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.

Gene Cunningham

Gene currently manages the development of Paideia’s self-paced online Latin and Greek curricula. He is also the head teacher for Living Greek in Greece (High School). He holds an M.A. in Ancient Philology with an Emphasis in Teaching Ancient and Modern Languages from the Polis Institute in Jerusalem, and a B.A. in Classical Languages from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been involved with the Institute in several roles since 2012, when he first participated in Paideia’s courses in Europe, including Living Latin in Rome, Living Greek in Greece, and Living Latin in Paris. He was then one of Paideia’s first Rome Fellows, and eventually served as Assistant Director for European Operations, in which capacity he directed logistics for Paideia’s Travel Programs and Classical Tours.

David Hewett

David Hewett is Paideia’s Outreach Manager for Classical Tours, as well as instructor in Telepaideia. He has an M.A. in Classics (2009) from the University of Virginia and began a dissertation there on Seneca’s Epistulae Morales, before starting his position at Paideia. He has been a Regular Member of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens (2011-12), a student at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (Spring 2005), and holds a B.A. in Classical Studies from Dickinson College (2006). In addition to this formal education, he studied with Reginald Foster in Rome (2006-07). He lives in Philadelphia.

Allegra Forbes

Allegra is the institute's Marketing Manager, as well as an alumna of Paideia's Living Greek in Greece and Summer Humanities Internship programs. In 2021 she earned her B.A. in Art History from Barnard College, where she wrote a thesis investigating the museum store as an apparatus of cultural capital and commodity fetishism. An occasional tutor of Ancient Greek history and literature, she is passionate about art and aesthetics from the Classical to the contemporary.

Fernando Morais

Fernando completed a master's in Ancient Philology from the Polis Institute of Languages and Humanities and a master's in Classics from the Washington University in St. Louis. He also holds an M.A. degree in Literary Studies and a B.A. in Ancient Greek from the Federal University of Parana. Fernando has been teaching Greek since 2008, and his research interests are focused on the history of education, platonism, self-knowledge in antiquity, and second language acquisition.

John Byron Kuhner

John Byron Kuhner is the former president of the North American Institute of Living Latin Studies (SALVI) and editor of the Paideia Institute's online magazine, In Medias Res.

Griffin Smith-Nichols

Griffin is a graduate of Cornell University with a B.A. in Latin and the College Scholar Program, and wrote a thesis for the latter on the Old Saxon Heliand poem, a 6,000 line alliterative verse epic retelling of the New Testament. He additionally received minors in German, religious studies, and medieval studies, and some of his scholarly passions include Greek and Latin Patristics, Biblical Hebrew, and Anglo-Saxon England. During his time as a student, he helped run Cornell’s undergraduate society for medieval scholarship, played in performances of Ancient Greek tragedy, and participated in reading groups in Latin and Old Norse. He is an alumnus of the 2017 Living Greek in Greece program.

Finn Mehigan

Finn is a graduate of the University Virginia, having received his
B.A. in Classics and Linguistics there in 2017. For the last five years
he has been teaching fifth-grade and Latin at the Heights School in
Potomac, MD. He has attended a number of programs focusing on
the active use of ancient languages, including Living Greek in
Greece. His interests include ancient drama, epic poetry from
Homer to Chesterton, and iconography.

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. 

Chikondi Medson

Chikondi Medson teaches classics at the University of Malawi. Originally from a rural village in Malawi, Chikondi is an alumnus of the Accademia Vivarium Novum. While in Rome, he attended undergraduate courses at the Università Pontificia Salesiana, where he graduated from in June, 2016, defending his dissertation entitled "Senecae Locus In Philosophia Stoica: De Hominis Libertate Fato Universa Regente." His interests include Seneca's Stoicism, Patristic literature and Lucian.

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. He currently directs the Institute's European branch and oversees all financial reporting, including income statements, balance sheets, and annual budgets. Besides being the author of several research publications, he has taught a number of courses on ancient languages, Greek and Roman literatures, and science in antiquity. He peer-reviews articles for Sage Business Cases and regularly lectures at Rome's Sapienza University.

Luca Campomori

Before Luca became the bookkeeper for the 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.

Gabriela D'Addario

Gabriela is a researcher, translator and humanist with 10 years of experience in international digital media. At companies like Google and BuzzFeed her roles have included business development, operations, and strategy & analytics. Other recent work includes translating a book from Italian into English; editing literature in translation; and fund-raising activities for arts and media non-profits. Gabriela graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Classics, and is currently pursuing a Master's degree from NYU in the experimental humanities. She sits on the board of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia Foundation, a New York-based international development NGO. Thanks to time spent living in Italy and Brazil, Gabriela speaks Italian and Portuguese; she loves to play volleyball and unearth the inner workings of New York City. She believes strongly in the importance of the humanities to illuminate a path forward in these challenging times, and in the value of bringing academic thought and process into the world beyond the academy.

Jamel Daugherty

After almost a decade of teaching languages, Jamel left the classroom to focus on writing curriculum. 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. Jamel holds degrees in Classics and Letters from the University of Oklahoma and an M.A. in Educational Technology & Leadership from George Washington University. Outside classics and linguistics, Jamel is particularly interested in Irish archaeology and literature. She currently lives in Valencia, Spain with her husband, young children, and feisty calico.

Nicholas Uram

Nicholas attended Living Latin in Rome with the Paideia Institute
the summer of 2019, and participated in Latin immersion program
Conventiculum Dickinsoniense the year before. He
graduated from Hillsdale College in 2020 where he received a B.A.
in Latin, and has since been teaching Latin at the middle and high
school levels at Highlands Latin School in Louisville, Kentucky.
Nicholas’ primary area of interest in classics include the poetry of
Homer, Vergil, and Ovid, as well as prose and verse composition.

Megan Buick

Megan Buick is the Online Programs Manager at the Paideia Institute. She studied Classics in Latin at the University of Iowa and under Reginald Foster in Milwaukee and has a Masters degree from Boston college in Philosophy & Theology.

Eleonora Vescovini

Gabriella Verdolini

Gaby Verdolini graduated from Occidental College in 2020 with a BA in
Art History with emphases in Greco-Roman and Renaissance art.
In her undergraduate studies she discovered writers and poets from
the Golden Age of Latin literature, as well as liturgical Latin. She is
particularly interested in the relationship between the visual and
literary cultures of the Renaissance. Gaby also has experience
tutoring Latin to college students. Her favorite rhetorical device is
chiasmus.

Sara Picciariello

Sara graduated in 2018 from the University of Aosta Valley in Languages and Communication for Business and Tourism. In 2016 she spent one year in France, attending the University of Savoy Mont Blanc in Chambery, which allowed her to get a double major in French. In 2017 she did a 5-month internship in Valencia (Spain), working as a receptionist in a hostel. She also has experience working as a hostess for international events. Sara's passions include languages, travels, and sports. She currently lives in Civitavecchia, near Rome, even though her origins are tied to the mountains around the Aosta Valley.

Aminata Hughes

Aminata Hughes has a B.A. in History with minors in Classical Civilization and Secondary Education from Saint Peter’s University. Her love of the classics was nurtured at The Brooklyn Latin School, where she earned a perfect paper on The National Latin Exam during her freshman year. As an undergraduate, she played Jocasta in Oedipus Rex as part of her university’s Greek Theater Project. Outside of the classics, she enjoys camping, Japanese comics and winning at trivia.

Amanda Carver

Amanda earned a B.A. in Classics and History with a minor in Modern Greek Studies from San Francisco State University. She holds an M.A. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Arizona and wrote her master's thesis on Nabatean funerary practices, for which she earned an outstanding thesis award. While taking a hiatus from the world of Classics, she had the privilege of working as a Special Education teacher in Washington and Arizona public schools. Amanda's current interests include learning Modern Greek and reading New Testament Koine Greek. She lives in Phoenix with her husband, three rambunctious sons, and sleepy Bluetick Coonhound.

Hannah Huzzey

Hannah Huzzey is from New Braunfels, Texas. She completed her BA in Classical Languages and Ancient Civilizations at the University of Iowa. Her main areas of academic interest are Latin language and literature, as well as Roman architecture with a particular focus on the use of marble in construction.

Federica Umbro

Maria Katsinopoulou

Maria received her B.A. in Archaeology from the University of Ioannina in Greece and an M.A. in Conservation of Cultural Heritage from the University of Siena. She knows the archaeological sites of Rome and Greece very well and has fifteen years of experience in teaching both Ancient and Modern Greek. She is a licensed tour leader and always in quest of new itineraries, suitable for the needs of every single request.

Shea O'Connor

Shea graduated in 2020 from the University of California, Santa
Cruz with a double major in Literature and Creative Writing and
Classical Studies. She is currently studying at the University of
Denver to obtain a masters degree in Library and Information
Science. She is an alumna of 2019 the Living Latin in Rome
program.

Shea hopes to unite her passions of archival studies,
Latin, writing, and teaching by promoting access to Latin
scholarship in underfunded high schools bringing visibility to the
language and Roman history through her writing.

Melissa Goot

Melissa was born and raised in Rome. She graduated from accounting school and started her career immediately thereafter. Melissa has worked as a sales promoter, accounting administrative assistant and sales representative in the luxury hospitality. She has participated in international trade shows promoting the excellence of Italian hospitality to the world’s most important buyers. In her free time, Melissa enjoys traveling and discovering new cultures.

Christopher Childers

Christopher Childers has a BA in Classics (2005) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry (2016) from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. In between, from 2005-2014, he taught Classics and Creative Writing at St. Andrew's School in Middletown, DE. He is currently in the tenth and, hopefully, final year of translating an anthology of Greek and Latin Lyric Poetry: from Archilochus to Martial, under contract with Penguin Classics. Some of his verse translations, from Greek, Latin, and French, can be found here: https://www.literarymatters.org/author/chrischilders/. He currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland.