Directory

Currently serving as the executive assistant in the Headmaster’s Office, Christi Finegan joined the St. Mark’s community in 2015. She received the Superior Staff Performance Award in 2022. Previously, she held a similar position at the Hockaday School.

Lauren Fischer has been a member of the St. Mark’s community since 2019. As a Lower School faculty member, she teaches fourth grade humanities and life skills. She received the Ackerman Character Education Award in 2022 and holds a master’s degree in teaching from Manhattanville College. Prior to St. Mark’s, Fischer taught at two all-boys schools in New York and Connecticut at both third and fourth grade levels. Her master’s degree focus was on socialemotional work in elementary students, particularly regarding the intentional teaching of the concept of leadership. She has served on the Lower School admission committee multiple times and is a part-time coach for the St. Mark’s crew team.

David Fisher came to St. Mark’s in 2016 as chair of the History and Social Sciences Department after a more than 25-year career on the international school circuit. Prior to coming here, he taught in Malaysia, Argentina, the Phillipines, Oman and Bangladesh. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. Fisher, whose son Nathaniel graduated from here in 2023, has previously worked as an academic dean, department head and college counselor.

After playing football at Princeton University, Harry Flaherty spent brief stints with the New Orleans Saints, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dallas Cowboys before moving to the University of Tennessee, where he earned a law degree while coaching football in a graduate assistant role for the Volunteers’ football program. Coming to St. Mark’s in 2021, he now serves as head football coach, Upper School history teacher and adviser in the 11th and 12th grade rotations. Before joining St. Mark’s, Flaherty spent six years at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, where he served as a history teacher, head varsity football coach, assistant dean of Admission and housemaster for all ninth grade boarding boys.

In a career that began at St. Mark’s in 1989, Jan Forrester serves as assistant director of Development after previously serving as director of Communications for the School. A proud parent of Matt ‘93, she serves as the Office of Development and Alumni Relations liaison to the Parents’ Association and is the School archivist. A recipient of the Superior Staff Performance Award in 1999, Forrester has a B.A. degree from The University of Texas at Dallas, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Janis Oprea joined the St. Mark's School of Texas faculty in 1997 as a middle and upper school mathematics teacher, having previously been the Head of the Mathematics Department at Parkhill Junior High School in Richardson, Texas. A native of Michigan, she received her undergraduate degree from Michigan State University, and continued her education here in Texas, acquiring her Gifted and Talented certification and graduate credits in mathematics from Texas A&M in Commerce and University of Texas in Arlington. In addition to her teaching assignments, Mrs. Oprea also is the Head Coach of the middle school water polo and swimming teams, and is the College Board test site supervisor for the SAT testing program.

Josh Friesen joined the St. Mark’s faculty in 1998 and currently serves as associate athletic director. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and, after college graduation, worked at the Cooper Aerobics Center in 1997-1998 while coaching basketball and baseball part-time at St. Mark’s. The following year, 1998-1999, Friesen joined the St. Mark’s faculty full-time in the Athletic Department. Friesen serves as an eighth grade adviser, junior varsity volleyball coach, ninth grade basketball coach and eighth grade baseball coach. He received the Murrell Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013, the Senior Master Award in 2022 and was named Middle School Basketball Coach of the Year by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches for the 2003-2004 season.