Maya Lawrence - Ivy@50

Maya Lawrence is in Europe, working as an "assistante d'angalis" at a lycee (fix) (high school) in Paris, through a program administered by the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. She's also training with some of the world's best fencers in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.

It's a hard path -- competing on a world-class level in preparation for the Olympics, while beginning as a teacher of English as a second language. And Lawrence could have picked an easier venue for this training. When she arrived in France in September 2005 she "didn't know the language. If you start [speaking] in English they get mad at you," she says, "but if you try first in French they're fine."

But then Lawrence is used to this dual path. Perhaps it started when she chose to attend Princeton. A native of Teaneck, N.J., she believes "almost every student in New Jersey knows about Princeton!" For her, the decision to go was because "it has a stellar academic reputation, but fencing was also a factor in my decision. It seemed natural to choose the school with the best of both worlds."

Arriving at Princeton in the fall of 1998, Lawrence immediately started her athletic and academic tracks. Fencing began slowly until long-time Princeton coach Michael Sebastiani suggested she had the potential to become a champion -- if she committed to a more rigorous training regimen that combined both conditioning and fencing fundamentals.

For Stephen Eschenbach's full story, please visit Ivy@50.