The York School 2024/25 Year in Review - Alumni Spotlight: The Engelhart Siblings - Katie '05, Luke'06 and Sally '08

In February 2025, when Katie Engelhart ‘05 was back at The York School to talk with students in the Diploma Program about her career path, Middle School Principal Ms. Helen Gin surprised her with a special memento from the school’s archives. It was a short story that Katie wrote in Grade 3.

Katie loved reading and writing from an early age, and is now a journalist and contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. In 2024, she won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for her article, “The Mother Who Changed: A Story of Dementia.” Twenty years after graduating from York, Katie is grateful for the teachers who recognized and helped foster the passions that fuel her career. 
Katie and her siblings, Luke ‘06 and Sally ‘08, have a unique relationship with York. They each entered the school at the age of 2 ½, when it was a small Montessori nursery school. As the siblings embraced their curiosity and formed lasting friendships with their classmates, York evolved into an IB World School. Their mother, Susan Paul, played a pivotal role in the school’s transformation. As Chair of the Board of Directors from 1995-2000 (she served on the Board from 1993-2008), she provided strategic advice as the school navigated its move to 1320 Yonge and settled into the new location.

Like Katie, Luke and Sally have fond memories of learning at York. A Challenge Week trip to the Yukon gave Luke the opportunity to form close bonds with his classmates and spend time in an environment that was completely different from his life in Toronto. “When you go outside your comfort zone and see people living in tough situations, it changes your perspective and makes you feel grateful,” says Luke. Today, Luke is a National Account Executive at Deel, a software company that provides HR tools that help organizations expand globally. 
Sally is a physician in the division of General Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. She remembers a Middle School science fair project that gave her an opportunity to explore her interest in cardiovascular health. She showed younger students pictures of funny or scary images while using a plug-in on her laptop to generate electrocardiograms (ECG). “I think my conclusion was that if you could get a high heart rate response by showing someone scary pictures, maybe instead of exercising, there was a benefit to watching scary things,” says Sally, chuckling about the conclusion that made sense to her younger self.

The bonds that Katie, Luke and Sally formed as they grew up at The York School remain strong today. They all have close friends who are former classmates, and Sally says coming back to the school for retirement parties and reunions gives her “a warm, fuzzy feeling.”
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