Meet the trip leaders

2009 Argentina Leaders: Brenna Casey and Zach Kahn

BRENNA CASEY: Boston College, B.A.; University of Notre Dame, M.F.A. Brenna's love for travel and travel writing flourished during college when she studied at the Universidad de San Francisco in Quito, Ecuador. She has traveled extensively throughout Ecuador and Latin America, including a trek along the Inca Trail. She recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame's M.F.A. program in Creative Writing, where she received the Sparks Fellowship. While at Notre Dame, Brenna served as Managing Editor for the Notre Dame Review, taught several Academic Writing Seminars, received the university's Distinguished Graduate Student Award, and facilitated a writing group for adults at the Center for the Homeless in South Bend, Indiana. She is a nonfiction writer currently based in Washington, DC. This will be Brenna’s third summer with Putney. She led a Putney Community Service program in Ecuador in 2007 and a National Geographic Student Expeditions program to Peru in 2008. She is fluent in Spanish.

ZACH KAHN: Northwestern University, B.A., Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences and Economics. Ever since traveling to Venezuela his senior year of high school, Zach has had a fascination with Latin America. During college, Zach visited a variety of countries in the region, including Cuba, Uruguay, and Guatemala. In 2007, he studied abroad in Buenos Aires for six months, and Zach went back to Argentina for an internship in the summer of 2008. He is extremely excited to be returning once more and to be able to share with others what he enjoys most about the country and its people. Aside from traveling, Zach was very involved in student groups at Northwestern, and was a site leader for a service-learning trip to Louisville, KY, during December 2008 where he and a group of his peers volunteered teaching English at a refugee resettlement center. Zach is an avid lacrosse player and a youth coach in the local community. Zach is fluent in Spanish.