Continuum Spring โ26
Continuum
Alumnae Return with Wisdom from the Journey
The Winsor community regularly invites our alumnae back to campus, and last semester saw the return of familiar faces now making names for themselves in the arts, sciences, and business. Whether speaking to a club over lunch or presenting to the whole school during assembly, these alumnae exuded confidence, competence, and clarity of purpose in their chosen fields, and they were happy to offer advice and stories of life after Winsor. Here are some snapshots from recent visits.
Seeing Creativity Everywhere
SAFA, Winsorโs fine arts club, hosted painter Meghan weeks โ04 at all-school assembly. She returned as a working artist, eager to share the journey that carried her beyond Winsorโs art studios to a plein air easel in Bostonโs South End and far beyond.
At Winsor, Meg arrived in Class III and committed to taking advantage of every possible opportunity. She found a home in the art studios under the mentorship of faculty like Visual Arts Department Head Sara Macaulay.
After Winsor, Meg studied architecture, then earned a graduate degree in curation. She built a career in curatorial and outreach roles at the National Galleries of Scotland, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Boston Public Library. Then, in 2022, she took the leap to become a full-time professional artist.
Today, Megโin addition to her role as president of Winsorโs Alumnae Boardโis a plein-air painter, working outside, on site, in every kind of weather. Her paintings have been exhibited widely, and she has earned juried membership in a number of regional artistsโ societies.
Meg encouraged students to see creativity everywhere. โThe world needs more creatives,โ she told students. โWhatever you do, go out there and be a creative.โ
Building Humanityโs Future
Emerging-technologies designer Sana Sharma โ10 returned to Winsor to share her work at the intersection of science, art, engineering, and design. Today Sana is cofounder and advisor at Aurelia Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to building humanityโs future in space for the benefit of Earth.
She also leads research at the MIT Media Lab for the Astronaut Ethnography Project, which uses interviews and other qualitative methods to learn more about life in space beyond the mission or the science. โWeโre really curious about everyday life and what that feels like in zero-G,โ explained Sana.
Sana also spoke about an Aurelia Institute project exploring space architecture that helps answer the question, โHow are we going to make space enjoyable?โ She described leading the development of the TESSERAE Space Pavillionโa modular, self-assembling space architecture made up of magnetic tiles that stack flat in the payload fairing of a rocket. In zero-G, the seven-foot-wide tiles self- assemble into a structure resembling the geometry of a soccer ball. โThe hope is that we can attach more and more of these soccer balls toโฆorganically grow a space habitat,โ she said.
โI am so excited to see what future you all build,โ she told the students, โas well as how you might invite your communities to join in in that building.โ
Staying Curious
Running a Nigerian tomato-paste company was never part of the plan for Mira Mehta โ02. But when you โstay curious,โ as she encouraged students in Winsorโs Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship Club, life takes some fascinating turns.
After years of rowing for Winsor and then Brown University, Mira set aside her early ambition to become an Olympic athlete and found herself pivoting to a career in public health. Working on HIV programs in Nigeria, Mira witnessed the stigma and economic hardship the virus caused. โIt felt like what people really needed is money,โ she said. โSo that got me interested in the idea of being a business owner.โ
During her travels through Nigeria, Mira noticed vast fields of cut tomatoes drying in the open air. But when she bought ingredients for jollof rice and other West African dishes, the tomato paste always came from China. โWhy are we not processing [the tomatoes] locally?โ she wondered. So at Harvard Business School, she developed a business plan and launched her social enterprise, Tomato Jos, which today employs 100 workers and supports about a thousand farmers.
โYou have to have that stubbornness in you,โ she told the students about the risks of running a business. โIt is a dream, and Iโm trying to make a dream become reality.โ