I was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. My mother worked as a nurse and named me after her supervisor, Soeur Hélène, who was a powerful figure in her life.  I grew up among the trees in the country side of Laval before moving to Vancouver for five years. I also lived on Oahu, Hawaii, for a year; Tucson, Arizona, for eight years, Austin, Texas, for two years, and now in Nashville, Tennessee, since 2004. I have had many nicknames over this landscape. For the past decade I have enjoyed being called Elle, pronounced as the one letter L.

My coming into the role of teacher sneaked up on me by surprise. I loved scuba diving and a local group asked me to teach a class of freshwater ecology. I loved it! During grad school I was a teaching assistant for more classes that I can count, but it is when I began to work with the National Science Foundation to develop science curriculum at the K-12 levels working with teachers in their classrooms that my interest in education really began to take center stage. Moving to Austin we were lucky to be able to enroll our 2 year old son in the All Austin Cooperative Nursery School. There I fell in love with the Reggio way of teaching and discovered how much I adore working with younger students. I have now gone to Reggio Emilia, Italy, and visited many Reggio inspired schools in the USA as well as trained with the Italian educators here. I want to continue to learn alongside people of all ages.

Create an educational journey to inspire the world in transforming our relationships to learning that serves the whole person.

When I was young I wanted to be a pirate with a hook, then a veterinarian, then a marine biologist. I did not want to have children, or do anything that was remotely associated with typical female roles. I have to laugh!  Being a parent and playing a role in helping other parents, as humbling and challenging experiences they prove to be, are the most wonderful gifts of my life.