Paulette Curtis, Resident Dean

I was born in Gulfport Mississippi and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, where I remained until coming to Harvard for College many years ago. I have left on a couple of occasions since then, including stints in Las Vegas and eight months in Vietnam, but have otherwise lived in Cambridge, and specifically Harvard, for much of my adult life. After College, I went on to graduate school in Anthropology, earning my Ph.D in 2003 after completing a dissertation on American veterans of Vietnam who return to many of that conflict’s battle spaces in Southeast Asia. Since graduate school, I have been Resident Dean at Dunster House and a lecturer in the Anthropology Department, where I have taught courses on war, commemoration and science fiction, a personal interest. When I can, I sing and give small concerts. I recently returned from nearly a month in Austria, where I attended a program focused on German lieder, adding to the list of places I can consider not to be Harvard.

More than anything, I look forward to being your Resident Dean. It is a profound and meaningful privilege to be able to serve you, and I hope that may be able to assist you in and through your own pathways through Harvard this year.

Melanie Charette, Assistant to the Resident Dean

I grew up in Montreal, Canada and moved to Texas when I was in high school. I went to university at Texas A&M in College Station but soon after graduation moved to the Champagne region of France to teach English. Since then, I moved back to the United States with my husband and adopted Boston as our new home. I have previously worked at the Ritz-Carlton Boston as well as Harvard Business School. Outside of work, I enjoy all kinds of films, cooking, baking, photography, gardening, traveling, and bad television. I speak French fluently having grown up in a French Canadian home and have 2 cats who respond both to English and French. In the future, I would like to learn another language, travel to Japan, and become a better photographer.

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