Kindergarten
1st grade
3rd grade
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Kindergarten |
1st grade |
3rd grade |
Brief Biography
I grew up in Grenchen, Switzerland. Grenchen is a small city along the edge of the Jura mountains. It is known for its watches (have you every heard of the Swatch?). I have a younger sister, Nathalie Schindler. I spoke French with my parents, Swiss German with my friends in the neighborhood, and German at school. In 5th grade, my class was introduced to French. Throughout my 7 1/2 years at the Gymnasium in Solothurn I had 5-6 hours of Latin each week. I learned English at school, starting when I was in 8th grade and Spanish when I was in 10th grade. I picked up some Italian on the way...
After the Matura (high-school diploma), I completed a one year course for tri-lingual Executive Assistants in Bern (capital of Switzerland). Subsequently, I moved to Geneva to work for Digital Equipment Corporation (now Hewlett Packard). Three years later, I was offered a job in London, England. I was the Software Library Manager for Unix Europe, enticing software companies to develop new software programs using the UNIX operating system. I moved back to Geneva a year later and accepted a job as a Financial Analyst at Apollo Computers (now Hewlett Packard).
My husband, Dr. Michael Cherney (physics department at Creighton University), our two boys, Raphael and Sebastien, and I moved to Omaha in 1989. We returned to Switzerland for one year in 1994. I graduated from Creighton University with a B.A. (summa cum laude) in psychology in 1996. I pursued my graduate studies in cognitive development at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and got my M.A. in 1999, and my Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln in 2001.
Something unique about myself? I have visited 25 different countries and 46 states. My maiden name is Schindler (yes, like the movie) and my place of origins are Rothenbach im Emmental and Couvet.