Education, an organization she had founded after reporting for a year for the Christian Science Monitor on girls in Malawi who weren’t able to go to school. After 10 years in these roles, she missed "that real personto- person connection.” So, Scharff found herself reimagining how she would next engage for the purpose of women and girls globally.
For a combination of reasons, Scharff moved to Istanbul. She began reporting on issues stemming from the Arab Spring, about women organizing against Turkish President Erdogan. She found it reinvigorating to listen to people tell their stories.
These experiences led Scharff to co-found and serve as CEO of The Fuller Project, a global newsroom dedicated to in-depth reporting as a means to catalyze positive change for women. The work focuses on local reporting by contributors or staff members, combined with investigative or enterprise reporting, exposing injustices, and spotlighting women's issues. Scharff says, “The idea of this project is to tear down assumptions and reimagine what the world would be like if women’s contributions were fully recognized and if journalism really reflected women’s needs and how they are impacted by issues.”
This article first appeared in the Fall/Winter 2023 issue of NCS Magazine and Annual Report.
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Reid Jewett Smith ’04
“As an educator and researcher, intellectual curiosity has been a huge driver of my career trajectory,” says Reid Jewett Smith. She earned her bachelor’s in American History summa cum laude from Boston University, crediting her beloved NCS teacher David Sahr and former teacher David Zimand for her deep interest in the subject. She notes that her secondary education at NCS drove her intellectual curiosity, workplace efficacy, and career goals.
Jewett Smith says, “Curiosity around studying history drew me to the classroom,” where she spent the first 10 years of her career. She holds a master’s in American History from Brown University and taught that subject at three New England boarding schools. She then earned a doctorate in Curriculum & Instruction at Boston College Lynch School of Education & Human Development, where she taught for several years and serves as an adjunct professor.
Today, Jewett Smith is Director of Research and Policy at Disability:IN, a global business consulting nonprofit that provides research, benchmarking, and consulting on workplace disability inclusion. Disability:IN has a network of over 500 household corporations that expands opportunities for people with disabilities across enterprises.
Jewett Smith brings a personal connection to her work. She was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis during her first year at Beauvoir and navigated complex health issues during all nine years at NCS. In her view, disability has served as a catalyst for her approach to the world. She says that disability “is a catchall for understanding how adversity has made me resilient, determined, focused, calm, and empathic.” She continues, “Disability encapsulates the traits that I recognize in my colleagues at Disability:IN — alternative ways of seeing systems, keenness for troubleshooting common problems, readiness to work across difference, respect for everyone’s circumstances.”
Alix Schwartz ’90
“I love always diving into a field that I don’t know that much about and figuring it out,” says Alix Schwartz about her career as a curator and professor. As a student who enjoyed writing and studio art classes at NCS, Alix Schwartz became fascinated with art history in college. She majored in the subject and earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan. Since then, she has held several teaching and curatorial positions around the country, focusing on contemporary art and mainly based in New York City.
Schwartz has served since March as curator of modern and contemporary art, craft, and design, at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in Manhattan, and for the last several years as an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. At MAD, Schwartz is currently working on several shows: one with a contemporary artist, two that are more design-focused, and one that is craft-based. She works with outside artists, as well as the museum’s collection which consists of mostly handmade craft objects from the 1950s to the present.
Schwartz had guest-curated a show at MAD in 2019, Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art, featuring works by 35 artists from around the world. Her first project as full-time curator was a one-off project that has garnered much attention: Taylor Swift: Storyteller, an exhibit that showcases the singer’s costumes. Schwartz marvels that the show has shattered MAD attendance records, bringing many new visitors to the museum.
“What keeps it exciting is that I’m always discovering new things,” Schwartz says. “Works of art tell so many different stories not just about the artists, but the history of the time in which they were made, the politics, the economics, the philosophy.” She notes that artists play an important role in society. “Artists are on the front lines of social change often, because they think about things in a very outside of the box way,” she says.
Natasha Sacoto ’11
“Science, engineering—it’s all problem solving,” says Natasha Sacoto. “And I love that!” Sacoto develops and teaches STEM classes at a public elementary school in New York City.
Sacoto always wanted to teach and recalls writing a letter to herself as a Beauvoir first grader in which she stated that she would become a teacher. Yet her focus throughout her education was in the humanities. At NCS, Sacoto won an award for her work as a stage manager in the theater. Sacoto earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester in English, with a focus on creative writing, and psychology with minors in theater and French. She was an “arts person, reading writing, drawing, all of those things.”
She earned her master's in elementary inclusive education and taught fourth grade for years. Then at a time when New York City launched an initiative that requires all schools to have meaningful computer science instruction, her school merged with another, creating a new entity. The principal asked if anyone had any ideas. Sacoto noted that while students use computers for certain purposes, they didn’t have a strong background in typing, research, and basic computer science skills. She proposed a multi-faceted technology curriculum, which was, she says, “a perfect opportunity to fill a need in our students and also a new opportunity to learn something for myself.”
Sacoto designed age-appropriate curricula for students in pre-k to fifth grade. Her youngest students learn foundational skills, including persistence and tinkering. For her older students, a big part of her role is building resilience and challenging them. She pushes her classes to do hard assignments to engage each student.
“Getting kids to feel curious about something, especially as they get older is really challenging,” she observes. “Because the little kids, everything is new to them, and they are so excited.”
Kristine Nielsen ’73
“When I lose my curiosity, when I’m not provoked to investigate something, then I may as well just get in the coffin,” says Kristine Nielsen ’73. If she sounds a bit dramatic, it may be because Nielsen has worked for decades as an actress, primarily in the theater.
Even as an experienced actress, Nielsen is constantly exploring the endless contours of her art form. In her most recent role, Nielsen played Ginnie in Annie Baker’s well-reviewed Infinite Life at New York’s Atlantic Theater Company and London’s National Theater. Though she has performed this role hundreds of times, she continues to uncover new aspects of the character. She says, “I was doing the scene one day and almost started crying. I have no idea what that was about, but I thought, ‘It is a part of a discovery of the humanness of our world.’ So yes, we have to keep digging deeper and discovering paths that you think are closed in your mind.”
Nielsen has acted on Broadway with— and at the direction of—many of the greats: Jason Robards, Christopher Durang, Taylor Mack, Kevin Kline, and Laura Linney, to name a few. She was twice nominated for Tony awards (Best Lead Actress in a play and Best Featured Actress in a Play). Nielsen has also appeared in films and on television.
At NCS, Nielsen recalls that she was painfully shy. She dipped her toe into the theater program and was encouraged by former NCS teachers Ted Walch and Gwendolyn Coney. She says, “Theater helped me by introducing me to a new group of people and making me maybe a little more interesting.”
Lisa Zimmerman ’80
“I was desperate,” says book artist Lisa Zimmerman. “My creative self had been asking to be set free for a long time, and I had almost stopped listening.”
Zimmerman had been one of those kids who made art non-stop and loved acting in NCS/St. Albans productions. And when she moved to San Francisco after college to intern for a theater company, she wanted to become a playwright. But when she got hired as the theater’s development director and moved forward with what turned into a 20-year non-profit marketing/ communications career, her creative voice nearly disappeared.
Hungering for a more creative life, she took a marketing position at an architecture firm and eventually launched her own public art consulting practice integrating art, technology and urban design. But, despite it all, she still yearned for something different. She just didn’t know what.
It was during this "dark night of the soul" that she took her first art class in decades — mixed-media bookmaking— and then took more. Soon she became an art instructor helping individuals with developmental disabilities make “beautiful and amazing” books. A door had opened at last.
Today Zimmerman has reclaimed what she left behind long ago. “My path has been anything but linear, but now I trust that joy will guide the way,” she says with a smile.
Bridgette Zou ’08
“The thing about curiosity that I love is that it helps you embrace the idea that you can be different versions of yourself in different times of your life,” says author, artist, and entrepreneur Bridgette Zou. All the versions she has pursued have centered around artistic expression. When Zou moved to New York City shortly after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, she was hired as a Dreamweaver at 11 Madison Park, one of the top-rated restaurants in the world. In that role, she made curated art experiences called “Legends” for customers, often creating a beautiful, one-of-a-kind keepsake in the time it took for guests to eat their meal.
Now, Zou divides her time among a few creative endeavors. She is a partner in and brand director for Noortwyck, a popular restaurant in New York’s West Village that she and two of her colleagues from 11 Madison Park founded. She is also a principal in Second to None, a business that handles social media and business development for high-end restaurants. And she has written and illustrated a children’s book, Norman and the Nom Nom Factory, that was narrated by Julie Andrews on her podcast.
Zou has found an outlet for her artistic talent with This Feels Nice, a company Zou co-founded to “reactivate [her] creativity and curiosity.” Its website features her blue and white illustrations that she adds to frequently. Zou says “shout-out to [former NCS art teacher] Leslie Eckmann,” who introduced her to blue and white Chinese porcelain and Islamic pottery. The company, that started as a way for Zou to “embrace this new creative path and journey,” now offers its first product: an astrology-themed baby swaddle!
Xanthe Scharff ’98
“Moments of curiosity and listening have been the moments that have been most transformational,” says Xanthe Scharff. She recalls a religions class at NCS: “the first that really lit up my curiosity to understand other people’s view of the world.”
Scharff earned her doctorate from The Fletcher School at Tufts in International Development and worked abroad in different roles. In 2015, Scharff underwent her own transformation. She had been working at the Brookings Institution and also serving as the Executive Director of AGE Africa: Advancing Girls’ Education, an organization she had founded after reporting for a year for the Christian Science Monitor on girls in Malawi who weren’t able to go to school. After 10 years in these roles, she missed "that real personto- person connection.” So, Scharff found herself reimagining how she would next engage for the purpose of women and girls globally.
For a combination of reasons, Scharff moved to Istanbul. She began reporting on issues stemming from the Arab Spring, about women organizing against Turkish President Erdogan. She found it reinvigorating to listen to people tell their stories.
These experiences led Scharff to co-found and serve as CEO of The Fuller Project, a global newsroom dedicated to in-depth reporting as a means to catalyze positive change for women. The work focuses on local reporting by contributors or staff members, combined with investigative or enterprise reporting, exposing injustices, and spotlighting women's issues. Scharff says, “The idea of this project is to tear down assumptions and reimagine what the world would be like if women’s contributions were fully recognized and if journalism really reflected women’s needs and how they are impacted by issues.”
This article first appeared in the Fall/Winter 2023 issue of NCS Magazine and Annual Report.
