Meet the team
We are a group of individuals of diverse backgrounds, united by our love of Matthew and our love of learning.
We believe in the ethical value of humanistic study and we are committed to the creation of a Center that realizes Matthew’s dream of combining deep reading, community, and time for contemplation in a learning environment unencumbered by institutional pressure.
2024 Faculty and Faculty Assistants
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Bill Deresiewicz is an author, essayist, and former professor of English at Yale. His books include “Excellent Sheep”, “The End of Solitude”, “The Death of the Artist”, and “A Jane Austen Education”. His essays and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times, and many other publications.
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Zena is a Tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis, as well as the founder and president of the Catherine Project. She writes for general audiences about freedom, education, happiness, the decline of our institutions, faith, hope, and love. Her scholarship is in classical philosophy, especially questions about law, character, friendship, and the human good. Zena is the author of “Lost in Thought” and “A Philosopher looks at the Religious Life”.
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Leonard Nalencz (PhD Yale University, comparative literature, 2017) is an assistant professor in the English department at the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a faculty member with the Bard Prison Initiative. His academic interests include romance languages and the lyric tradition; the languages and literature of the Americas; theories and practices of attention; and the literature and history of global practices of incarceration. His current project is a translation into Spanish and English (with the Quechua Collective of New York) of original stories and poems in Quechua; it is entitled Kuska Purikusun (Let's Walk Together), and it is due out in July with Trident Press. He is also a member of the Friends of Attention and teaches with the Strother School of Radical Attention in Brooklyn, NY.
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Jessie Freedman is studying literature and philosophy at The New School. Inspired by her years with Matthew as her teacher, she is pursuing questions surrounding the philosophy of education, hermeneutics, and the transformative power of literature. She believes in the commitment to life-long study with others, not cut off from a life filled with adventure and play. In the past years she has worked at the KGB Bar in the East Village where she organized poetry readings, and worked as a farmer and shepherd at a dairy farm in the Italian Alps. She also coached figure skating to second and third graders for the organization Figure Skating in Harlem.
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Joshua Frizell is a student at the New School majoring in Fine Arts and Philosophy with a minor in Visual Studies. Coming from a multi-disciplinary arts background, he is interested in exploring how the integration of creative methodologies into the humanities might reveal new relations between historically siloed subjects.
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Gabriella Okigbo is a recent graduate of The New School. There she majored in Philosophy with a double minor in Religious Studies and French. Gabriella also studied at the American University of Paris. She’s interested in the pursuit of an “ordinary monasticism” and how the cultivation of an inner disposition through silence, radical attention, and discipline can bring about a deeper understanding and engagement with one’s humanity that is actually lived. She has also worked as a gallery assistant at the Camera Club of New York and is interested in the curatorial arts.
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Matthew Zavislan is a teacher and a doctoral student in philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His studies are motivated by a fascination with the ways in which we come to know ourselves through our encounters with other people. Besides his academic work, Matthew’s intellectual commitments are informed by almost a decade of experience in the NYC food and hospitality industry, and from the idea that, from our earliest childhood, we learn the meaning of love and community through the sharing of sustenance.
Board of Directors
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Berta was Matthew Strother’s wife. She is an award-winning architect, a real estate developer, and the founder of the Matthew Strother Center for The Examined Life. Hers is a classic tale of the modern search for meaning in success and prestige. Meeting Matthew was a fateful detour that re-enchanted the world for her and introduced ideas and knowledge as the path to self-actualization. Matthew changed Berta’s life and she is committed to bringing others together under the radiance of his spirit.
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Stephen Strother is Matthew's Kiwi father and a retired computer- and neuro-scientist, who spent 40+ years in academia in Canada and the USA with a focus on brain imaging, neuroinformatics and AI. He is a Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto, where until retirement, he was Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. He takes some credit for Matthew's love of books, having told him as a small child that he would always buy him books if he asked for them, and sometimes he then read those books aloud to Matthew. Matthew then proceeded to exploit this pact mercilessly even after he could afford his own books. After high school this pact somehow was extended to travel as Matthew ferried large bags of books on flights between New Zealand, the USA and Europe. Stephen is humbled by the many passionate and talented people who loved Matthew and are building and supporting the Center in his memory. He currently resides with Cheryl in Nelson, New Zealand.
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Cheryl Grady is Matthew’s American/Canadian stepmother and a retired cognitive neuroscientist, with a focus on cognitive aging. She is Senior Scientist Emerita at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest in Toronto, Professor Emerita of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Toronto, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She shared a life-long love of books and reading with Matthew, and competed with him once to see who would be the first to finish “The Luminaries” by Eleanor Catton (she lost). She currently resides with Stephen in Nelson, New Zealand.
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Jessie Freedman is studying literature and philosophy at The New School. Inspired by her years with Matthew as her teacher, she is pursuing questions surrounding the philosophy of education, hermeneutics, and the transformative power of literature. She believes in the commitment to life-long study with others, not cut off from a life filled with adventure and play. In the past years she has worked at the KGB Bar in the East Village where she organized poetry readings, and worked as a farmer and shepherd at a dairy farm in the Italian Alps. She also coached figure skating to second and third graders for the organization Figure Skating in Harlem.
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Guy is a New Zealander and is Matthew’s stepfather. Guy is a natural born entrepreneur and was co-founder, former CEO and chairman of Adaytum, and co-founder and first CEO of Anaplan. Alongside his late wife Sue, they led Adaytum to a successful acquisition by IBM in 2003 and helped guide Anaplan to an IPO listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Guy had his start in the New Zealand Special Air Service Regiment, and this military training has informed his approach to business and life. He is a gifted team builder, a fearless leader, and uncompromisingly honest and just. Guy instilled in Matthew a love of adventure, the outdoors, and physical endurance, as well as a healthy competitive spirit which they often put into action while hiking uphill together. Guy continues to work on New Zealand-based ventures, such as medicinal cannabis company Helius Therapeutics and solar energy start-up Lodestone Energy, and lives between Auckland and Langs Beach with his partner Natalie.
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It is not an overstatement to say none of us would be here if it was not for Matthew’s mum, Sue Haddleton, as she was the source of all that was magical about Matthew. Sue gave her son the gift of unconditional love and unqualified confidence. She instilled in him a love of beauty, a love of languages, and a boundless warmth and optimism. Her love of life and generosity of spirit was transmitted to her son, who flourished under her influence. But to only speak about her gift as a mother would not do her justice. Sue was a teacher, an opera singer, and an extraordinarily talented entrepreneur. She co-founded tech companies Adaytum and Anaplan with Guy, and together they led Adaytum to a successful acquisition by IBM in 2003 and helped guide Anaplan to an IPO listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Sue lived many lives in the one she was given, and we want to celebrate here all she gave to Matthew, and in turn, to us.
Advisory Board
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Julian Simcock is a lawyer, diplomat and investor. Most recently he held multiple roles at the White House National Security Council, including Director for Global Criminal Justice and interim head of Multilateral Affairs. During that time, Julian coordinated U.S. engagement at the United Nations, with a focus on Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. Separate from his diplomatic work, Julian has invested in several early-stage technology companies, including two that became leaders in corporate performance management software. Julian met Matthew when they were four and one, respectively. The specifics are hard to pin down, but rumor has it that they were friends from that point onwards.
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Brian D. Earp, PhD, is a philosopher and cognitive scientist who is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, as well as an honorary faculty member in Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology. In 2024, Brian starts as a tenured Associate Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore, and will direct the international Oxford-NUS Centre for Neuroethics & Society. Brian’s academic background includes a PhD in philosophy and psychology from Yale, a master’s degree from Oxford in experimental psychology, and a second master’s from Cambridge in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, technology, and medicine. Before becoming an academic, Brian was a professional actor and singer for many years, and was lucky to meet Matthew Strother during a theater production at Yale, where they did their undergraduate degrees together and became lifelong close friends. Brian is the author of Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships (Stanford University Press, 2020) and editor of the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality (Routledge, 2022).
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Lindsay McGlynn is a spiritual director to those seeking a loving and listening presence as they explore the contours of their spiritual life. She also manages a creative studio in Minneapolis, MN. Lindsay is slowly pursuing a life of contemplation and writing, animated by the values of truth, beauty, love and creativity. She is interested in the healing potential of these values when lived purposefully and meaningfully by various individuals. She is also interested in healing narratives that explore the impact of patriarchal structures on a woman’s relationship to self and spirit. Lindsay grew up alongside Matthew, bonded to him throughout life by a mutual love of learning, seeking, and the written word.
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David Zellnik is the author of numerous plays and musicals, including Yank! which has received productions in New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Brisbane, Chicago, and is now a Portuguese-language graphic novel. Other works include the solo piece O TIME, the plays The Letters and Ariel Sharon Stands at the Temple Mount and Dreams of Theodor Herzl, as well as the podcast musical Loveville High. David’s fiction has been published by Massachusetts Review. David shared with Matt a love of languages, Rilke, the pleasures and sadnesses of time passing, and a good drink. He’s honored to help continue his presence and his legacy.
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Clare Barron is a playwright and performer from Wenatchee, Washington. Her plays include Shhhh (the Atlantic), You Got Older (Page 73; Steppenwolf), I'll Never Love Again (The Bushwick Starr), Baby Screams Miracle (Clubbed Thumb; Woolly Mammoth) and Dance Nation (Playwrights Horizons; Steppenwolf; the Almeida). She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the winner of two Obie Awards, the Relentless Award, the Whiting Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the James Tait Black Prize. She currently lives with her two cats in Los Angeles.
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Agnes Borinsky (she/they) is a writer and theater-maker based in Los Angeles. Her projects include many plays (The Trees, A Song of Songs, Of Government, Ding Dong It’s the Ocean), experiments in participation (Working Group for a New Spirit, Weird Classrooms), and fiction (Sasha Masha).
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Joe Alessi is a writer and Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose documentaries and short films have appeared on AllArts, PBS, and Anthology Film. He met Matthew the last week of college, and henceforth the two became dear friends and frequent late-night raconteurs. He resides in Jersey City with his wife and son.
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Hannelore Van Dijck is a visual artist and teacher at Sint-Lucas School of Arts Antwerpen. She makes drawings that often cover the entirety of a surface; a sheet of paper, a piece of textile, the floor or the walls of a room. In these, Van Dijck seeks and finds rhythm and underlying structures. The motor for her drawing is a meticulous search for the relationships between detail and overview. Her drawings are, as it were, constantly in motion, through which she explores the possibilities of the medium. Matthew and Hannelore met in 2011. When she first saw Matthew he was reading a collection of short stories by Franz Kafka. They shared a deep love for books. This meeting was the start of a close friendship in which they both inspired and motivated each other to keep searching.
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Diana Mellon is an art historian, educator and bodyworker. She is a PhD candidate in art history at Columbia University, where her research focuses on human relationship to the natural environment in early modern Italy. She earned her B.A. from Yale University and her M.A. and M.Phil. from Columbia University. Alongside her art historical work, Diana is a student of holistic therapeutic modalities and a licensed massage therapist (LMT).
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Bob Vanden Broeck is a poet and lecturer in Art and Cultural History at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. He loves books and birds. He has already collaborated on numerous artist publications at home and abroad. In 2023, his collection of poetry 'the direction is direction diversions' was published in which he search for a space where language and environment can set each other in motion. In his poetry, he gropes for cracks and fissures, for the layers in the surface. He gathers so that something may be missing: 'Again and again, reality escapes from itself into itself'.
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Sam Kozan Haddix is an educator, musician and chaplain. His work is deeply informed by Sōtō Zen Buddhist practice and rooted in community at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He serves as a chaplain on the Palliative Care Unit at Mount Sinai, accompanying patients and their families at the end of life. Sam earned his MFA in Transdisciplinary Design from Parsons School of Design, where he is adjunct faculty and a thesis supervisor. He is currently completing his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree in Buddhism and Interreligious Engagement at Union Theological Seminary. A lifelong musician, Sam is recording his first album as part of his thesis research on the intersection of sound, ritual and healing practices.
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David Ravensbergen is a reader, writer and erstwhile bohemian striving to make time for the life of the mind amid his political commitments as a trade unionist, climate activist, and community organizer. He holds advanced degrees in literature and politics, and maintains intellectual interests in a range of fields including historical materialism, political economy, and degrowth. David is interested in the history and contemporary application of mindfulness and other forms of contemplative practice, and is a recent student of Indonesian gamelan.
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Zena is a Tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis, as well as the founder and president of the Catherine Project. She writes for general audiences about freedom, education, happiness, the decline of our institutions, faith, hope, and love. Her scholarship is in classical philosophy, especially questions about law, character, friendship, and the human good. Zena is the author of “Lost in Thought” and “A Philosopher looks at the Religious Life”.
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Leonard Nalencz (PhD Yale University, comparative literature, 2017) is an assistant professor in the English department at the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a faculty member with the Bard Prison Initiative. His academic interests include romance languages and the lyric tradition; the languages and literature of the Americas; theories and practices of attention; and the literature and history of global practices of incarceration. His current project is a translation into Spanish and English (with the Quechua Collective of New York) of original stories and poems in Quechua; it is entitled Kuska Purikusun (Let's Walk Together), and it is due out in July with Trident Press. He is also a member of the Friends of Attention and teaches with the Strother School of Radical Attention in Brooklyn, NY.
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Bill Deresiewicz is an author, essayist, and former professor of English at Yale. His books include “Excellent Sheep”, “The End of Solitude”, “The Death of the Artist”, and “A Jane Austen Education”. His essays and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New York Times, and many other publications.
