Institute Staff

Jason Pedicone

Jason Pedicone, the co-founder and President of the Paideia Institute, received his Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University in 2013. Jason has taught courses in Latin, Greek, and the history of Classical Scholarship at the university level in the U.S. and Western Europe, and is an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College and Fordham University. Jason’s research and public speaking focus on public humanities and Latin and Greek pedagogy. Jason received a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Germany in 2004, and a Jacob Javits Fellowship in 2013 to support his graduate work.  In 2015, together with Paideia's co-founder, Eric Hewett, Jason was awarded the President’s Award by the Society for Classical Studies for outstanding achievements in promoting the study of Classics. He lives in Manhattan.

Eugene Cunningham

Gene is Paideia's Assistant Director for European Operations. He received his B.A. in Classics from the University of California, Berkeley. He participated in Living Latin in Rome in 2013 and Living Greek in Greece in 2012 and 2013, and Living Latin in Paris in 2013. He was Paideia's Rome Fellow for 2013-2014. He currently lives in Rome and manages Paideia's Classical Tours in Europe.

Ilias Kolokouris

Jonathan Meyer

Jonathan Meyer holds degrees from Calvin College, Yale University, and the University of Kentucky, where he took part in the active Latin program at the Institute for Latin Studies. He is primarily interested in Latin of the Renaissance to the modern period. He was a regular member at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece, and a fellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies in Innsbruck, Austria. He also studied under Reginald Foster. Since 2014 he has been an instructor for Living Latin in Rome and has taught occasional courses for Telepaideia. He is currently the primary instructor for Paideia's Rome fellowship. 

Marco Romani Mistretta

A native of Rome, Marco Romani Mistretta studied Classics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and received a PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard University before joining the Paideia Institute. Besides being the author of several research articles, he has taught a number of courses on ancient languages, Greek and Roman literatures, and science in antiquity.

Eric Simpson

Eric, Paideia's Chief Development Officer, received his B.A. in Classics from Yale College in 2011, and is now a Fellow of his residential college, Saybrook. He joined the Paideia Institute in 2018 after five years as a magazine editor. A violinist since age four, he has contributed numerous reviews and articles on classical music to The Wall Street Journal, The Classical Review, and The Hopkins Review. 

Nancy Vander Veer

Nancy Vander Veer is the Programs Manager at the Paideia Institute. She previously taught Latin and Music at the Marymount School of New York and is a graduate of Samford University.

Luca Campomori

Before Luca became the bookkeeper for Italian branch of the Paideia Institute, he graduated with a degree in Business Studies and Foreign Languages (English, French and Spanish) in Rome. He held several jobs (sales assistant, warehouseman, secretary) before working in a tax service center and then at an accounting firm. In his free time he loves to go to the cinema, travel, take photos and, when the weather is nice, do some trekking.

Jamel Daugherty

After almost a decade of teaching languages, Jamel left the classroom to focus on writing curriculum. After teaching 5th grade Latin at Washington Latin Public Charter School, she developed materials for the Aequora program, served as a subject matter expert for the Institute's Summer Humanities Internship in 2017, and joined as a full time curriculum designer for 2018. She holds degrees in Classics and Letters from the University of Oklahoma and is pursuing a M.A. in Educational Technology Leadership from George Washington University. Outside classics and linguistics, Jamel is particularly interested in Irish archaeology and literature. She lives near Washington, DC with her husband, young son, and feisty calico.

David Hewett

David Hewett is Paideia’s Outreach Manager for Classical Tours. He has an M.A. in Classics from the University of Virginia and began a dissertation there on Seneca’s Epistulae Morales, before taking his position at Paideia. He has been a Regular Member of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens, a student at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, and holds a B.A. in Classical Studies from Dickinson College. In addition to this formal education, he studied with Reginald Foster in Rome, has attended numerous Conventicula, and has lived and traveled extensively in England, Germany, Turkey, & Egypt. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., managing Paideia’s European and American tours and teaching Latin and Greek online in Telepaideia.

Emma Wynne

Emma Wynne is a class of 2018 graduate of Christendom College with her B.A. in Classical and Early Christian Studies. While her interests are diverse, she particularly loves Virgil and Augustan poetry. In her free time, she can be spotted exploring new places, especially those with historical significance, music, and/or coffee. She is an alumna of Living Greek in Greece, and is excited to join the Paideia Institute in Rome.