2021 Alumni Panel: Meet Our Alums!

The alumni panel is always a highlight of our admissions Open House, concluding the day… and often running way over time as the audience jumps to ask questions! This year, we hosted our alumni panel on Zoom, featuring four amazing Waldorf alumni. (Scroll down for their bios.)

Listening to the experiences and reflections of a diverse group of graduates reminds us why Waldorf education is unique, and how it builds a foundation of creativity, independent thinking, and confidence that lasts a lifetime.

Huge gratitude to our student musicians Angelo, Carter, and Emma, as well as to our four panelists for a wonderful morning. Here’s a little background on our four speakers.

Alberta (MWS Class of 2012)

Alberta (she/hers) attended Marin Waldorf School from Kindergarten until graduating in Kristine Deason’s class of 2012. She attended high school at Marin Academy. Alberta also spent one semester at the Mountain School in Vermont, a rigorous program in which high school juniors from across the country spend a semester farming, studying in the old barn, and even camping out for three nights alone in the mountains.

Alberta was then awarded the national Questbridge Scholarship for low-income high-achieving students, with a placement at Wellesley College. During her time there, she worked as a Research Assistant for a Sociology Professor, a tutor for the Economics Department, a farm hand at an off-campus Coop, an Admission Office interviewer, and a restaurant hostess. Alberta also designed her own major in the inter-departmental Peace and Justice Studies program—her Waldorf upbringing had taught her the inevitable inextricability of diverse disciplines when seriously studying any topic.

After studying abroad for 6 months in Buenos Aires and conducting 5 months of internships in Havana, Cuba (with a local artist collective and with Oxfam), Alberta decided to dedicate herself to immigration advocacy here in the United States. After graduating (virtually) from Wellesley in Spring of 2020, she moved down to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley to work as an Unaccompanied Child Legal Specialist with the American Bar Association’s pro-bono project. She eventually plans on attending law school to continue advocating for immigrant justice.

Max (Waldorf School of Atlanta)

Max’s journey through Waldorf education began as a three-year-old in Morning Garden at the Waldorf School of Atlanta. And while it technically came to an end upon 8th grade graduation from the same school, the Waldorfian experience has proven life-long thanks to Max’s extremely good fortune in having Dena Malon, Grades Director for the Marin Waldorf School, as his mother. 

Max’s post-Waldorf experience thus far has unfolded in precisely the unexpected manner one would expect from an anthroposophically-minded anthropomorph. Upon graduating from Sarah Lawrence College—where, as a theater student, he developed an interest in the (un)constitutionality of life imprisonment sentences for minors after doing research for a role in David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole—Max moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as deputy manager for SCOTUSblog, a publication covering the United States Supreme Court.

After a well-timed tour of duty in legal journalism during which the Supreme Court enjoyed some of its highest-profile terms in decades and SCOTUSblog won a Peabody, Max decided to take his eurythmy-derived talents over to the wide world of consulting, joining public-policy consulting firm Hamilton Place Strategies. There, he helped clients like GE, the Bezos Foundation, FedEx, and the One Campaign advocate for policy outcomes on issues related to early childhood education, technology, innovation, economic development, and everything in between.

Max has since returned to Hamilton Place Strategies as the firm’s Creative Director, after spending two years living and working on the road in both the US and abroad with his brother—the two siblings having started a consulting firm from inside their Volkswagen Vanagon. Three weeks into their roadtrip, the firm was acquired by a policy-focused creative agency founded by President Obama’s White House Art Director, and the itinerary was extended indefinitely.

Max is currently pandemic-ing in Bend, Oregon, where he spends his time fly fishing, rock climbing, wood working, cello playing, and planning trips to Montana in the van.

Jarrett Cherner (MWS Class of 1995)

Jarrett Cherner is a pianist, composer and bandleader based in Brooklyn, New York. His first instrument was the violin, which he began playing at age 7, followed by the piano and drums at age 12. After graduating from high school, Jarrett earned concurrent degrees at Tufts (B.S., Mathematics) and New England Conservatory (Jazz Piano Performance).

Jarrett’s debut album, Burgeoning, was released in 2006, and earned recognition from the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards. In 2008, Jarrett moved to New York to pursue graduate studies at Manhattan School of Music. He was a semifinalist at the 2011 Montreux Jazz Piano Competition and had the honor of performing solo piano at the Whitney Museum as part of Jason Moran’s 2012 BLEED residency.

Jarrett has toured throughout the U.S. as well as South America, Canada, Mexico, and Europe, as both a leader and sideman. Today, he is an adjunct professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he teaches through the New York Jazz Academy, both privately and via Skype from his Brooklyn studio. His most recent album, Tone, with vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles, was released in 2020 on BaldHill Records.