Heidi O'Donnell eastman
Founder & Creator
World travel, the sea and ships are part of Heidi's DNA. Her grandfather and great grandfather were shipbuilders on the River Clyde; her father circumnavigated the globe more than 50 times as a merchant marine. She grew up sailing out of the port of Provincetown on Cape Cod where her artistic mother gravitated post WWII. Heidi's mother was also a cartographer for the US Navy during the war.
Educated in Europe and the US, Heidi studied at the Universite d'Aix-Marseille, UMASS Amherst, the Ecole du Louvre, Paris, and the Rhode Island School of Design. She received her master's degree from New York University's Institute of French Studies.
Heidi has been an educator for 22 years, and taught at the university level, secondary level and primary level. Among her accomplishments, in 2015 Heidi was nominated National History Teacher of the Year by the prestigious Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History and she co-founded the French American School of Rhode Island.
Outside of education, she is a designer and artist; Heidi is co-owner of Belle Maison Westport - a studio specializing in Fine Art+Interiors+Architecture. Above all else, Heidi loves the world she lives in, and the people and places within that world. She created the Port to Port Connections program in 2012 as a way to synthesize multiple disciplines while exploring the world around us and become stewards of our heritage.
Contact her at heastman@porttoportconnections.com
Sabrina fay
Sabrina Fay is the designer of this website, primary author of the blog, photographer of the field studies and student journals, and a Port to Port student herself. Passionate about the intersection of culture, history, art, and storytelling that Port to Port creates, Sabrina decided to spend her senior year of high school (2018) working as an intern with Heidi to collaborate on telling the "digital story" of this class.
Contact her at sfay@glcpsdocs.org
Quinn johnston & Gabriel Johnson
Quinn Johnston and Gabriel Johnson (‘19) were the two interns for Mrs. Heidi Eastman. They worked on the Port to Port connections website throughout their 2018-19 school year. Quinn had worked on writing posts for the website and keeping it up to date with events going on through this year. Gabriel was the photographer, video and photo editor. He went on the field study trips along side with Heidi Eastman and documented the trips through the camera lense. Gabriel also updated the Port to Port website by adding his photos to the website.
Kaila Howard
Kaila Howard is a high school senior from the graduating class of 2020. She is a designer and author on this website, and manages much of the content and posts. She is an aspiring English professor, but has a personal interest in art, history, and travel. She works with Heidi Eastman as an intern, helping to manage the Port to Port website and learning about digital storytelling along the way.
Contact her at khoward@glcpsdocs.org
the port to port class!
The Port to Port class is an endlessly spinning carousel of unique faces, backgrounds, and talents that comprise a vast array of individuals. Inspired by their world history class, multiple Port to Port students have travelled to Ireland and spent two weeks at the University College Dublin's pre-college program. The students of Port to Port leave the class with a great deal of knowledge, a strong ethic of hard work, and a vibrant desire to be global citizens.