Brian Cherry

Brian “The Juice” Cherry hails from South Bend, Indiana. He is majoring in civil engineering with the intention of going on to graduate school to earn a doctorate. He has been with writing centers for two years, one of which was spent at Purdue North Central. For fun, this devilishly charming gentleman enjoys reading, studying, basketball, and weight lifting.

"The best part about being a tutor is getting to work with different levels of writers. It can be very challenging at times, but equally rewarding," he says. The aspect of writing he enjoys most is technical writing. Some of his stronger tutoring abilities are with structure, organization, and thesis statements. His only weakness is with remembering the naming of the different word tenses, which he thinks is probably due to the vast amounts of technical writing he does. Brian credits his success at tutoring to his unique style, saying, " I play the background role, providing advice and strategies for improvement. I know I get confused sometimes when people try to teach me using concepts and theories, so I try and break things down into everyday terms and examples."

Lauren Coros

Lauren Coros hails from Valparaiso, Indiana. She is a senior in secondary English education who is looking forward to teaching high school English and Shakespeare. She has been on the Purdue Golduster Pom Squad for the past four years and has been the captain for the past two. During the summer, Lauren is a dance instructor for Fred J. Miller Clinics, teaching dance and motivation techniques all over the country. In addition to working as a tutor in the Writing Lab and at Snowbear Frozen Custard throughout the school year, Lauren also works with the Lafayette Junior Miss Scholarship Program.

Tutoring in the Writing Lab for a year has given Lauren the opportunity to help her peers with the overall flow and coherence of papers. Majoring in English education, Lauren is patient and has had a lot of experience in instruction, both with her peers and with high school students. Lauren tutors with a holistic approach, preferring to focus on the paper as a whole rather than center the tutorial on specific paragraphs, such as the conclusion.

Molly McClure

Molly was born and raised in West Lafayette and has bled black and gold all of her life. She is a senior in the School of Liberal Arts, majoring in English literature with minors in Spanish, women’s studies, and possibly communications or psychology. She loves to edit and works at the Exponent as the news editor. After graduation, she hopes to have a job somewhere in the publishing industry. She is fascinated by the differences between the Writing Lab and the Exponent and is constantly pondering all the different angles of the editing vs. tutoring debate.
Because she is an editor, Molly tries to help students with trends in their grammar problems. That is not her only focus, though; she also tries to ensure that students have strong introductions and conclusions with a clear thread of thought tying everything together. She enjoys helping people become better writers and tries to implement Writing Lab practices at the Exponent to improve not just the quality of the stories but also the quality of the reporters.

Katie Jungbluth

Katie Jungbluth is a senior in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Program who would love to help you become a better writer! In addition to studying and working in the Writing Lab, Katie enjoys working out, hanging out with friends, and reading. She is a native Texan who loves to try random things (which can also be seen with how well her major relates to working in the Writing Lab), so there is no telling where she will end up for her graduate school studies.

She has been working in the lab since second semester of her sophomore year, and she has always enjoyed thesis development and helping with organization. She can also provide unique guidance to all of the science-based students who do not deal with this “English stuff” on a regular basis. She has even come up with some tricks for remembering those tedious grammar rules! So come in and see her, and as an added bonus she will tell you a fact about punctuation and spacing that you would not believe!

Chris Balmer

Chris was born and raised in Pennsylvania but has spent time in other places around the world. He followed his parents here to Lafayette, where he is a sophomore majoring in interpersonal communication. He is hoping to get the most diverse education possible and is looking forward to taking as much time as possible to finish school.
Chris is easy-going and loves to help people. He is great at helping with organization and flow. He says, “I just love it when writing is smooth and has personal flavor. I am always excited when I can help people express themselves within their writing.”
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Jamie Walker

Jamie is an English education major and will be student teaching in the fall of 2004. This is her second semester as a UTA in the Writing Lab. Jamie works really well with commas, verb tense, articles, and surprisingly enough, thesis statements and conclusions. She dreads working on transitions between paragraphs, but tolerates them when necessary. Jamie really enjoys tutoring; her most favorite moments are when the light bulb finally goes off in students’ heads and they get what she is saying. She loves working with all kinds of students and enjoys reading their papers. Writing papers is probably one her favorite things to do. Finishing a really hard and long paper assignment is liberating. Jamie lives in Windsor Hall, where she has been a staff resident for the past three years. She has a passion for books, movies, and music. At the moment, she’s trying to learn Spanish.

Laura Bradley

Laura is from Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is a sophomore in the School of Liberal Arts, majoring in sociology and working towards three minors: English, Spanish, and statistics. However, she is still in the beginning stages of all of these. Treasurer of the Purdue Cycling Club, her passion for bicycling is in touring. Her favorite place to ride is along the shores of Lake Michigan, but she is always open to exploring new places on her bike. Laura’s favorite part about writing and tutoring is watching the construction of an idea into a well-thought-out piece of work, whether it be a research paper or a poem. She likes working on the thesis and outlining a paper to make sure it is organized. She admits some trouble cutting out parts in revision, but she has learned to grin and bear it. Laura is excited about working in the Writing Lab because she struggled with writing for many years and understands how frustrating it can sometimes be.

Scott Peters

Scott is from Rolling Meadows, Illinois, and is majoring in secondary English education. Scott hopes to teach high school English near his home town and one day teach college. This is his first semester as a peer tutor. Outside of the Writing Lab, Scott is involved with Boiler Gold Rush and the Purdue Trap and Skeet Team and also works for the Office of Admissions.

Claire Chaplinski

Claire is from Bourbonnais, Illinois, and is a sophomore in the School of Liberal Arts. She is majoring in communication and political science and minoring in Spanish. Claire enjoys working out, hanging out with friends, and attending collegiate and professional sporting events, especially the Chicago Bears summer training camp in her hometown. This will be her first semester working in the Writing Lab, and she is looking forward to helping students improve their writing skills through organization and the development of a clear thesis statement..