Ms. Julia Ryan is the new English teacher this year who is filling in while Dr. Julia Bucci is on a one-year sabbatical. Ms. Ryan brings years’ worth of experience, passion, and enthusiasm towards literature while teaching 9th and 10th graders. She says, “I’m so happy to be here at Dana Hall, and the teaching experience is so great!”

In addition to teaching, Ms. Ryan is revising a young adult dystopian novel that she has been working on for many years. Ms. Linda Derezinski, the head of the English Department, says Ms. Ryan “contributes as a writer and understands perspective. It’s exciting to have a fiction writer!” 

Ms. Ryan’s passions outside of teaching include writing her novel, going out to eat sushi, exercising, and reading for fun. Ms. Ryan graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in English Literature. She also received degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English, and Columbia University. Ms. Ryan has taught in many places in New York and Connecticut but wanted to come to Dana Hall to “be in a supporting community of women. I was really impressed to be honest,” she says. 

Ms. Ryan loves seeing students gain confidence and voice in writing. “The process is really exciting and figuring out what works for them”, she mentions. She aspires to have her students want to be lifelong learners. “I hope to still be learning when I’m 90,” she says. Ms. Ryan puts an effort into every class and her students notice it. Sadie Saarony ‘26 says that, “she shows enthusiastic energy in class everyday and she clearly knows an abundance of literature.”