Amanda was born and raised in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. In her middle school commencement address, Amanda encouraged her classmates to write their own book of life. Amanda practiced what she preached. In high school, Amanda excelled academically, earning many scholastic honors along the way. She also competed athletically, and in her senior year she captained the lacrosse and field hockey teams and was named a NJSIAA Scholar Athlete. In high school, Amanda’s social conscience compelled her to start an organization called Work on Rescuing Darfur (W.O.R.D.), which raised money to fight the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Amanda attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating magna cum laude in 2014 with Bachelor of Arts degrees in both English and Political Science. At Penn, Amanda was a proud sorority sister and executive board member of Chi Omega, and served as an executive member of Penn’s chapter of NAIMUN, the international Model United Nations program for North American students. In the summer before her Junior year, Amanda joined the Global Development Collaborative’s mission to a mountain village outside Trujillo, Peru, where she helped develop economic initiatives to finance a sustainable healthcare clinic for the indigenous community and assist them in bringing their local handcrafts to a global market.
“Her commitment to making sure all her students received an excellent education is one of the many reasons why I loved her.”
“Amazing is actually not satisfactory to describe her. She was a great mentor, coach, friend, and teacher”
Amanda began her career as an educator with Teach for America, where she taught underprivileged high school students in Chicago from 2014 to 2016. In her last year, Amanda took her mission abroad, earning a Fulbright grant to teach disadvantaged high school students in Madrid. As an educator of underprivileged students, Amanda personally fought to remedy the systemic injustice she saw in the inner-city public school system. She created and refined an SAT/ACT prep and essay writing curriculum to help her students gain admission to college; she volunteered to coach the girls soccer team when the school could no longer afford to pay its coach; and so that a young mother could graduate on time, Amanda tutored her at home when she lost her means of child care and thus could not attend school.
Observing first hand how hard it was for a teacher to fix, from the bottom up, what she perceived to be a broken inner-city school system, Amanda decided to pursue a law degree to try to effect change from the top down. Amanda was enrolled to attend the University of Chicago Law School in September 2017, where she planned to obtain the legal training to reform the deficiencies she saw in inner-city education.
“Your students and [soccer] players loved you. You will be missed tremendously. I remember working with you and talking with you and seeing you in action with the students you served, and it always put a smile on my face”
Amanda enjoyed reading, writing, politics, photography and watching home movies with her family. She became a world traveler, and spent her last year visiting more than 40 cities in 15 countries in Europe and Africa. We lovingly remember her quick wit and sense of humor, her brilliant mind, her fierce independence, her love of family and friends, and her desire to make the world a better place. Amanda left an indelible imprint on those who were blessed to have her as a part of their lives, from her family at home to her students in Chicago and Madrid and to her friends around the world.
“Amanda was a true gift to the many lives that she touched. Her enthusiasm for the causes she cared about, particularly education was an inspiration to those who met her. Amanda from the beginning of her time in Spain demonstrated this passion and her sincere desire to help others, especially her students. She went the extra mile for her students and the school community in a way that few other TAs do. We were touched that she voluntarily hosted a blog writing class for a group of students during her breaks and that she helped develop and teach lacrosse to students in PE in her free time”