Biography

Personal

Leslie has lived in Newton since 1970, when she and her husband Alan moved here from Boston, attracted by Newton's excellent schools, its proximity to their jobs in Boston and Cambridge, and its diverse neighborhoods and people. Their son Scott was born in 1973, graduated from Newton North, and now lives in Brooklyn. After working in biochemistry at Arthur D. Little for many years, Alan passed away in 1992. Now retired from teaching at Northeastern, Leslie does pro bono consulting in education, is active in urban issues, and enjoys Newton life.

Politics

Running for Alderman at Large in 2005 was Leslie's first campaign for elected office. She is now seeking a second term. She is a lifelong social and political activist and active volunteer in campaigns for other candidates, including Mel King and Tom Atkins, and more recently, Tim Schofield in Boston and Jesse Gordon in Cambridge. She was a very early supporter of Deval Patrick and a volunteer in his successful campaign for governor.

Presently, Leslie is working to oppose the construction, by Boston University, of a Level 4 Bio-containment laboratory that would experiment with pathogens for which we currently have no antidotes. BU has sited this lab near its Medical School in the heart of Boston and in the center of a low income Black and Hispanic neighborhood. As a Newton Alderman at Large, she co-docketed a resolution in opposition to this project that was passed by the Board of Aldermen. On September 20th, she testified against the biolab at a public hearing held by the National Institutes of Health.

She is an active member of Newton's Ward 3 Democratic Committee and of the Newton chapter of Democracy of America since its founding. She is also a charter member of a core committee that has begun exploring the possibility of a review and revision of Newton's Charter.

Professional

Leslie is Emerita Professor at Northeastern University, where she was a faculty member in Education for 33 years, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in Reading, Writing, Disabilities, and Curriculum. She has a doctorate in Reading and Learning Disabilities from Boston University, where she also studied Urban Education, and post doctoral study at MIT in Linguistics, and at BU in Applied Psycholinguistics.

She has served as Director of Tutor Training for United South End Developments and South End Neighborhood Action and has authored articles and a textbook on reading supervision. She was a member of the education subcommittee on Needs Assessment for the Transition to Work Collaborative and Project Hope in Dorchester, and has conducted pro bono tutor training workshops for them and for the Bell Foundation in Roxbury. She has consulted to numerous public school systems, social and educational agencies, and parent groups.