Mairéad O’Grady

Mairéad O’Grady recently completed her term as founding Director of SEGL in Johannesburg program, and now serves as SEGL's Director of Development. She has been at SEGL since 2012. Prior to joining the SEGL team, she spent a fellowship year in Thailand, where she worked officially as a Global Ambassador and English teacher at Payap University while unofficially leading bicycle tours and hiking trips and directing a high school musical. She is a graduate of Grinnell College, where she majored in Music and French, receiving Honors in French and the Steiner Award for Scholarly Work in Music. While in college, she served as a residential Student Adviser and the Student Government All-Campus Events Coordinator, sang as a soprano in the Grinnell Singers, and worked as a tour guide and interviewer for the Office of Admission. Her love of French earned her a French Consulate grant to attend the “Festival des Francofolies” in southwestern France in 2007 and took her to Senegal for a semester abroad in 2008. Mairéad has also served as an international program leader for Walking Tree Travel (Senegal and Thailand) and SEGL (South Africa and Rwanda). The School awards the Mairéad O'Grady Faculty Chair in her honor.