Member 2008 - Present

2023 - USMS Dorothy Donnelly Service Award
2023 – NELMSC Contributor of the Year Award
2014 – NELMSC Contributor of the Year Award
2022 – Present - NELMSC BOD Championship Committee (Chair)
2015 – Present - NELMSC BOD Officials Chair
2024-Present – Cambridge Masters Swimming, Co-founder and Team Captain
2025 - USMS Certified Coach – Level 1, 2 &3
2015 - USMS Adult Learn to Swim Instructor
2014-2019 & 2022 - Ran “April is Adult Learn to Swim Month” program with teammates
USMS All American – 1 year, 1 Individual
USMS Top Ten Achievements – 55 Individual
NE LMSC Individual Records – 4 Current, 8 Lifetime

I grew up in Bristol, Connecticut, the daughter of entirely unathletic parents. I learned to swim at the age of 7 at the local Girls’ Club. At the age of 8, I had a brief stint with synchronized swimming. In my first of several brushes over time with swimming greatness, my teammates were 5-year-old twins Karen and Sarah Josephson who, much later, won gold and silver at two Olympic Games.

My family had a backyard pool. During the summer, I was in it daily, rain or shine, doing flips off the diving board, playing Marco Polo, swimming underwater, pretending to be a mermaid, and swimming at night in the pitch black. I taught myself to swim butterfly by jumping – arms extended - from the shallow end to the deep end.

In the summer, I swam with the Page Park Swim Team, just down the street, eating powdered Jello at swim meets between heats. In the winter, I swam for Coach David Tyler with the Greater Hartford AAU Suburban Swim Club (and with teammate Karen Smyers, future Triathlon World Champion). At St. Paul Catholic High School, as a senior I captained its swim team.

Burned out and tired of swimming, I did not swim in college. In its place, I started a running career, which continued for 29 years till 2007. During that time, I trained with the Greater Boston Track Club and competed in many races: 5K, 10K, sprint triathlon, and three marathons (Cape Cod and two Boston Marathons).

During those 29 years, I would jump into a pool from time to time, and considered joining a Master’s team, but my earlier swimming burnout held me back. The stars aligned in 2007 when a foot injury forced me to take a break from running and the middle of the day opened up because my kids were old enough to attend school. Cambridge Masters Swim Club at Harvard’s Blodgett pool offered coached noontime practices, and it has become my middle-of-the-day routine – and joy - for past 19 years.

I love being a part of a Master’s swim team, swimming 4-5 times a week. Now age 65, I pinch myself that I get to “play” every day with my friends, get daily exercise, while training hard for competitions. I am the current team’s “Captain” which means that behind the scenes, I am its primary administrator and on deck, its primary cheerleader.

Over the years, I have attended numerous New England regional and USMS national meets, as well as three FINA World championships (Göteberg, Sweden; Riccione, Italy; and Budapest, Hungary).

During the summer months, I swim with AquinAqua, an open water group on Martha’s Vineyard. We meet early mornings six days a week for a swim in Menemsha Pond, a beautiful way to start the day in the water under the big sky. I will be going on my first SwimTrek open water trip, to Greece, in the fall.

I have been with the love of my life, Rob Schiller, also a swimmer, since 1986, and married since 1992. Of course, our first date was a swim date, at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin War Memorial pool. There we raced and I beat him (although he disputes that). We have two children - Harry, a law student, Ruby, an art historian, and for nearly 14 years Duncan, our golden retriever.

I love to spend my spare time with my family, cook, entertain, travel, study French, bike, play the piano, and garden.

I am honored to be inducted into the 2025 Hall of Fame in the Contributor category.