Jennifer Sheffield

Assistant to the Head of School
✉︎ jsheffield@millerschool.org

BA, Anthropology, English, Skidmore College & University College London
Graduate Studies, Print Journalism, Boston University
Graduate Studies, Special Education/Curriculum & Instruction, University of Virginia

Jennifer grew up in an old railroad town in Ohio, where she became accomplished at the cello in high school but chose to compete in horse shows and 4-H, over attending football games, or her prom. She received a grant to pursue neurobiology at Skidmore College in New York, where she served as sports editor for the student newspaper and enjoyed being an intercollegiate ballroom and swing dancer. 

A dream internship in media relations at the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s (USOPC) Colorado training center came next, until Boston University sent her a letter reminding her she applied. Realizing she was happier as a beat reporter, though, she spent 23 years doing odd jobs to support a freelance career as a writer for trade magazines and gigs in advertising for tourism publications across the Southeast. 

Stories she is most proud of, and indebted to her sources to accomplish include those in Florida Sportsman, Mother Earth News, okra Magazine, and the Chronicle of the Horse. She developed a professional niche in adaptive sports, but switched gears after working the 2021 Tokyo Games for the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and supporting the social media and marketing efforts of Wheelchair Lacrosse USA. 

That pivot led her to teaching. Her former life at Miller included a long-term substitute position in 8th/9th creative writing (2021-2022) as part of her graduate classes at University of Virginia and in AP Language and Philosophy (2022-2023). She has also served innumerable, public districts over eight years, as a paraprofessional, middle school teacher, substitute food truck worker and in after school programming. 

Office work includes a stint as the studio manager for the Washington National Opera and as an assistant to the founder of a non-profit that paints murals for hospitals. She has recently been in the grocery and beverage industries. 

She is adjusting to a return to Virginia, after three years in North Carolina attempting tiny house living, and hobby homesteading. She hopes to find new spots to tent camp with her 14 year-old poodle-chihuahua.