Just three years out of college, Lauren Arkell ’18 is fulfilling one of her big career goals in aero-space: working on a mission to the moon. As flight controller on the mission operations team at Firefly Aerospace, she is playing a key role in the debut flight of the company’s lunar lander, Blue Ghost, which is scheduled to launch in mid-January.

During the two-month mission, the Firefly team will workaround the clock in the console room, with Arkell and two other flight controllers alternating in 12-hour shifts. “I’ll be sending all the commands from the ground to the spacecraft and working hand in hand with the flight director to run through all of our operations procedures,” Arkell says. The procedures “make sure we meet our mission requirements and do all of the payload operations we need to, as well as monitor the health and safety of the vehicle.”

Blue Ghost will spend nearly a month orbiting the Earth and about two weeks in lunar orbit before landing near Mare Crisium, a basin in the far northeast quadrant of the moon’s Earth-facing side, for 14 days of surface operations. Dubbed Ghost Riders in the Sky, the mission will use 10 scientific instruments (or payloads) to collect data as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

Arkell’s ties to Blue Ghost go back to a summer internship at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio during college. She worked on a passive coating to mitigate lunar dust, the abrasive fragments from the moon’s surface that can wreck astronauts’ spacesuits and equipment. “That coating is one of the payloads that Blue Ghost will bring to the moon,” Arkell says.

After graduating from Davidson College in 2022, she worked on various projects for a contractor for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland but kept her eye on the lunar dust mitigation project. When a position opened at Firefly, she jumped at the opportunity, moving to Austin, Texas, to fulfill her goal of working on a lunar mission. “Getting that data on lunar dust mitigation can solve the issues we saw during all of the Apollo missions and be super beneficial for NASA’s return to the moon,” Arkell says.

A presentation by Tom Marshburn, a Davidson alumnus and former astronaut who made three flights to the International Space Station, inspired Arkell to enter the aerospace field. At the time, she was majoring in physics and on a pre-med track but was undecided on a career. “I was able to connect with him personally,” she recalls. “He was such a nice guy, so normal and willing to chat, that I saw myself in him and saw the path that he took as an option for the first time.”

But Arkell says she discovered her passion for STEM at Exeter, where she was a three-year senior day student from nearby Brentwood. She loved her chemistry and physics classes, and vividly remembers taking astronomy with Science Instructor John Blackwell, including regular trips to Grainger Observatory. “Mr. Blackwell had a great take on how expansive space is, and how we know so little about it,” Arkell says. A co-captain of the varsity lacrosse and soccer teams at Exeter, Arkell went on to play lacrosse at Davidson. She brings those well-honed teamwork skills to the work she’s doing on the Blue Ghost mission.

“So much of it is active troubleshooting, working with everyone in  the room,” Arkell says. “You really have to trust yourself, your co-workers and the other people on console that are the specialists, and you’re constantly working through problems. It’s a lot of pressure, but I think it’s very exciting.”

Andy Novick ’01 enjoys all aspects of his work as an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado, a psychiatrist and a researcher. But spearheading clinical trials in treating major depressive disorder with psilocybin, a component found in certain species of fungi, is what he finds the most exciting.

“It’s the ability to oversee people getting dosed with this psychedelic compound, making sure it is done safely, and the potential things we can learn from it,” Novick says.

A Drug Enforcement Administration Schedule I license allows Novick to possess and administer the drug for research, and an investigational new drug license from the Food and Drug Administration authorizes him to specifically study psilocybin for major depressive disorder, he says. The FDA “had to green light me and go through my study protocol with a fine-toothed comb.”

Novick’s interest in psychopharmacology began at Exeter, where he felt supported as he explored the topic. Science Instructor Kathleen Curwen, one of his favorite teachers, taught him both chemistry and biochemistry. “It was in her class that I got to write my first psychopharmacology paper,” he says, “critiquing an article on testosterone derivatives and aggressive behavior. When I told her the topic, she didn’t consider it odd. Instead, she let me run with it.”

Novick began doing research in neuroscience at Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacology. He went on to receive his medical degree and Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of South Dakota. In 2019, he joined the faculty at the University of Colorado.

“It became really obvious around 2021 or so that psychedelics were going to be a part of psychiatry that wasn’t going anywhere,” he says. “Psilocybin was something I wanted to start with given that it had some research suggesting a really high utility in things like major depressive disorder.”

The clinical research Novick is conducting at the university’s Anschutz Medical Campus entails a psilocybin trial in 40 individuals with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. He says, “Subjects are randomized to receive either a therapeutic dose of psilocybin or an inactive microdose of psilocybin that acts as a placebo.”

Results from the eight-week trial have proved auspicious. “What we think psilocybin does is that it creates a window of opportunity in the brain for significant change,” he says. “People with depression are often stuck in a brain state in which they have certain thoughts and feelings, often of a very negative nature, that they can’t get out of. Psilocybin makes the brain more plastic and more open to potential change — to change those patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors.”

Novick tempers his enthusiasm with reality. “Major depressive disorder is a serious and difficult illness,” he says. “I don’t think this is going to be the ultimate fix for the entire population. But I do think it’s going to be a huge improvement from what we have right now.

“This work is very much my life,” Novick continues. “Some call that being a workaholic or not having balance. I prefer to view it as getting to do interesting stuff that I enjoy, every day.”

Just as outdoor temperatures start to dip, a familiar chill begins to emanate from the south end of the George H. Love Gymnasium. For decades, Rinks A and B have been the home to Exeter’s boys and girls hockey teams and the setting for recreational skating for the Academy community. Construction of the first indoor rinks on campus began in the late 1960s as part of the massive “new gymnasium” project which was officially rededicated as Love Gymnasium in 1980. Since then, the rinks have played host to thousands of competitions, dorm night outings and, when not frozen, alumni receptions.

1. FILLING THE RINK It takes tens of thousands of gallons of water at the start of every season to turn the concrete subfloor into a skateable surface.
2. KEEPING IT COOL The rinks’ refrigeration system keeps the ice temperature from 17 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit. The indoor air temperature is set to 55degrees with an ideal humidity level no greater than 50%.
3. SMOOTH SURFACE Zamboni is a brand of ice resurfacing machines made by a California-based company, but it has become the common term for any apparatus that performs this function. They shave a thin layer of ice, wash the remaining ice with hot water (about 140 degrees Fahrenheit), then spread the water to create a smooth surface as it refreezes. Ice resurfacers can weigh more than six tons with a full tank. According to Zamboni.com, the machines’ top speed is 9.7 m.p.h.
4. ICE TIME Academy teams, clubs and physical education classes, as well as local public high school teams keep the facility bustling all winterlong. On average, the rinks are in use 70 hours each week. Five dedicated employees keep them in top condition.
5. WINNING HISTORY The first E/A hockey game took place in 1914. The seeds of what became the first Academy-sponsored hockey team were planted a few years earlier, but we all know that sports don’t get real until Big Red and Big Blue clash. Girls hockey at Exeter began for the 1974-75 season. In 1998-99, the boys team posted a 30-3 record en route to its only New England crown. The next season, the girls team took home their own New England championship.

Stocking grocery shelves as a newlywed in his early 20s, Dick Dolloff knew he needed a better job. What he didn’t know is that his next place of employment would probably be his last. Now in his 60th year at Exeter, Dolloff has spent the last five decades maintaining the Academy’s sizable central heating plant systems.

Sitting in an easy chair framed by a picture window at his Exeter residence, Dolloff, 82, jokes about the anonymity of the position — at least most of the time. “On those cold days,” he says, “if things don’t go right, you hear from people before too long.”

Dolloff arrived in the heating plant in1974 after stints in the campus laundry room and with the Grounds Department. “All my learning was on the job,” he says. “In those days, you didn’t necessarily need the sheepskins to make a career; they found a person they had some confidence in.”

He credits the veteran boiler operators, known as firemen, for their guidance, which included a warning about the notoriously finicky No. 6 boiler: “The firemen that were breaking me in said, ‘When you go by that thing at night, sneak; don’t let it see you.’”

One of those vets, Bill Lavertue, has logged 55 years in the central heating plant. He remembers Dolloff as an eager and capable trainee. “I said to Dick, ‘Don’t blow it up’ — and it’s still here,” Lavertue, 91, says with a smile. Together Lavertue and Dolloff have combined for over 115 years of service to the Academy.

The men have seen several modern advancements over the years, including the transition to natural gas and upgrades in the equipment and technology it takes to keep the plant running at peak efficiency. Dolloff talks about the decades gone by, when a fireman would have to rely on intuition, rather than a computer, to know if a machine as working correctly. “Once you’d been in there for a while, you’d become very sensitive to what’s humming right,” he says. “If you’ve got a bearing going bad, it’s going to jump right out at you.”

As for what has kept them at the Academy for so long, Dolloff cites the great benefits and the opportunity for his son, John Dolloff ’81, to attend. Lavertue says, “The people … and the job security is pretty good too.”

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

Aaron Gadson ’05 took a humble and somewhat unexpected route to becoming a jumps coach. A star on the track team during his time at Exeter, Gadson enjoyed continued success at Cornell University. After graduation, he still had the itch to train but quickly found that coaching was the only way to gain consistent access to a training facility.

“I fell into coaching by necessity,” Gadson says. “But I quickly realized that there were a lot of kids who were not able to fully hone their talent because they did not have anyone around with the expertise. I felt like I could fill that gap.”

Gadson landed his first coaching position at the high school level, where skilled instructors in the long jump and triple jump are often hard to find. His quantitative and technical approach helped develop young athletes who took state, regional and national honors. Eventually he began working with more advanced athletes with big dreams.

A former Cornell teammate recommended Gadson to Thea LaFond, a rising star in the triple jump who qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro but did not reach the finals. She was looking to push herself even further. As Gadson paid meticulous attention to technique and tailored her workouts, he and LaFond developed a strong foundation, professionally and personally. Their collaboration yielded increasingly impressive results. Over time, their partnership deepened and they married in 2022.

“When we first started working out,” Gadson says, “it was something that I took as an extreme honor and something that I wanted to make sure went well. There wasn’t any intention for anything to blossom outside of a good coaching relationship. We immediately developed a relationship of trust and good communication. The rest is kind of history.”

Their shared dedication and work ethic culminated in a historic moment at the Paris Olympics this summer, when LaFond won gold in the triple jump, earning the first Olympic medal for her home country, Dominica.

Following the Games, they traveled to Dominica, where they were welcomed as heroes. “The celebration was like something out of a movie,” Gadson says. “Thousands of people filled the streets, the prime minister gave a speech and showered us with gifts. It was like something you would see after winning the Super Bowl.”

A journey which was ignited through passion and a means to an end, transformed into a legacy that includes the ultimate prize in the sport.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the Fall 2024 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

If the stacked boxes and unhung framed photos lining the perimeter of Ashley Taylor’s Jeremiah Smith Hall office this fall are any indication, Exeter’s new dean of students has been just a little busy since arriving in July. The Washington, D.C., area native spent the summer, she says, settling in to her New Hampshire home with her husband and two young children and learning as much as she could about the Academy before the school year began.

A few months into her first term, Taylor is focusing on getting to know the “engaging and interesting” student body, including her eight advisees in Webster Hall. “Our students seem to seek really big challenges in one way or another,” she says. “They’re here with a sense of purpose and a sense of ‘What can I make of this opportunity?’”

Taylor arrives at Exeter after 14 years at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, where she spent the past nine years as the coed boarding school’s dean of students. Prior to that role, she had been a teacher, coach, dorm head, student adviser, senior leadership team member, member of the student life and student health review committees, and chair of strategic planning and scheduling committees and a diversity task force, among other responsibilities. She received numerous awards and recognition during her time there.