Communication Office
The communication office develops, implements, and evaluates communication plans and programs that support the mission of the School. The office facilitates Milton Academy’s efforts to promote awareness and good will among its various constituencies and external public; to recruit students and faculty; and to raise financial and volunteer support.
Communication Staff
Sarah Abrams
Editor, Milton Magazine
sarah_abrams@milton.edu
Marisa Donelan
Associate Director of Communication
marisa_donelan@milton.edu
Eileen Newman
Chief Communication Officer
eileen_newman@milton.edu
Jacqueline O’Rourke
Communications Specialist
jacqueline_orourke@milton.edu
Esten Perez
Director of Communication and Media Relations
esten_perez@milton.edu
Emily Sedgwick
Social Media Manager / Video Content Producer
Emily_Sedgwick@milton.edu
Greg White
Director, Web Development and Academy Graphic Design
gregory_white@milton.edu
Media Contact
If you are a member of the media in need of information or press materials, please contact Esten Perez at 617-898-2395 or esten_perez@milton.edu
Campus News
Women’s History Month Speaker Jamie Mittelman ’06 Amplifies Underrepresented Female Athletes’ Voices
During her time at Milton, Jamie Mittelman ’06 was a triple varsity athlete, in soccer, skiing, and track and field. Today, she is making a difference in sports with Flame Bearers, a media company she founded in 2020 that elevates the voices and stories of female athletes.
SAGE (Students Advocating for Gender Equity) invited Mittelman to speak at an assembly for Women’s History Month.
“What’s different is we’re not doing sports reporting,” she said. “We’re not focusing on who’s going to play who. We’re focusing on issues that everyone can relate to, like, pay equity, racial justice, disability bias, and being a mom. The reason is these are not sports stories. These are human interest stories.”
Milton Academy Announces Its Next Chief Advancement Officer
Milton has a new Chief Advancement Officer: Kelly DeGregorio. Following a highly competitive national search, Ms. DeGregorio will join the Milton community on April 22.
“Kelly is joining Milton at an exciting time,” states Head of School Alixe Callen ‘88. “We’re embarking on our strategic planning process and, in today’s competitive landscape, it’s critical that Milton is supported with the resources we need to maintain our position as a leader among independent schools.”
Rebecca Makkai on the Power of Fiction, Theater, and Time in Storytelling
Acclaimed novelist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Rebecca Makkai encouraged Milton Academy students to embrace reading as a powerful way to study history and engage with the past.
“So that you can deeply understand,” she explained, “here’s what people were thinking. Here’s what they were going through. Here is what they got wrong. Here’s why they got it wrong.”
Makkai, author of The Great Believers and I Have Some Questions for You, spent two days on campus as this semester’s Bingham Visiting Writer. She visited creative writing classes, workshopped student writing, and shared insights into her creative process during an Upper School assembly.
Mathematician Po-Shen Loh Urges Critical Thinking and Humanity in the Age of AI
Young people should commit to deep learning and understanding—even as artificial-intelligence tools deliver efficiency and make information more accessible, renowned mathematician and social entrepreneur Po-Shen Loh told the Milton community. Loh visited Milton to share ideas about how we can continue to “Dare to be true” in the era of ever-evolving AI. AI tools must be combined with critical thinking, curiosity, and ethics in order to have effective and positive impacts in the world, he said.
“Even today, I keep learning. I keep coming up with new experiences,” Loh told audiences in the Hobbs Commons of the new Farokhzad Mathematics Center. “You can’t figure out what interests you unless you’re always learning new things.”
Loh is a math professor at Carnegie Mellon University and served as the national coach of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad team from 2013 to 2023. He was once a member of this team, along with Milton grad Paul Valiant ’01. In 1999, Loh received a silver medal in the Olympiad while Valiant won gold.
Loh spent a day at Milton speaking with students in the morning and an audience of students, faculty, alumni, and families in the evening. He visited classes in the Mathematics and Computer Science departments and spent time with Middle School faculty and students, as well as the school’s College Counseling Office and AI working group.
MLK Speaker Lamont Gordon ’87 Encourages Students to Make the World a Better Place
Full Circle Moment: In 1986—the year the United States first observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, Lamont Gordon ’87 was a student listening to Milton’s first-ever MLK speaker. On Tuesday, Gordon returned to campus as Milton’s 2025 MLK speaker.
That 1986 assembly left quite an impression on Gordon. The speaker that year was Reverend Charles R. Stith. According to Gordon, “Over the last 30 years or so, Stith has been a pretty major figure in promoting economic and political development in Africa, both as an investor and as U. S. ambassador to Tanzania in the late 1990s. In 1986, when Stith was invited to speak at Milton, he was a minister and community leader in Boston who had recently founded a nonprofit organization called ONE, Organization for a New Equality.”
Gordon was so moved and inspired by this assembly that later that year, he and a classmate reached out to Reverend Stith to ask if they could do their senior project at ONE. Reverend Stith accepted their proposal. For their senior project, they conducted research, analyzed data, participated in focus groups, and contributed to the organization’s work in tangible ways. “It was one of the best experiences that I had at Milton. As I reflect back on that time, I’m reminded of the pivotal role that Milton played in my personal and intellectual development. It was a time when I was beginning to figure out who I was, my place in the world, my values, and what was important to me,” he said.
