New staff at St Albans Secondary College

Benjamin Cooper

My name is Benjamin Cooper. I recently joined the College community as the new middle school English teacher, after taking a short break from the vocation last year to travel across Alaska and work with horses in Canada. The past three weeks have been busy, what with getting to know all the friendly, welcoming faces of staff and students amid assessments and report writing. But I am settling in and looking forward to the rewarding adventures that await us all in Term 3. My weekends are spent walking the dog and hiking the You Yangs or sipping a steaming mug of coffee by the fireplace, reading the latest novels outlined on the SWPs. 

Claudia Freyer

I was born and raised in Germany, and interested in anything science from a very young age. As a teenager, I attended after-school programs that offered lectures and laboratory sessions designed for high-school kids. Eventually, I studied biology at the Humboldt-University of Berlin. Studying next door to the Museum of Natural History, I took up a casual assistant position that supported research and teaching at the museum. As part of my duties, I read through some fascinating historic research papers of first discoveries and explorations, especially about Australia. I completed my first research degree about marsupial evolution at the museum, and started researching marsupial reproduction. With support of a scholarship, I was privileged to carry out my PhD research on marsupial reproduction with plenty of access to a multitude of marsupials from wallabies to dunnarts under expert supervision at the University of Melbourne. My PhD research lead me to become interested in human reproduction, and I continued on to research novel ways of preventing pregnancy, i.e. contraception, as member of a research team at the Prince Henry’s Institute of Medical research, before returning to the University of Melbourne to study embryo development and effects of obesity on pregnancy as part of various group projects. Subsequently, in 2010, I started work in cancer research that supported research and clinical diagnostics of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and associated clinicians at the Austin Hospital. After this extensive research career, I embarked on science education with a graduate diploma from Latrobe University. I have since taught in different private and public schools, and at the STEM specialist centre GTAC. I hope my current role at St Albans Secondary College will form one of the stepping stones that sets other children and teenagers on the path to exploration and discovery.

Heidi Seltmann

My name is Heidi and I’ll be working with year 10 students as a Literacy Improvement Teacher. I’ve spent a lot of time teaching Literacy skills, VCAL, Art and Careers at a much smaller school on the other side of town, but am excited to be starting my new role here at SASC.

I have quite a few pets at home, courtesy of my three kids’ love of animals – a cat, a dog, a guinea pig, and our latest additions, Bob and Linda the stick insects.  I also love to read, paint, and sculpt.

I'm looking forward to working with students on improving their reading, writing and speaking skills next Term.