Mitchell Kirsch ’17 (left) takes Duncan Robinson ’13 through a workout last summer in Love Gymnasium. Robinson spends his NBA offseasons training with Kirsch.

                Mitchell Kirsch ’17 takes an academic’s approach to training NBA players and future Exeter stars

            

During the tranquility of summer on Exeter’s campus, Mitchell Kirsch ’17 summoned a group of basketball players to Love Gym to simulate the swarming defenses Duncan Robinson ’13 would face in the NBA his season. To compensate for their lack of height relative to long-limbed pros, these defenders flailed long black padded sticks in front of the 6-foot-7-inch Robinson, attempting to obstruct his vision and movements as he dribbled the ball and shot it.

As strange as this exercise looked, Robinson invites this kind of organized chaos on the court. It’s why the Detroit Pistons forward hired Kirsch to refine his game.

Kirsch, who played on two NEPSAC championship teams at Exeter as well as in college and overseas, has embraced a nontraditional approach to skill development. His methods have captured the attention of numerous college and NBA players, as well as coaches at the highest level of the sport. Some of them are among his nearly 100,000 Instagram followers.

Historically, sports training has focused on muscle memory: Athletes improve through the repetition of proper techniques. But, Kirsch says, “there’s a major shift happening.” Static drills in practice don’t always translate to success in the unpredictable environments of competition. Shooting a basketball alone on a court, for example, will rarely happen during a full-court game.

When I’m training, I want to think throughout my workout, and I want to learn. And he helps me do both.

Duncan Robinson '13, NBA player on Mitchell Kirsch '17

Over the past two decades, a growing body of interdisciplinary research has shown that manipulating variables to mimic the challenges an athlete might experience during competition can lead to better results. This constraints-led approach, or CLA, draws from scientists’ understanding of ecological dynamics, or the nature of how individuals move through different environments. By providing players with various limitations or constraints — every-thing from dimmer lighting to extra defenders — coaches force athletes to learn to adapt to game conditions.

As Robert Gray, an associate professor of human systems engineering at Arizona State University, says, “Instead of the coach telling the athlete what to do, how to move, it’s letting the athlete figure it out on their own.”

Although some coaches contend that they have always operated this way, Kirsch belongs to a new generation of trainers who are steeped in the scientific underpinnings of the CLA methodology.

Summer school

Exeter is Kirsch’s laboratory. For the past three summers, he has refined drills at the school while working with scores of local teenagers in his Elevate Basketball skills academy. Between those sessions, he holds private workouts on the grounds. Among his clients are Notre Dame forward Ryder Frost ’25, NBA veterans like Robinson and Georges Niang, and current Exeter players.

Robinson knew Kirsch as the brother of Max Kirsch ’16, his teammate on the Academy’s first NEPSAC Class A title team in 2013. Over the years, they crossed paths. Kirsch’s unconventional, studious approach appealed to Robinson, who blazed a trail from Williams College to the University of Michigan to the NBA. Eventually, Robinson enlisted Kirsch to design and oversee his offseason regimen.

“When I’m training, I want to think throughout my workout, and I want to learn,” Robinson says. “And he helps me do both.”

You can have every excuse in the world, but we’re not looking for problems. We’re looking for solutions.

Mitchell Kirsch '17 about former Exeter coach Jay Tilton's philosophy

Last summer, Robinson holed up with Kirsch at Exeter for the better part of eight weeks. As usual, Kirsch posted clips from the sessions on his Instagram account, @hoopin_mitch; they collected tens of thousands of views.

These videos offer snapshots into the idiosyncrasies of a constraints-led approach. In one, Robinson warms up by shooting with basketballs of different weights and sizes. In another, he must immediately hoist a 3-pointer upon receiving the ball, never letting it fall below his shoulders and never holding it for more than half a second before releasing it, as if an NBA defender were bearing down on him. Time and time again, Robinson still makes the shot, though his footing and form don’t always look the same.

A player’s goal is to shoot the ball through the hoop during games. “What we’ve found is you don’t do that by repeating the same movement every single time,” Kirsch says. “You do that by having adaptability within your movement. That’s why we’re applying so many game-realistic challenges to encourage him to find consistency in the chaos.”

In about 20 studies comparing the effects of constraints-led training and more traditionally prescriptive coaching, Gray says, a majority have found that a constraints-led approach delivers superior results. “We’re making more adaptable, problem-solving athletes,” Gray says.

For Robinson, “that ultimately is what translates.” Whether it’s facing defenders with bats for arms or trying to beat a shot clock in his head, he finds these drills prepare him for a grueling NBA season that leaves little time for skill development.

Seeking solutions to problems

Growing up in the small town of Atkinson, New Hampshire, Kirsch didn’t have many peers nearby to play basketball. So he became his own trainer, often running through muscle-memory drills alone. Yet, for all his practicing, Kirsch wasn’t improving to his liking. “I felt like there was no one working harder than me, but a lot of other people were getting better faster than I was,” he recalls.

Attending Exeter altered the trajectory of his development. When he arrived at the Academy as a day student in 2013, he was a slight 6-foot-2. “He, physically, was overmatched,” says Jay Tilton, his former Exeter coach. “But he always had the mindset, the confidence, the drive to be able to hang with the older athletes.”

Playing with them, including his brother, Max, taught Kirsch to work out more efficiently on and off the court. Over his four years, Kirsch honed his skills and gained about 50 pounds of muscle. He started every game at point guard his final two seasons and, as a senior, helped lead Big Red to his second NEPSAC Class A title, in large part because of his intelligence. “He’s always had a very high basketball IQ,” Tilton says. “A very inquisitive player. Asked a lot of questions — good questions.”

By that time, Kirsch had begun answering some of his own questions and had started training younger students. “I saw so many kids that reminded me of where I was,” he says. He wanted to expedite their development, just as others had done for him. And Tilton may have unwittingly planted the seeds for his constraints-led approach to basketball.

“You can have every excuse in the world, but we’re not looking for problems,” Kirsch recalls of Tilton’s philosophy. “We’re looking for solutions. Having that shift in mindset really helped both academically and on court. And funny enough, now that’s a large part of my training style. I’m giving players problems, and I’m encouraging them to find solutions.”

A prescribed path awaited Kirsch at Claremont McKenna College in California, where he continued his playing career. Many student-athletes there opted to pursue careers in consulting or investment banking. Landing a job at a big company was considered “the gold standard,” Kirsch says. Yet, when these alumni returned to the school, “largely, they were just unhappy,” Kirsch recalls, “and, to me, that didn’t make much sense.” His internships at a Wall Street firm and Nike confirmed his suspicion that he would be miserable in the corporate world. When he jokingly told people he was visiting “career services,” he really went to the gym.

With the onset of COVID, the college’s athletic facilities closed and Kirsch started working out at the gym of Jordan Lawley, an NBA skills trainer, in Irvine, California. In exchange for using Lawley’s courts, Kirsch oversaw the development of Lawley’s middle-school clients.

With 30 youngsters and just six hoops, Kirsch lacked the space to run drills as he normally would. Yet the offensive and defensive games he devised on the fly were working better than he could have imagined. The players were improving — fast. And they were having more fun, he says. A limitation was working to their advantage. “I was like, there’s some-thing to this,” Kirsch says.

He honed the idea for a training business grounded in science while earning his master’s degree in business at Babson College in Massachusetts. He also continued to play basket-ball and harbored dreams of playing professionally. He performed well enough at Babson to sign with a professional team in Colombia and later in Norway.

When he returned to the U.S. between seasons, he resumed training other athletes. “I was training people that were probably making what I make in a season in two minutes,” he says. “So I had to shift a little bit and understand where the value creation was.”

He ended his playing career and devoted all of his attention to training. But basketball wasn’t done taking him around the world.

I love that a Phillips Exeter grad is introducing our younger guys to different ways to improve that make them think.

Harry Raferty '13, Big Red boys basketball coach

The global game

Kirsch recently offered instruction in Kazakhstan, Sweden and Luxembourg. He also spends time in London, where his fiancée, Eloise Shields ’17, is pursuing a master’s degree.

When Kirsch is in the States, he’s regularly in the NBA orbit. Beyond keeping tabs on players he has trained, he stays in touch with coaches and front office types around the league, many of whom have adopted his methods. The Boston Celtics, for example, recently invited Kirsch to a practice.

Still, his most receptive audience may well be in his old locker room. Kirsch has trained several current Exeter players, and the Academy’s new basketball coach, Harry Rafferty ’13, advocates a constraints-led approach.

“I love that a Phillips Exeter grad is introducing our younger guys to different ways to improve that make them think,” Rafferty says. “It’s not, hey, we’re going to do these sets of drills, and that it’s this way or the highway, or this is the only way to get better.

… I think the biggest power in Mitch’s approach is that it creates an environment where our players are actively thinking of ways that they can improve that are outside the box.”

As much as he enjoys the challenge of fine-tuning the basketball brains of NBA players, Kirsch espe-cially appreciates instilling this mindset in younger players, like those who attend his academy each summer at Exeter. “It’s the most rewarding thing,” he says. “Seeing all these kids from New Hampshire and Massachusetts really improve and embrace this different way of training.”

And this approach can be useful well beyond the basketball court. As Noah LaRoche, a consultant with the Miami Heat who grew up in Exeter and coached Kirsch, says: “It’s not a basketball thing. We’re dealing with constraints all the time.”

Benjamin Cassidy is a first-time contributor to the Bulletin. His writing has appeared in Boston, The Boston Globe Magazine, GQ, National Geographic and Scientific American, among other publications.

This feature first appeared in the Winter 2026 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

‘Nobody deserves to be forgotten’

Holocaust survivor urges Exeter to prevent the seeds of hatred from taking root.

Addressing a hushed assembly for Holocaust Remembrance Day, survivor Kati Preston delivered a message that was as much a warning for the future as it was a reflection on the past.

Her testimony, spanning from the “stranglehold” of 1940s Hungary to a 50-year journey toward forgiveness, served as a stark reminder that history’s darkest chapters do not begin with state-sponsored violence, but with the silence of ordinary people.

The erosion of humanity

Born in Hungary in 1939 to a Jewish father and a Christian mother, Preston was only a child when the world was swept up in war and her happy life turned to tumult.

“I started to see my parents faces change,” she said. “They stopped laughing. They saw that things weren’t the same as before. Somehow, I felt it. Even though I was only a child, I was not even 5 at that time.”

Preston recalled how the atmosphere in her home shifted as laws began to strip Jewish citizens of their livelihoods and dignity.

“The Holocaust didn’t start with concentration camps,” Preston told the students. “It started at the grassroots level. It started with bullying, with pushing people, and laws came. All kinds of laws.”

It took thousands of people to kill, but it took millions of people to let it happen. Because they were silent.

Katy Preston, Holocaust survivor

She detailed the incremental “stranglehold” placed on her community: Jewish doctors barred from treating Christian patients, teachers dismissed, and municipal workers fired. At every step, Preston noted, people comforted themselves with the refrain, “It can’t get much worse than this.” Preston recounted the day her mother sewed a yellow star of shiny satin onto her coat. To a 5-year-old, it was a beautiful ornament. But while walking to get pastries, a stranger stopped her. Expecting a compliment, she instead met “total hatred” when the man spat in her face. “I said to my mother, ‘He hates stars,’” Preston remembered.

“I didn’t even imagine it was me he hated.”

Survival and the cost of silence

As the authorities began the final roundups in 1944, Preston’s life was saved by the grace of a young Christian woman for whom her mother had once made a wedding dress. While Preston spent months hiding in a barn, the world outside was being “obliterated.”

The statistics Preston shared were staggering: 28 of her family members, including her father, died at Auschwitz. Of the 30,000 Jews in her town, only 602 survived. All 52 children in her Jewish kindergarten were killed.

“It didn’t start with the gas chambers,” she said. “It took a lot of people to perpetrate this thing and I think, ultimately, I blame the bystanders. Because it took thousands of people to kill people, but it took millions of people to let it happen. Because they were silent.”

Preston’s closing message was one of hope. She admitted that she carried a heart “full of hatred” and a desire for revenge for five decades before finding peace.

“I worked very hard on that,” she said. “Love is about the only solution to all this. Please, don’t think that just because a tragedy happens it has to exterminate your personality.”

Preston urged her audience to never let the stories of the Holocaust fade away. She ended her address with a plea to remember those who have no memorial or graves, and to prevent the seeds of hatred from taking root in the modern world. “My plea to you is to please try to love each other,” she concluded. “We all have to stay together, because it didn’t just happen overnight.”

Exeter senior a Regeneron finalist

Celine Zhang '26 chosen among top 40 in Society of Science competition.

Exeter extended its success in the nation’s the nation’s oldest and most prestigious STEM competition, with another Exonian reaching the finals of the Regeneron Science Talent Search.

Celine Zhang ’26 will join 39 other young scholars from across the country to compete for $1.8 million in prizes during the finals in March in Washington, D.C. The talent search, sponsored by the American biotech company Regeneron and overseen by the Society of Science, is in its 85th year.

Zhang’s project is titled “Designing Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Agent Motion Planning.” She explains: “Imagine Peggy wants to prove to her friend Victor that she knows a solution to a game but does not want to reveal to him what that solution is. I developed a zero-knowledge proof for a class of block-pushing games, which would allow Peggy to do just that. My zero-knowledge proof is both efficient and generalizable to a wide class of games. In today’s digital world, zero-knowledge proofs allow for preservation of privacy in a variety of contexts.”

Exeter has a proud history in the competition, including boasting overall winners Yunseo Choi ’21 and Achyuta Rajaram ’24, who each took home a $250,000 top prize. Past competitors include 13 Nobel laureates and 23 MacArthur Fellows.

Along with Zhang, two other Exonians were chosen this year as semifinalists. Congratulations to Sebastien Sobeih ’26 and Andy Song ’26 for earning a place among 300 semifinalists.

#iamExeter: Anna ’26

What it’s like to be an Exeter student, from Exeter students.

Who better to talk about life at the Academy than the experts!? In a series of interviews with students, we asked questions prospective families might have as their student considers applying. First on the list: Anna Taormina ’26. She’s a four-year senior day student from neighboring Newfields. Anna arrived on campus shy and self-conscious. Today, she’s thriving in her senior year, with a large friend group and — well, let Anna tell it:

When did you first feel like you “belonged” at Exeter? Do you remember a moment when Exeter started to feel like the right place for you?

I was really shy, and it was hard at first to fit in, so it really wasn’t until the spring of my ninth-grade year that I really felt like I fit in. The spring was when I really started to meet my people. We would study outside in the red lawn chairs and we would play spike ball in the quad for hours. That was when I felt like I finally fit into the puzzle.

What advice would you give a new student who is nervous about fitting in or keeping up?

I would say I had the same feeling, and to be honest, everyone does. The nice thing is nobody comes here knowing a single person, we almost all come as an outsider. I think if you’re shy like me, the Harkness table will definitely help: It’s more just like conversations with your classmates.

This place makes you escape the box you might have put yourself in.

What’s something about Exeter that might surprise someone who doesn’t know us?

We’re actually not all nerds! Everyone I talk to back home always thinks were just boring nerds, and I promise you we aren’t. This is probably the most colorful and active school I have ever seen. It’s not just all work, so if you’re scared of that, don’t be. It’s a place where trying new things is something that you will do almost every day, and around every corner you’ll meet someone new that broadens your circle. Oh, and we have the best school spirit ever — even my friends from public school say it — I have never seen people be so proud to call this school home.

How has Exeter changed the way you go about learning and expressing your ideas?

Harkness is one thing that has changed my mind almost completely. It showed me that when you learn, you’re not just trying to show off what you know but take in the things that others know. Ask the questions that need to be asked and don’t be afraid to be wrong or embarrassed, so someone can show you the right direction. When we sit down at that table, we become both a student and a teacher. We listen and take in, while also expressing our side. Harkness not only opened up my mind but my personality. It taught me not to be shy and to trust my voice and my opinion.

What’s something you believed about yourself before coming to Exeter that has changed since you enrolled?

I believed that I saw the whole picture of the world before Exeter. But at Exeter, I heard stories that made my jaw drop, and learned things that I didn’t even think could exist. Exeter showed me that what might seem impossible or what might seem done is never done, there is always more to see, more to learn, and that you can always find the possible in the impossible.

Finish this sentence: Exeter pushes me to …

Now it may sound basic, but “try new things.” In the four years I have been here, I have done things I never dreamed of doing. This place makes you escape the box you might have put yourself in. They make you try new things right when you get here — even when you’re scared to do it. I promise you’ll be happy you did, because each new thing you do or try to do shows you something that you can carry with you forever.

Elliott to Exeter: ‘My heart is coming for you’

Academy's next principal tells students "spending time with you will be the very best part of my job."

Exeter’s next principal formally introduced herself to the community Friday, delivering inspiring remarks at assembly and taking a whirlwind tour of campus.

Jenny Elliott spent the day meeting students, faculty and staff and getting to know her way around what will become her new home next summer when she succeeds Bill Rawson as the Academy’s 17th principal.

“I cannot wait to become your principal, and I’ll work hard to get up to speed as best I can to kick off the 26-27 academic year,” Elliott told the students at the morning assembly. “I will count on you to guide me in our opening months together.”

“I’m eager to join you in the classroom, at practice, in the performance halls and in the dining hall, and I’m looking forward to celebrating your progress in the years ahead. Spending time with you will be the very best part of my job.”

Elliott was named as Rawson’s successor in November after a global search. She will arrive from Choate Rosemary Hall, where she serves as head of student and academic life.

Rawson announced last spring the 2025-26 school year would be his last as principal after eight years leading the Academy. He introduced Elliott to the students Friday, saying, “You all know how deeply I care about this school. I believe we will be in good hands; we will be in the hands of a caring, trusting leader who will build on our many strengths and help us imagine a very bright future.”

Elliott, an Andover graduate, assured her new charges that her newfound loyalty to Exeter will not waver.

“I’ve loved school since I was a kid, so much so that I’ve never really left. I’ve been a student, teacher, administrator, coach, or parent at 19 different schools. I have taught second, third, fifth, sixth, ninth, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. I have four children, ages 14, 17, 20, and 21, who are students at four different schools. I’m still currently a student. My former and current teachers, my former and current colleagues, my former and current students are some of the most important humans in my life, and I’ve had exceptionally wise and generous mentors to whom I turn regularly for guidance. … I feel tremendously lucky these institutions and these school people have become part of who I am.

“I’m also a fiercely loyal person who feels deeply. When we were about to have our second child, in a quiet, private, sort of sheepish moment, I confessed to my mom that I was really worried I was not going to be able to love this next little person as much as I loved our first. And my mom, ever wise and understanding, explained to me that that’s just not the way love works. It’s not the way our hearts work. She shared with me, ‘The more you love, the more you love. Your heart grows.’ And since then, with every subsequent life edition and transition, my mom’s lesson holds. My heart has grown, and I have loved more.

“So, Exeter, get ready, because my heart is coming for you.”

Seniors go it alone with passion projects

Exeter's independent study program offers opportunities beyond the Harkness table.

Maya Shah’s first brush with the American health-care system was enough for her to try to improve it.

An allergic reaction sent the Exeter senior and native of India to a local emergency room, where she waited for hours with red hives all over her body. The malady eventually passed; the memories of the experience didn’t.

“That long, uncertain wait, the not knowing if anyone was even aware I was there or whether something could be seriously wrong, really stayed with me,” Shah says.

“When I looked into it, I realized this is a widespread issue: over 130 million people visit U.S. ERs annually, and nearly 30% wait more than an hour for care.”

Even more concerning, says Shah, is that studies show that as many as three out of 10 patients are mis-triaged, often under-triaged, in emergency rooms, which can delay critical care.

“Experiencing this firsthand made me start thinking about how technology could help,” she says. “Could AI take some of the guesswork out of triage, speed up intake and make the ER experience less stressful for patients?”

Independent work gave me the freedom to design and build a working prototype exactly how I imagined it. … I loved it.

Maya '26

Her curiosity evolved into an independent study project throughout fall term. With support from Elle Kaplan, an instructor in computer science, Shah developed an AI-powered triage system to help emergency departments reduce overcrowding and long wait times. The system predicts patient urgency using symptoms, vital signs and medical history, assigning a 1–5 urgency score. Shah’s prototype includes a web-based interface for staff and an AI model trained on over 200,000 ED admissions from a dataset from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The system is not intended to replace the human element, but rather to enhance it. “In the long term, the AI could flag patients who might need urgent attention based on their history or current symptoms, helping staff prioritize care before problems escalate,” she says. “Essentially, it’s about making health care smoother and smarter without replacing the human judgment that is so essential in medicine.”

Shah’s is one of seven independent study projects developed during the fall term. The program allows Exeter students to explore areas of interest that grow from or fall outside traditional course parameters. Interested seniors, with approval from the faculty, design individual or joint projects of comparable value and scope to those of an academic course. The projects sometimes require more time and resources than envisioned.

“By the end, I was putting in long days, but because this was a passion project, it never felt like work,” Shah says. “This is exactly the kind of challenge I want to tackle in college and beyond: building AI tools that directly improve health care.”

The foundation of the Exeter academic experience is Harkness learning. With independent projects, the student in many ways must go it alone.

“I actually love the collaboration that Exeter is built on,” she says. “In fact, on this project, I received invaluable feedback and help from everyone, from .. [Mx Kaplan], to Health Center nurses, to friends interested in AI who helped me debug the model during late nights in the common room.

“But I also wanted the chance to take full ownership of a project. Independent work gave me the freedom to design and build a working prototype exactly how I imagined it. At a busy place like Exeter, having dedicated time to focus on a project I was passionate about was rare, and I loved it. I could experiment, iterate, and actually bring my AI model to life. I loved the process of testing it, refining it, and making it functional, all on my own schedule. Seeing an idea transform from concept to something real and usable was incredibly satisfying.”

Other senior projects during the fall term:

Andrew Boova
Quarterly Stock Price Prediction Through Machine Learning

Wall Streeters often use qualitative data (i.e. earnings call transcripts) when assessing a company’s growth potential and competitive advantages, and use quantitative data (stock price, P/E ratio, etc.) when making precise price predictions. So why do so many existing prediction models only use math? I designed and trained a machine learning model to understand this qualitative data that is often disregarded, as well as the typical numerical data. Can computers invest like humans? Come find out how the model stacks up against professional analysts.

Alex Ma
Genomic and Phenotypic Consequences of Experimental Evolution in Vibrio natriegens under Streptomycin Selection

In a world where multi-resistant bacteria are a growing threat, scientists are interested in the evolutionary trade-offs between resistance and survival in foreign environments. To investigate this process, I exposed fast-growing marine bacteria (Vibrio natriegens) to rising doses of the streptomycin antibiotic, selecting for mutations providing greater drug survival. I then conducted a round of analysis on three strains with different resistance levels: sequencing DNA to discover the precise mutation sites, growth tests in varying environmental conditions, and cross-resistance tests for other antibiotics. My project aims to clarify the fitness costs and vulnerabilities that constrain the development of resistance.

Harini Venkatesh
Inducing Oncogenic Mutations in Yeast using CRISPR/Cas9

Cells can become cancerous through a number of gene mutations. In order to study these mutations, we can use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to induce precise mutations in yeast. However, a standard CRISPR protocol is lengthy and complicated. My project attempts to use a shortened “one-step” CRISPR/Cas9 protocol to generate strains of yeast with cancer-causing mutations.

Sebastien Sobeih
Springfield Rocket System

Springfield is a fin-guided, computer-controlled rocket platform. Experience the problem solving roller-coaster of dealing with parts machined out of tolerance, telemetry issues, and dealing with uncooperative computers at my presentation. I’ll take you through the process of designing, building, and flying the hardest rocket I’ve ever built.

Mel Benavidez
Ballet Folklórico: A Journey of Dance in Mexico

Ballet Folklórico is a type of traditional dance from Mexico that has been with me for a very long time. In this senior project, I explored the elements of these dances from the designs of the outfits to the delicate footwork that tell stories. Not only to help connect to my culture but to also bring something new to Exeter. There is a performance element for 3 separate regions with research to guide the audience along the way.

Avaninder Bhaghayath
Zephyrus: a Vertical Take-Off and Landing Drone

The goal of this project is to build a 3-rotor autonomous drone, which features tilt-rotor vectoring, mid-air flight mode transition, and solar panels for extended flight duration. It supports autonomous flight using an onboard flight computer with a GPS and magnetometer. By taking advantage of an airfoil, the drone has the efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft while cruising. The tilt-rotor design allows for tri-copter flight for takeoff and landing, removing the need for a runway. With a two-meter wingspan and 12-inch propellers, the platform has the potential to carry payloads, and stream a live video feed.

Exeter chooses ‘teacher at heart’ as next principal

Jennifer Karlen Elliott will be the 17th head of school in the Academy's 244-year history.

Phillips Exeter Academy has chosen Jennifer Karlen Elliott to lead the school’s next chapter and serve as the Academy’s 17th principal.

Academy Trustee President Kristyn Van Ostern ’96 introduced Elliott in a letter to the Exeter community Monday afternoon. Elliott will succeed Bill Rawson ’71; ’65, ’70 (Hon.); P’08, who will retire as principal next spring after eight years in the role.

Elliott is currently the head of student and academic life at Choate Rosemary Hall, where she is responsible for nearly all aspects of the student experience across academics, residential life, wellness and community culture.

“When I learned of the opportunity to lead Exeter, I was immediately drawn to the mission, the core values, and the community,” Elliott said. “I have long admired and respected Exeter’s commitment to academic excellence, Harkness and non sibi.”

The announcement concludes a rigorous search that began in February when Rawson made known this school year would be his last as principal. Elliott was chosen after a global search that connected the committee with over 400 educational leaders. She formally begins her new role on July 1, 2026.

I love that Principal Rawson’s leadership has invited and celebrated progress. Schools are living communities dedicated to the changing needs of our students.

Jenny Karlen Elliott

“Jenny is a teacher at heart who, from the earliest stages of her career, has been called to leadership roles of increasing responsibility,” Van Ostern said in her announcement. “In Jenny we have found someone who understands the demands of leadership in residential education, finds joy and purpose in working with adolescents and has indicated a strong commitment to upholding the Academy’s mission while leading us into the future. We are excited to welcome her to our community.”

Elliott’s contributions at Choate include leading efforts that examine how technology influences teaching and learning, progress toward their sustainability goals and attention to student well-being through a new advisory system and redesigned cell phone and social media policy. Each initiative reflects her commitment to student growth, academic excellence, belonging, and meaningful change.

“I gravitate to team contexts where our collective impact is deeper for our shared efforts,” Elliott said of her leadership style. “I love partnering with colleagues who push my thinking, inspire me to ask better questions, and find joy in our work. I am a student-centered leader who has deep respect and admiration for the educators who commit themselves to the growth and care of young people.”

Van Ostern said Elliott has a deep “understanding of the rhythms and responsibilities of boarding school life,” adding that she “listens deeply, collaborates naturally, and brings clarity and focus to complex challenges” and “models the curiosity and adaptability that define great educators and leaders.”

Before joining Choate, Elliott worked for 12 years at her alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover, where she held several leadership positions, including seven years as dean of students and five years as assistant head of school for residential life, taught U.S. History, and coached varsity girls squash.

A 1994 graduate of Andover, Elliott earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree in elementary education from Lesley College and expects to earn a doctorate in education from Vanderbilt University in 2027.

“I love that Principal Rawson’s leadership has invited and celebrated progress,” Elliott said. “Schools are living communities dedicated to the changing needs of our students.

“The dynamism of this present moment will require us to sharpen what is core and lead with courage, integrity, and creativity. Optimistic and energetic, I see the challenges of this moment as opportunities for exciting progress.”

What’s all the buzz about?

Live crickets, leaf-cutter ants and robotic bees swarm the Lamont Gallery.

Sculptor Britt Ransom loves a good prank — and insects. So when she heard about the time Andover students released hundreds of brown crickets in the Class of 1945 Library on the Thursday before Exeter/Andover weekend, she knew she had found the inspiration for her installation Scoreless Match.

Ransom spent weeks crafting a legion of laser-cut crickets of various sizes and “released” them in the Lamont Gallery, where some climbed walls and others sat among model shapes based on the library’s architecture. The work extended to the library, where Ransom placed fabricated insects in the stacks as a nod to the original prank and had insect sounds played over the library speakers at 3:50 p.m. each day of the show. She also built a clear acrylic enclosure for live crickets.

“Through sound, movement and quiet spatial disruptions,” Lamont Gallery Director and Curator Pam Meadows says, “this work invites us to think of memory not as something fixed in record, but as something that clings to thresh-olds, lingers in atmospheres and settles into the unnoticed seams of the built environment as a gesture of humor and reminder of the world outside of what we build.”

Ransom was one of five artists featured in the Lamont Gallery’s “Strange Kin” exhibition this fall. These artists “embrace their affection and comfort in entomology, using arthropods as their muses and collaborators,” Meadows says. “Collectively, the works on view braid pure aesthetic joy with stinging commentary on environmental issues, species decline and conservation.”

This story was originally published in the fall 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

A yearlong renovation transforms a 113-year-old campus building into a home for ancient texts and modern gatherings.

The Davis building, nestled between the contemporary Class of 1945 Library and the Colonial-style Nathaniel Gilman House, is a campus landmark. This Neoclassical structure, with its symmetrical red brick and granite façade and grand central entrance topped by tall multi-pane windows and ionic columns, bridges the past and future of education and community at Exeter.

It was completed in 1912 and served as the Academy’s library, then became a bustling student center and administrative hub in the 1970s. Beginning this fall, the newly named Davis Hall is now home to the Classical Languages Department, the Latin Study and a community gathering space.

Following a thoughtful yearlong renovation led by the Boston architecture firm designLAB, Davis again hums with activity — and a new purpose. Instructors are settling into sunny new classrooms on the first floor. The original grand marble staircase, slightly worn by the footsteps of generations of Exonians, leads up to bright, freshly painted and restored reading rooms. Standing on the second floor, gazing up at the ornate plaster ceilings or out the windows toward the front lawn, one can sense that Davis’ latest renewal is another exciting opportunity.

The renovated and renamed Mary Amen Study holds the Classical Languages Department’s collection of Latin and Greek texts.

“It’s a great story of reuse, sustainability and reimagining resources for different generations, which are all part of the Exeter ethos,” Campus Planner and Architect Heather Taylor says.

The Davis Library

Exeter’s first library was housed comfortably in two rooms in the Academy Building. By the early 20th century, however, space was at a premium. The school’s book collection topped 2,000 titles, and a dedicated library building was necessary. Fortunately, Harlan P. Amen, Exeter’s seventh principal, was a prodigious fundraiser who engaged in an ambitious building campaign to enlarge the school’s footprint. Thanks in part to his enthusiastic alumni outreach, a surprise $50,000 bequest for construction of a library came in 1907 from Benjamin Price Davis, class of 1862.

Davis entered the Academy in 1859, planning to go to college. But he dis-agreed with his father, a prosperous wholesale and retail grocer in Brooklyn, New York, about which college to attend. Davis wanted Harvard; his father preferred Columbia. So, Davis went directly into business and became a successful coffee importer. He considered the Academy his higher education, regularly attending alumni dinners in New York City.

It’s a great story of reuse, sustainability and reimagining resources for different generations.

Heather Taylor, campus planner and architect

Friends recalled that Davis was modest, quiet and friendly, and that he was committed to education — sometimes paying for promising students to attend college. His bequest reflected his commitment to education at Exeter. A world traveler and an extensive reader, Davis also enjoyed fine art and the outdoors, often visiting his camp in the Adirondacks, where he would ride, fish and hunt.

Davis Library broke ground in October 1911. It was designed by Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram, noted for his reinvention of American church and college architecture. A champion of the American Gothic Revival movement, Cram believed the Gothic style best reflected the spiritual and community ideals of late 19th- to early 20th-century American schools and colleges.

Cram, born a few miles from the Academy in Hampton Falls, attended Exeter briefly, then left before graduation to start an apprenticeship with the Boston architectural firm Rotch & Tilden. A profound religious awakening on Christmas Eve 1887, during a trip to Rome, may have inspired his preference for Gothic design. Still in business today, Cram’s architectural firm, Cram & Ferguson, has designed 19 Academy buildings, including Phillips Church and the current Academy Building.

Davis Hall has always been a wonderful place for students to study and relax.

Cram’s design for the Davis Library was a departure from his more famous work, like the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Davis was inspired by the 18th-century Merley House in Dorset, England. With origins in British architecture, the Neoclassical style was considered orderly and refined, a perfect context for building that represented classical learning.

Unlike any other secondary school library of its time, the 14,000-square-foot Davis Library was designed to hold 5,000 books in four floors of stacks. Classroom space on the first floor included an art studio, and the second-floor library featured a large librarian’s desk at the top of a marble staircase. The Mary Rawson Amen Room, named for the principal’s wife, Mary, contained books and display cases for rare collections on two levels connected by a spiral staircase. At the time, The Exeter Bulletin hailed the building’s exquisite beauty, noting, “it will lack no convenience for the safekeeping and use of its books and other treasures.”

Davis Library was a popular student retreat. Fred Roe ’39 remembered it as the place where he could indulge in his lifelong fascination with cars — a highlight of his years at Exeter. “Miss Vroom, the librarian, ordered at least two foreign books on automotive history for me,” he wrote in a letter published in the spring 2008 Bulletin. “I tried to spend time at Davis every day.”

In the same Bulletin issue, John C. Stone II ’49 credits the library with helping shape his love of hiking and camping. “When I arrived as a prep, I discovered the mountaineering collection and devoured it,” he wrote. “It really ignited a latent passion” for the outdoors.

Rodney Armstrong ’68 (Hon.), who served as librarian from 1950–73, wrote in the winter 2006 Bulletin that he remembered Davis “as a very welcoming, pleasant building to be in. Whether it was very functional as a library … was another matter.”

The Davis Library collection expanded over the decades, so Exeter planned a larger building. The Class of 1945 Library, designed by Louis Kahn, opened in 1971. Moving 60,000 books out of Davis was a campuswide affair. Students, including Judith Hall Howard ’73, gathered with faculty to form a human chain passing books from Davis to the new library. “Box by box we passed the contents of the Davis Library from one set of student hands to the next,” Howard recalled in the spring 2008 Bulletin.

The Davis Student Center

When the new library opened, Davis Library evolved into the Davis Student Center, a space for all types of student activities and clubs. The Mary Rawson Amen Room, known simply as the Amen Room, remained a place for quiet study. Principal Bill Rawson ’71, who remembers writing history papers there, notes another attractive feature: comfortable leather chairs. “Most honest students would admit to falling asleep in Amen,” he says. “The chairs were almost designed for sleep.”

In a throwback of sorts to Davis’ literary history, PEAN, The Exonian and Academy Publications were housed in offices on the first floor, where book stacks once stood. The first-floor Cushwa Room was converted into a room for video games and pinball machines. After the games were moved to the basement, the room was divided into a student lounge and a TV room. A member of the Student Center Student-Faculty Committee at the time told The Exonian, “Though students feel that some place is needed for more private encounters between students … some have complained that this scheme seems unnatural.”

The Davis Student Center days were filled with student activities.

Clubs met in the second-floor reading room, and students could prepare dinner in the first-floor kitchen or use the three photography darkrooms in the basement. For 15 years, WPEA broadcast from a basement studio in Davis, with a brief off-the-air interlude after thieves stole the station’s broadcasting equipment in 1991. Later, the building became a home base for prep and lower day students.

In 2006, when the Phelps Academy Center opened, Davis was repurposed again. The Admissions and Financial Aid offices moved into the first floor. The Amen Room housed a student lending library. The large reading room was transformed into a studio for the Theater and Dance Department with new sprung floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors that covered the large windows.

“It was loud, but it brought students in and out of the space regularly,” says Dean of Enrollment John Hutchins, who worked in the building at the time. The dance studio moved when The David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance opened in 2018. “We missed the interaction when students weren’t there,” Hutchins says.

Davis Hall

Exeter’s Campus Master Plan, developed in 2019–20, called for renovating Davis for administrative offices. Instead, Principal Rawson suggested preserving Davis for aca-demic use by relocating the Classical Languages Department to the ﬁrst ﬂoor while returning the second ﬂoor to study and community gathering spaces. “The Classics were so important to the founding of the Academy,” Taylor, the campus planner, says. “With its beautiful architecture, it makes so much sense for the Classics Department to be in Davis.”

The renovations were made possible, in part, through The Allison S. and Lucile M. Behr Fund, established by the late Charles Allison Behr ’52 to support “the study of the Ancient Greek and Latin languages, culture and history.”

The newly renamed Davis Hall balances old and new. The ﬁrst ﬂoor holds four Harkness classrooms and new instructors’ offices. One classroom is carved from space that used to be book stacks. Several retain their original oak floors. Display cases for department collections line one wall of the main hallway, facing the original 1911 bronze plaque commemorating Benjamin Price Davis, which hangs in a niche above a seating area.

The Mary Rawson Reading Room (left) will serve as a quiet place for study and repose. The grand marble staircase to the century-old build (above) was preserved.

The librarian’s desk is long gone from the top of the marble staircase, but the ornate gold clock, a gift from the class of 1912, remains. Visitors still pass through Corinthian columns into the second-ﬂoor reading room, although the dance studio’s sprung ﬂoors have been removed, revealing the original hardwood under-neath. The light and airy space is now named the Mary Homeier Rawson Reading Room in honor of Principal Rawson’s late wife, a talented teacher and former Exeter Summer instructor. Students use the wood-paneled space for quiet study and reading, or furnishings can be rearranged for community events. “The room brings together students of the Classics and academics from around campus to study,” Jinmin Lee ’26 says. “It’s the place to study on campus now.”

The Mary Amen Study, formerly the Mary Rawson Amen Room, with its spectacular circular staircase, floor-to-ceiling bookcases and mezzanine, now serves as the Latin Study. The Kirtland Society, Exeter’s Classics Club, hosts meetings and gatherings there as well. “I appreciate having that room for Kirtland Society meetings,” Lee says. “We use the second floor for orations and speeches.”

Assistant Principal Eimer Page, who was involved in the decision-making about the space, points out: “It’s an odd turn of fate that Principal Amen’s spouse and Principal Rawson’s spouse shared such similar names — with one Mary having the name Rawson by birth and the other acquiring it by marriage — but the values and contemplative spirit of each woman live on in this place of such beauty and calm.”

The beauty and majesty of the space are inspirational. The students can’t believe their luck.

Sally Morris, chair of the Classical Languages Department

Page also notes that Principal Lewis Perry’s wife, Margaret Hubbell Perry, is honored in the reading room as well, with furnishings given in her name by the class of 1929. “It’s interesting that the second floor of Davis was perceived as the ideal location to honor the foundational support of our principals’ life partners,” Page says. “The room holds that legacy with a gentle touch.”

Davis has also been modernized with new building systems, including HVAC equipment that relies on geothermal heating and cooling. Audiovisual and technology upgrades support modern learning. Space once occupied by book stacks has been reconfigured to accommodate a new stairwell and elevator, making the second floor fully accessible.

Instructors and students are struck by Davis Hall’s transformation and excited by its potential. “To me, it’s similar to the ancient Great Library of Alexandria where people came together and shared ideas,” Lee says. “It’s an interdisciplinary hub of learning.”

Classical Languages Department Chair Sally Morris says: “The beauty and majesty of the space are inspirational. The students can’t believe their luck. They’re close to the gym and dining hall. It feels like an oasis.”

Davis Hall has come full circle, becoming an intellectual center once again. Morris says: “When the classroom doors are propped open, you can hear teachers teaching, you can hear the conversations, the competitions … the sounds of an intellectual community working together. We feel very lucky.”

Debbie Kane is a longtime contributor to the Bulletin. Her work also appears in UNH Magazine, New Hampshire Home and Forum, the publication of the American Institute of Architects New Hampshire.

The story was originally published in the fall 2025 issue of The Exeter Bulletin.

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