PEG Staff

Stephanie Ferguson, PhD
PEG Director
After earning her bachelor’s degree in education from Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Ferguson began teaching middle and high school reading and English, both in Pennsylvania and in Louisiana. Six years into her teaching career, she found a position working with gifted children grades 6–8 and got her first glimpse of Mary Baldwin’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. Dr. Ferguson was working on her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from Southeastern Louisiana University at the time, and she investigated PEG while she focused on gifted studies as a concentration for her degree. She completed her doctorate — with a concentration in gifted studies — at The University of Southern Mississippi. Her dissertation on moral development and self-concept among gifted residential high school students explored many of the elements present in MBC’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. She has done extensive research on social and emotional issues of gifted students, about which she has published a book, Social and Emotional Teaching Strategies, a textbook chapter, “Affective Education: Addressing the Social and Emotional needs of Gifted Students in the Classroom,” and several journal and newsletter articles. In her spare time, she enjoys entertaining her three cats, Neko, Joss, and Jain, writing (both for work and pleasure), reading, needlework, and riding motorcycles with her husband, Bruce.

Christy Baker
Associate Director of Student Life
Christy Baker graduated from James Madison University with a BA in speech communication and minors in Spanish and English. She began working with PEG in 2000 as a Residence Life Coordinator, transitioning to Assistant Director of PEG Student Life in 2003. Christy is a member of the Administrative Processes Improvement Team at Mary Baldwin College. She also represents PEG and MBC on the Boarding Schools Social Activities Committee. One of Christy’s favorite aspects of working with PEG is collaborating with students and staff to create a varied and exciting activities calendar each month. In her spare time, Christy enjoys shopping, reading, and traveling with her husband Mike, and she is currently learning to play tennis and racquetball. 

Iris Keogh
Residential Life Coordinator
Iris Keogh is originally from New Jersey (though she's lived in five other states and one other country). After being a TV news reporter for five years she is changing careers. Iris is a first year graduate student studying elementary education in Mary Baldwin's Master of Arts in Teaching Program. Iris is a certified fitness instructor and a lover of the outdoors.

Gretchen Watson,
Assistant Director of PEG Admissions
Gretchen is a recent resident of the Shenandoah Valley, having moved to Crozet, VA on July 1, 2007. A graduate of Allegheny College (listed in Loren Pope’s Colleges that Change Lives) in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 2003 with a BA in Theatre, she took her first job at the Erie Zoological Society as the Outreach Coordinator. During her tenure she completely revitalized the traveling environmental science curriculum while also developing a new full day summer camp program for 12-16 year olds and helping to coordinate volunteers for the zoo’s education department. Her first foray into the realm of higher education was that of admissions counselor at Thiel College, a small liberal-arts college in northwestern Pennsylvania, where she traveled to the far reaches of eastern and central Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia recruiting traditional freshmen. Gretchen’s personal philosophy when it comes to admissions is that of her role as "counselor", enjoying the interactions between students, their parents, and her role in the mix when it comes to finding the right "fit" in an institution for a student with various aspirations and talents. She is especially excited about working for PEG due to its importance in creating a nurturing, intellectually challenging environment for exceptional young women, something that she feels is desperately lacking in our current society. In her spare time she enjoys being active in community theatre, reading, writing, playfully annoying her golden retriever “Blondie”, and generally pining after her Burmese cat “Tanq”, left behind in the wilds of Pennsylvania.

Winsor Woods
Residential Life Coordinator

Melody Roberts
Assistant Director of PEG Operations
Melody Roberts was born in Alabama, but has lived most of her life in Virginia. She currently resides in Nelson County with her husband, Gregg, their three rescued shelter dogs, Rambler, Cadbury, and Mary Jane, and their “free” cat, Freebie. Growing up, Melody acquired an affinity for animals, especially horses, when she worked as an equestrian trainer. For the last 12 years, Melody worked with gifted/enrichment programming at the University of Virginia. In her spare time, Melody enjoys working on her parents’ farm, volunteering to work with shelter animals, and “watching the world go by” from the hammock on her back porch.