2009 Spain Expedition Leaders: Megan McLaulin and Davin Dearth
Davin Dearth. University of Denver, B.A.; University of Wyoming, M.A. Davin graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver, where he majored in Spanish and English Literature. He was a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar, a member of the University of Denver Soccer team, and as a senior received highest departmental honors for his honor's thesis, Postmodern Spanish Cinema: The Films of Julio Medem. Davin spent his junior year in Salamanca, focusing on Spanish art and film. While in Spain he completed the four hundred fifty-mile Camino de Santiago on foot and participated in the running of the bulls in Pamplona. In addition to Spain, his travels have taken him to Ireland, Mexico, the CzechRepublic, France, Scotland, and Costa Rica. Davin led a Putney Student Travel language learning program in Spain and a Putney community service program in Costa Rica. He worked as a Spanish teacher in Fort Collins, Colorado, and recently earned his Master's in Writing and Literature at the University of Wyoming. Davin led the National Geographic Student Expedition to Spain in 2008. His interests include travel, skiing, soccer, climbing, fishing, and film. He is fluent in Spanish.
Megan McLaulin. The College of William and Mary, B.A.; RutgersUniversity, M.Ed. candidate. Megan graduated cum laude from William and Mary, where she majored in English Literature and minored in Spanish. She spent a summer studying at the University of Salamanca. She taught English and Spanish at two high schools in Virginia, coached girls’ volleyball and collegiate men’s crew, and served as a volunteer English as a Second Language educator for Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants. Megan spent two years living in Talavera de la Reina, Spain; she traveled to fifteen out of Spain’s seventeen autonomous communities, cycled the historic Camino de Santiago, and hiked throughout the Sierra de Gredos mountains. She was selected by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Sciences to serve as an English language conversation assistant, and collaborated with the faculty of the a primary school in Talavera de la Reina to implement a newly designed bilingual/bicultural curriculum. She is currently pursuing her master’s in Language Education at Rutgers, where she is an academic coach at the Rutger’s Learning Centers. Megan’s interests include hiking, camping, rowing, and triathlons. She is fluent in Spanish.
Memorial High School program to Spain: Contemporary Life in Legendary Cities
This blog has been set up to allow family and friends of participants from MemorialHigh School, Houston, TX, to check in on the progress of the National Geographic Student Expedition to Spain.
Born and raised in Barcelona, Tino Soriano divides his work between photojournalism and travel photography. A frequent contributor to National Geographic Traveler magazine, he has also photographed National Geographic Traveler guidebooks: Madrid, Sicily, Portugal, and Naples and Southern Italy. Tino received a first prize from the World Press Photo Foundation and, in 2006, played the lead role in a documentary—Andalusia: The Awakening of the Senses—for the National Geographic Channel in Spain. Tino will join our expedition to Spain in Granada.