Igniting the Spark for Young Readers: Education Advocate Steve Mirabello ’25 Awarded Smith Scholarship
June 2, 2025
- Author
- Mary Elizabeth DeAngelis
Steve Mirabello spent his college years learning everything he could about education.
What countries do it best? How do you engage struggling readers? Where does local, state and federal funding do the most good? And how do you sell reluctant lawmakers on the value of such investments?
He started this quest in high school, when he recruited classmates to tutor children in Washington, D.C., and saw their reading improve dramatically. When the pandemic ended in-person tutoring, he launched a program to keep the sessions going through e-books and Zoom. The high school volunteers logged in more than 4,000 sessions.
At Davidson College, he immersed himself into researching the economics and politics of education. He spent one summer interning at the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, where he learned how the funding process determines policy outcomes. He spent the next summer interning with Read Charlotte, a non-profit dedicated to supporting early literacy. There, he helped develop curriculum and later co-founded a tutoring initiative at Davidson K-8, this time recruiting students from the college.
His commitment to learning, his passion for giving all children the opportunity to succeed, and his leadership are among the many reasons he received this year’s W. Thomas Smith Scholarship.
At Davidson, Mirabello double majored in philosophy, politics and economics and French and Francophone Studies. He’ll head to the London School of Economics and Political Science in the fall to pursue a Master of Science degree in philosophy and public policy.
For Steve, earning an A was never enough. He treats every assignment as a chance to explore, to challenge, and sit with the exciting discomfort that comes with the hardest intellectual problems.
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Layman and other professors predict Mirabello’s accomplishments will continue to accumulate.
“Steve is one of the most academically gifted, emotionally mature, and socially conscious students I’ve taught at Davidson,” Layman said. “He has so far only scratched the surface of what he can do as a leader.”
An Environmental Commitment
Mirabello grew up in Washington D.C. His dad, Thomas, is a mechanical and systems engineer. His mom, Mary Ann Svec, worked as a Good Housekeeping magazine food writer and associate editor before leaving that role to raise him and his twin brother, Rob, who graduated from Swarthmore College last month.
Mirabello came to Davidson as a Belk Scholar and served as the class of 2025 president for his first two years before heading to France to study at the Sorbonne during fall semester of his third. He’s fluent in French.
As class president, he led the launch of the Student Government Association’s Green Fund, following through with his campaign priorities for improving sustainability at Davidson.
One of the fund’s projects involved installing outdoor air quality monitors, which was highlighted in the Discovery Education K-12 STEM curriculum video “Can Air Make You Sick?.” Because of the feasibility analysis he designed to ensure relevant campus staff are connected to projects, the air monitors and online dashboard will continue to operate and support environmental justice goals in the town of Davidson even after he and project leader Bailey Scarlett ’25 have left campus.
“Collaborating with Steve revealed a values-led, strategic thinker who identifies key stakeholders, listens and adapts to their feedback,” said Yancy Fouché, sustainability director at Davidson. “He is remarkable for his focus in addressing complex problems; his maturity in building and maintaining genuine relationships with people of all ages and backgrounds; and for the breadth and depth of his scholarship and research.”
He's also an avid Ultimate Frisbee player and played for Davidson’s club team.
“That’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever done,” he said. “It was so great to be part of a group dedicated to one goal.”
Alas, it also brought him a touch of heartbreak in spring when his team lost to the University of Richmond in their match to go to Nationals.
Steve with his Ultimate Frisbee teammates at Davidson
Tutor, Researcher
Mirabello has tackled education at all levels. During his college years, he traveled to Northern Ireland, France and Japan to research how their national histories shape their current policies.
Locally, he completed extensive phonics training based on the Orton-Gillingham method. He tutored a student at the Ada Jenkins Center for two years, and when he returned in January of his junior year after spending the fall semester in France, was amazed by how much the child — and his reading skills — had grown. He finds great joy in working with elementary school students and seeing “the magic that happens when it clicks for them."
Mirabello, Nina Worley ’26 and Chloe Killinger ’27 founded Davidson Reads with help from Rebeca Fernández, associate professor of writing and educational studies. They based their model on Read Charlotte’s program, a free evidence-based reading intervention that requires minimal tutor training and experience. Instead, busy college students show up for their twice-weekly sessions and develop a rapport with the kids as they help them improve their reading skills.
“From the moment I met him,” Fernández said, “he seemed to be in a class of his own — someone who could one day transform American education.”
Professors describe Mirabello as a thorough, meticulous researcher.
At Davidson, he worked with Educational Studies Professor Chris Marsicano, founding director of the College Crisis Initiative (C2i), where he compiled and analyzed a database of unionizing efforts in colleges and universities since 2000.
The database formed the basis of his senior thesis on workplace liberty and labor organizing in higher education, which won the college’s Frontis W. Johnston Award for the best Center for Interdisciplinary Studies thesis.
Steve Mirabello’s C2i presentation at the 2024 Comparative and International Education Society Conference in Miami
“Steve’s accomplishments and scholarly output have established him as a national-level talent in education policy,” Marsicano said. “He consistently identifies society’s greatest challenges and seeks ways his talents can contribute to solving them.”
That combination of being able to connect with kids, compile data that establishes patterns and outcomes that others can learn from and serve in so many leadership positions sets Mirabello apart, professors say.
“Steve demonstrates high character of the very first order,” Layman said. “His aim is to launch a career in educational public policy as a means of effecting real liberty for all, whether through democracy in workplaces, opportunity in higher ed, or access to transformative literacy programming at the grade school level.”
Mirabello’s skills and accomplishments offer many possible futures, but public service has his heart.
“Lucrative careers in finance and related fields are wide open to him,” Layman said. “He has chosen the course that he believes best positions him to tear down the social and political walls that create barriers to equal freedom.”
The Smith Scholarship competition is administered through the Office of Fellowships. For more information about the Office of Fellowships or applying for the Smith Scholarship, visit davidson.edu/fellowships.
