Cameron Barnett began teaching at Falk in the 2016-2017 school year as Artist-in-Residence, working with grades K-8 on creative writing, reading, and special projects. However, his relationship to Falk begins in 1996 when he came as a 2nd grader, graduating from the 8th grade in 2003. His sister, Afton, graduated two years later, following in the footsteps of their mother, Charlene, a 70s Falk alumna. Cameron is a 2011 graduate of Duquesne University, and a 2016 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where he received the 2011 O’Donnell Award for Excellence in Poetry and the 2013 Academy of American Poets Graduate Poetry Award, respectively. His debut collection of poems, The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water, will be published by Autumn House Press in November of 2017. Starting in the ’17-’18 school year, Cameron will move full-time to the middle school level, teaching 6th grade social studies and 7th grade language arts, and will serve on the Falk Alumni Advisory Committee, the Diversity & Inclusion Committee, and coach middle school cross-country. He believes deeply that people's words and stories (especially students') are artistic and valuable things, and that everyone's matters. In his spare time he enjoys reading, writing, running, and cheering on all Pittsburgh sports.

Cheryl Capezzuti joined the faculty at the Falk Laboratory School in 2009 after more than a decade working as an independent puppet maker and master teaching artist for many local arts organizations. Most notably she was an Artist-in-Residence, rostered through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, through which she completed more than 50 residencies in schools and communities. At Falk she runs the visual arts studio for the older grades and collaborates with teachers at all grade levels and in all disciplines integrating the visual arts into the curriculum. Outside of Falk, Capezzuti is a sculptor and puppet maker with a rich studio practice. She is best known as the master puppet maker and Creative Director for the First Night Pittsburgh Parade, which features hundreds of giant puppets she has made through workshops all over the greater Pittsburgh region. In addition to making very large-scale works, she also produces smaller, gallery-sized theatrical works using puppets and exhibits sculptural work in both galleries and non-traditional spaces. Nationally her work has been featured on The Ellen Degeneres Show, Good Morning America, and NBC Nightly News.

Emily first became interested in the education field upon graduating Saint Vincent College in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language and Literature. She accepted a long-term substitute Spanish position at Saltsburg Middle High School for the end of the 2017-2018 school year. This opportunity quickly helped her discover that education is where her passion thrived. She continued onto the Foreign Language Education MAT program at Pitt where she spent the year interning at Falk Laboratory School’s Spanish department, both in elementary and middle school classrooms. Upon graduating in 2020, she now works at Falk as the Digital Learning Coordinator of the middle school. Emily is eager to assume this new and progressive role as well as continuing to collaborate within the Spanish department. Outside of education, Emily’s interests include hiking, water coloring, and advocating for sustainability and environmental justice. She also volunteered her time sponsoring various clubs for middle school students such as Female Empowerment, TED Talk, Juggling, and Spanish TV and Film Appreciation.

After living in both Washington, DC and Maine, Joanna Newlin returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh to raise her family.  She spent the first part of her career as an elementary Montessori teacher in both Pittsburgh and Maine.  The majority of that time was spent teaching all subjects in mixed-age classrooms with students in fourth-through-sixth grade.  While her own children were young, Joanna spent two years working from home as a Behavioral Specialist Consultant for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders and their families. In 2012, she moved to Falk as a Learning Specialist working primarily with the Middle School team.  Joanna took on the additional role of Coordinator of Student Services beginning in 2016.  Upon coming to Falk, she found herself in the ideal place to combine her passions around inquiry-based learning, inclusive practices, and lifelong learning.  Joanna lives in Glenshaw where she spends the majority of her free time with her husband, two boys, and two dogs.

Mr. Outerbridge has worked as a classroom teacher and mid-level administrator in both public and independent schools, and his experiences have convinced him that there are few learning experiences more powerful and engaging than discovering how something works, recognizing a pattern, or understanding a cause-and-effect relationship.  When he was a social studies teacher, Mr. Outerbridge had students examine varying accounts of Columbus’s return visit to Hispaniola, where he discovered that Fort La Navidad had been abandoned and most the men killed.  Students had to judge which account was most plausible and support their arguments with evidence and reasoning.  As a librarian, Mr. Outerbridge feels that a big part of his job is to help students use similar critical thinking skills to sort through today’s massive volume of information in order to locate and evaluate what is most reliable and pertinent to their coursework and personal interests.  The other big part of the job is to foster in students a love and appreciation for reading.

Maria Sassani was thrilled to join the Falk School Community during the 2011 – 2012 school year, after presenting the session, “Music, Literacy, and Dance” during the NALS conference hosted by Falk in the Spring of 2011.  Prior to her arrival in Pittsburgh, Ms. Sassani shared her love of music with students from The School at Columbia University (2005 – 2011) & The Brearley School (2000 – 2005), both located in New York City, and the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, Nevada (1995 – 2000).  Favorite performances in her teaching career have been directing a 250-member chorus on PBS’s – “World’s Largest Concert” (1999), New York City’s Carnegie Hall in (2002 & 2003), the National Black Theatre of Harlem (2006 – 2011), and most recently in the lobby of Heinz Hall during the Pittsburgh Symphony/Falk School Extravaganza.  A true advocate of music programs in our schools, Ms. Sassani believes….“children would rather play than study, if we are smart, we will teach them while they play.”  (Carl Orff)  She continues her professional growth as a member of the American Choral Director’s Association (ACDA), American Orff Shulwerk Association (AOSA) and the National Association for Music Education (NAfME).  Ms. Sassani’s favorite genre of music is “Musical Theatre” where she has performed professionally in six states.   Some of her favorite roles have been:  “Dolly” from “Hello Dolly”, “Reno Sweeney” from “Anything Goes”, “Charity Barnum” from “Barnum”, and “Maggie” from “42nd Street.”

Laura Tomokiyo began her career in Japan, where she worked in language technologies research and development at Toshiba Corp. and the Electrotechnical Laboratory.   She returned to the United States to complete her MS and PhD degrees, where she specialized in spoken language recognition and understanding.  She spent six years at Cepstral, a tech startup providing small-footprint speech synthesis devices supporting communication in areas of geopolitical concern.  She then moved to the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, working in the CREATE (Community Robotics, Education, and Empowerment) lab.  Projects at CREATE included a the Gigapan Dialogues collaboration with UNESCO-IBE and the Documenting our Heritage project with the Inupiat Heritage Center in Barrow, Alaska.

Laura joined the faculty at Falk School in 2012, where she initially worked to redesign the technology curriculum and now teaches in all grades K-8.  She also co-chairs the research committee with Leah Northrop.

Carrie Wittig began her teaching career at Falk as an intern in Middle School English Language Arts under Greg Wittig. She then taught first and second grade for one year in Primary at Falk before returning to Middle School to teach 6th and 7th grade. Carrie's goal as a teacher is to enable students to engage in and transform their worlds through critical and shared inquiry of texts, skills, and ideas. By immersing students in authentic literacy, she hopes to give them the tools to make meaning, construct their identities, and take part in their communities. Before becoming a teacher, Carrie worked for six years as a copy editor and communications coordinator at a local non-profit. Carrie is on the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater (PICT) Education Board and a volunteer for Girls Rock! Pittsburgh. She likes to read, go camping and hiking, and visit historical places.