Noelle Gentile

The greatest gift Noelle’s parents ever gave her was her education at Barnard College. It was there that she pursued and expanded upon her childhood fascination the legend of King Arthur by earning her Bachelor of Arts in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. It was also there that Galileo’s writings sparked her lifelong love for early modern science.

Inspired to augment her science education with hands-on exposure to current research, Noelle worked as an undergraduate laboratory technician in Cell Biology and later as a research specialist in Neuroscience. She gained expertise in creating transgenic mice in the Axel lab at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons/Howard Hughes Medical Institute, but always found herself more focused on the philosophical underpinnings of her work, rather than on its technical details.

Her varied interests found a natural home at Tufts University, where she will earn her Master’s Degree in Philosophy in Spring 2022. Noelle happily combines her scientific interests with her love of writing by focusing on Philosophy of Science and Mathematics. She is currently working on the book Newton to Laplace: Mathematical Language in Flux forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

When she’s not busily engaged in her academic pursuits, Noelle spends her time raising her 8 children. Having homeschooled the older ones until high school, she gained invaluable experience in developing individualized curricula and facilitating interdisciplinary learning inspired by her own education. Now, with her children in school, she is passionate about the importance of extended learning beyond the classroom. Her goal is to create and develop an engaging, apprenticeship-based model of supplementary education to help budding scholars contribute to real world issues.

Noelle traces her deep connection with education back to when she read her first book, Hope for the flowers, at the age of 4, in a not-so-cozy seat by a lovely warm radiator. She was transfixed by its subtitle: “a fable partly about life, partly about revolution and lots about hope – for adults and others including caterpillars who can read.” She thought at the time (and still believes) that any book intended for both adults and reading caterpillars was a fine place to begin. She has not stopped reading since.