Born in Haiti to a Haitian father and a Russian mother, Marie-Line Lochard grew up in a multicultural family, and as a result is fluently trilingual. While attending the Holton-Arms School for girls in Bethesda, M.D., Marie-Line was an avid pianist and performed often at venues such as Strathmore in North Bethesda and Carnegie Hall in NYC. She attended Duke University and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a double major in English and French and a minor in Political Science. As she had spent a year of her undergraduate degree studying at Sciences-Po in Paris, Marie-Line decided to return and pursue her master’s degree through Columbia’s HILI Program. At HILI, Marie-Line hopes to more deeply understand war and violence through an analysis of 20th and 21st century women literary and philosophical figures, and the experience of total war through the female gaze.