Mrs. Oksman serves as an Administrative Assistant for the Air Force ROTC Detachment 550 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She holds down the fort at the front desk, assists with Cadets, staff scheduling, data entry, TEAMS and WINGS accounts, filing, and works in tandem with RPI Business Manager Ms. Jeanette Cassino and newly appointed Business Manager Carly Brackett on the AFROTC budget.

Prior to joining the AFROTC DET 550 Cadre, Mrs. Oksman was a middle and high school English teacher in New York City for nearly eight years. Mrs. Oksman has also done Disaster Relief work with AMERICORPS*VISTA in Jackson, MS after Hurricane Katrina in 2006. She and her husband moved upstate from the Bronx after the pandemic, and she decided to try a different line of work. She landed here at RPI with the best cadre on the planet and could not love working with her colleagues and the cadets more. It is a fantastic place to be!

While Mrs. Oksman is a civilian herself, she is quite proud of the many military members in her family which include her younger brother, Sgt. FC Benjamin Lamb, who has been in the Army since he was 19 and has had seven deployments. He is stationed at Fort Drum. She also has two nephews in the military: Jonah Ravdo (Spec. Ops, ARMY) and Keegan Larvie (ARMY). Mrs. Oksman’s late father, Sgt. Dennis Barton was in the New Jersey National Guard for nearly 30 years< She also has two uncles who were both in the USAF and both served in Vietnam, as well as her former stepfather Bernard Lamb, who is a Green Beret and served in Vietnam.

Although Mrs. Oksman's childhood hometown is Bellows Falls, Vermont, she lived in Troy on and off for nearly twenty years, starting as an undergrad at Russell Sage College where she earned her B.A. in English with honors, with a minor in History. 

Mrs. Oksman currently lives with her husband Peter Oksman and their two cats Flink and Tigger in Troy, NY. 

In her off time, Mrs. Oksman is a published essayist and poet, loves the call of the printed page (particularly Shakespeare), and has a deep love of nature and animals. 

Education

2013 M.A. Teachers College, Columbia University, teaching of English, grades 6-12
2004 B.A. Russell Sage College, ELA Major, History Minor, Cum Laude

Achievements, Awards, and Organizations

2002 - Sigma Tau Delta - English Honors Award
2004 - Athenians - History Society
2000 - 2004 Medua - Women's Writing Group
2003 - Encore! - Sage Theater Group
2001 - 2004 Editor and Reporter of The Quill, Russell Sage College newspaper, 2001 - 2004
2002 - 2004 Editorial board and contributor - Russell Sage Review, Russell Sage literary magazine (now known as "The Rev")
2004 - Russell Sage Humanities Award
2004 - Audre Lorde Poetry Prize, second place (RSC)
2003 - Helen McKinstry Endowed Scholarship (RSC)
2000 - Transfer Scholarship
2002 - 2016 Ran several creative writing groups and theater clubs for young people and adults both in college, grad school, and as an educator
1994 - 2004 Performed in numerous amateur theater productions.
2015 - "The Beauty of Being Average" - Personal essay published in the online magazine MUSE
2023 - Has a writing blog on the website Medium.com
2023 - Voluputous Breakdown - poem, The Hudson Valley Writer's Guild
2021 - present Congregation Berith Sholom, Troy, NY - Board of Trustees member 2021-present