The Ethel Walker School
History
Julie Relyea
History Faculty
Julie Relyea earned her B.A. in Education and Religious Studies from Saint Michael’s College and a Master of Theological Studies in Comparative Religion from Harvard Divinity School. Her teaching journey began in China through the WorldTeach program, followed by teaching roles in Maryland and Massachusetts, where she also led gender equity initiatives and taught yoga and mindfulness. While at Harvard, she worked with the Religions and the Practice of Peace Initiative, coordinating speaker series and helping to develop programs focused on interfaith understanding and peacebuilding. In 2022, she joined the Walker’s community, where she now teaches World Religions, Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology, and 7th Grade Geography. For co-curriculars, she teaches yoga and personal fitness. She lives on campus with her husband, Randall Northrop, who also works at Walker’s, their daughter, and their family dog.
Randall Shō Northrop
History Department Chair, Executive Director of the Capabilities Approach
Randall Shō Northrop serves as History Department Chair and Executive Director of the Capabilities Approach. He holds an MSt in Global and Imperial History from the University of Oxford, where he focused on cultural, intellectual, and transnational history. Before joining Walker’s, Randall taught Global History and Social Sciences at Beaver Country Day School in Brookline, Massachusetts. At Beaver, he also served as grade dean for 9th and 10th grades. At Walker’s, Randall leads the integration of the Capabilities Approach across the curriculum, ensuring that every student’s learning experience nurtures leadership, innovation, and a commitment to social impact. In the History Department, he works to create inquiry-driven courses that center girls’ voices, connect past and present, and empower students to understand — and shape — the world around them. He has taught a variety of courses at Walker’s, including Advanced Microeconomics, Advanced Macroeconomics, Global History, Media and Society, Inequalities in the United States, U.S. History, etc. Randall serves as the faculty advisor for the Model UN club, the Asian Student Collective, and coaches cross country. He lives on campus with his wife, Julie Relyea, and their daughter, Adeline.
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Kim Harris-Thacker P'24, '27
Faculty and Archivist
Kim Harris-Thacker P’24, ’27, is The Ethel Walker School’s archivist, as well as a faculty member in the history and English departments. She is a well-published magazine writer and essayist with a keen interest in history and community, and in connecting the past and the present through the medium of story. Born and raised in Wyoming, Kim has retained a love of the outdoors, which she shares with her husband, Walker’s Upper School English teacher Dr. David Thacker, and their two daughters, Molly and Liesel, who are current and former Walker’s students.
Brendan O'Dwyer
History Faculty
Brendan earned his B.A. from SUNY Purchase and his M.A. from Wesleyan University. After receiving his master’s degree, Brendan joined the Walker’s community as a full time faculty member in 2015. In addition to teaching in the History Department at Walker’s, Brendan has coached soccer, basketball, skiing and tennis. He lives with his wife and three children in Litchfield.
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John Monagan
History Faculty
John Monagan grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut, where he attended Chase Collegiate School from 6th-12th grade. From Waterbury, John headed south to attend Johns Hopkins University, where he majored in history. After four enjoyable years in Baltimore, John’s years in private school led him to The Ethel Walker School, where he taught history and English. John spent his first four years at Walker’s teaching 6th-9th grade history and 6th-7th grade English. He has also spent time running student activities. John earned his Master of Science degree from Drexel University in Sports Management while working at Walker’s. He previously served as Walker’s Athletic Director for nine years and continues to teach in the history department. John is the head coach of the varsity basketball and softball teams and lives on campus with his wife and two children.
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Elisa Del Valle
Assistant Head of School
Elisa Del Valle is a transformational educator and a deep believer in young people. She was raised in East New York, Brooklyn, and molded by resilient ancestors: strong women who, despite hardship, yielded joy, and her own three children, who remind her each day that she is here to be taught by them. It is from these wisdom guides that she has learned the most about unconditional love, the power of sisterhood, and education.
Elisa’s relationship to work is an embodied practice rooted in her own liberation and the liberation of others. She defines her work not by what she is against, but by what she is for and the world she wants to be part of. She moves in the world as a complex human, modeling vulnerability, radical love, transparency, curiosity, and accountability for the communities she is a part of. Students are her greatest motivator for this work, and they are who keep her spirit light.
At Walker’s Elisa serves as the Assistant Head of School. Before she arrived at Walker’s in 2016, she spent 12 years working in higher education in residential life, student activities, leadership development, and new student orientation at Mount Holyoke College and Wesleyan University. While at Mount Holyoke, Elisa utilized her passion and graduate degree in Social Justice Education to design a more inclusive curriculum for the residential student experience. At Wesleyan, she pursued her passion for systems change work on Michael Roth’s Presidential Task Force for Equity and Inclusion.
Elisa attended an all-girls high school in New York City before attending Smith College in Northampton, MA. As a first-generation college student, she majored in Government and minored in Spanish, traveling to Cuba in her Junior Year. While working full-time at Mount Holyoke College, Elisa also attended graduate school full-time at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she graduated with a Master’s in Social Justice Education.
Elisa is the recipient of the Inaugural Ally Award at Mahogany L. Browne’s Black Girl Magic Ball in New York City and an Edgar Beckham Helping Hand Award recipient from Wesleyan University.
Elisa is currently a trustee for the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools (CAIS).
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