Meet Our Scholars

Cindy Calder founded Calder Classics in 2012 while studying Greek and Latin at Columbia University.  She earned her B.A. from Dartmouth College and her M.A. in Classics from Columbia University She also spent several summers in the hallowed halls of CUNY’s Latin/Greek Institute, where the extremely intense but very rewarding course of study inspired her to share her passion for the Classics through her own high school and adult programs. Cindy founded Calder Classics on the belief that the study of the Classics, when complemented with a first-hand experience of art, history, literature, and modern culture, enriches younger students’ academic experience and encourages adults to re-engage in the joys of learning. At Calder Classics, mixing students of all ages in a shared learning environment has proven intellectually stimulating in wonderfully unexpected ways. Cindy taught Latin at Trinity School, the Brearley School, and Saint Joseph High School in New York City, and she has taught many courses for Calder Classics in-person and online. She has extensive tutoring experience in Latin and Greek. Cindy lives with her husband in Massachusetts and is the mother of four grown children.

Dr. Darius Arya is an archaeologist, pro­fes­sor, and doc­u­men­tary host.  A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and University of Pennsylvania, he studied in Rome as part of the ICCS Research Master's degree (Master of Arts), before earning his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. Darius is also a Ful­bright Scholar and Amer­i­can Acad­emy of Rome fel­low FAAR’00 and throughout his career has taught in the United States and in Italy directed various archaeological excavations including projects at the Roman Forum in Rome and at Ostia Antica. Darius currently lives with his family in Rome where he serves as Executive Director of the American Institute for Roman Culture, a non-profit organization that works to promote and defend Rome’s cultural heritage through educational programs, projects, public outreach, conservation, video and social media. In the US he has appeared as a lec­turer and host of numer­ous doc­u­men­taries for Dis­cov­ery, The His­tory Channel, National Geo­graphic and PBS. In Europe Darius has featured as a guest on several BBC and Channel 4 documentaries and in Italy as the host of Under Italy on Rai5. In 2017 Darius was recognised as Periscoper of the Year by the Short Awards for his use of live-streaming as a tool for education, and launched his first podcast series, Darius Arya Digs.

Dr. Frances Bernstein earned her B.A. in Classics from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University, where she completed a dissertation examining the relationship between physical boundaries, interpretive limits, and poetic power in Vergil’s Georgics and Aeneid. Frances currently teaches middle and upper school Latin and ancient Greek at Riverdale Country School and enjoys encouraging students to think critically about Classics from beginning language classes through advanced reading courses on Euripides’ Medea or Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Outside of the classroom, Frances can be found running, playing piano, or perfecting her coffee-making routine.

Sarah Betensky currently attends Brown University. She has been studying Latin since sixth grade and added Ancient Greek in high school. She is a Calder Classics Teaching Fellow and a founding member of the Calder Classics Junior Advisory Board. Sarah has participated in two Calder Classics programs: a Latin literature course in Essex, Massachusetts called “Roman Voices,” and the online “Journeys to the Underworld” course. She also worked as an intern for Calder Classics, discovering and sharing the ways in which classical antiquity is still celebrated in our society. Sarah spent her junior high school summer working on an ancient Roman archaeological excavation in Spain. Her senior year she completed an independent research project on the role of Classics in US history. Sarah shared the successful outcome of her independent study project with our students in a course she designed for Calder Classics in 2023. She loves to help students seek ways to create their own independent study projects. Outside of Classics, Sarah trains in taekwondo and teaches taekwondo skills.

Johanna Braff has been at The Dalton School since 2013 where she teaches Latin and Greek. After attending Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, she received her B.A. from Swarthmore College in Latin and Greek, and her M.A. from the University of Maryland in Classics. At Maryland, she was awarded a Teaching Assistantship and the Award for Teaching Excellence in 2008. She completed her M.A. with a thesis focusing on the role of gendered animal similes in Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Homer’s Odyssey. Johanna then began her Ph.D. in Classics at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She has taught Classics and Classics in Translation classes at Brooklyn College, Lehman College and Touro College. She spent a year teaching Latin at the Brearley School before coming to Dalton.  Johanna has taught ancient Greek for Calder Classics in Florence and in Thessaloniki where she loves soaking in all of the Greek culture and also picking up some modern Greek!

Emma Brandow graduated from Vanderbilt University with a major in Classical & Mediterranean Studies and a minor in Italian and Chinese followed by an M.A. in Education from Southern Methodist University. She grew up in Manhattan and attended Riverdale Country School and The Brearley School. Emma currently lives in Dallas, Texas where she teaches Latin at Great Hearts Irving. Emma has taught Latin at all levels from beginner to the AP level. She previously taught at TEAK Summer Program in Manhattan. She studied abroad in Siena during her junior year of college and is greatly looking forward to returning to Italy as a chaperone for Calder Classics.

Juliet Breza is a painter from Brooklyn and Santa Monica. She approaches the Classics through her art and environmentalism. Jules graduated from Brown University with Honors and received the 2017 Joslin Award for excellence in the Visual Arts. She also studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and was the first non-RISD student to be accepted into the Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program in Rome. Her thesis focused on the relevance of the Fiume Tevere’s (Tiber River’s) historical function to its current, climate change driven state. She has also received a Brown Arts Initiative Grant, Spring 2017 and a Julie Sloane Award, Spring 2016. Her work has been shown at Woods-Gerry Gallery, List Art Center, The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Memorial Hall, Rhode Island School of Design, MoMA PS1, and The Art Students League of New York. NY Italian art history, Italian modern culture and media, Italian neorealist film and immersive Italian language courses inspired some of Jules’ favorite spots in Rome: Monte Dei Cocci (Monte Testaccio), Centrale Montemartini museum, and Villa Phamphili park…not to mention, the local art supply stores, hidden studios and vintage shops.

Natalia Cabarga earned her B.A. in Art History from the Universidad Iberoamericana of Mexico City, with a Master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary art from Casa Lamm Cultural Center. Her career has led her to work in the cultural field with many institutions, such as the Mexican Institute of Culture in New York (MCINY) and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma Mexicana. From 2002 to date, she has taught classes, courses, and conferences for many educational institutions in Mexico. She has also taught in the USA, for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies (LACIS), and the Dolores Huerta Elementary School in San Francisco, California. In March 2015, she launched her project, Walk Mexico, to promote the culture of Mexico through tours, classes, cultural projects, and collaborations with museums, schools, and cultural institutes, work that she continues to perform. She is very proud to be Mexican, so she enjoys teaching and showing her beloved country through classes and walking tours.

Billy Calder attended Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, where he developed a passion for theater, Shakespeare, and the classics from an early age. He continued to pursue these interests at Dartmouth College, majoring in Theater and founding an undergraduate Shakespeare company. After Dartmouth, Billy earned his Masters in Acting from Harvard University and the American Repertory Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training. Billy is an expert on all middle school, high school, and college entrance exams, as well as many of the College Board’s subject-specific AP exams. Billy also uses his advanced dramatic training to help students express their voices clearly in academic essays, personal statements, and college applications. His deep experience with ADHD, dyslexia, executive function challenges, and other specific learning disabilities, along with his compassion and empathy, make him a highly effective academic coach.

Timothy Calder is an educator, entrepreneur, and traveler who has spent almost half his life living outside the U.S. At Dartmouth College, Timo majored in East Asian studies, a versatile concentration that allowed him to explore classes in many different subjects such as government, anthropology, history, literature, film, religion, language, and art history. After graduation, Timo pursued a Princeton in Asia fellowship, which sent him to teach ancient Asian history at a local secondary school in Singapore. Timo then spent 6 years in Beijing and 4 years in Hong Kong. With over 12 years of experience as an educator, Timo has worked with hundreds of students from Asia and the U.S. as a classroom teacher, college consultant, academic tutor, and squash coach. When Timo is not teaching he is probably reading a sci-fi novel, playing squash, or walking Chelsea (his 3-legged rescue dog from Beijing).

Henry Cammerzell is currently a junior at Princeton University where he is pursuing a degree in linguistics. Henry is the recipient of the 2023 Stinnecke Prize, Princeton’s highest award to a sophomore, or junior for Latin and Greek. Studying Latin since the fifth grade and Ancient Greek since high school, his studies focus on the evolution and mechanics of Indo-European and Semitic languages. In his last two years of high school, he completed a Classics dual enrollment program at Princeton University. With Calder Classics, he participated in the 2016 Reading Latin + Art History program in Florence which inspired him to continue to pursue classical languages throughout high school and into college. For the 2023 season, Henry was a program chaperone and teaching assistant for our Florence and Rome sessions. While on campus, Henry works as an analyst and manager for Princeton’s football team and enjoys playing basketball. He also has interests in modern languages, speaking both French and Greek.

Sonnet Carter is a Brooklyn native. Her love for Classics was ignited in the Prep for Prep program, where she first studied Latin. She continued her study of Latin at Saint Ann’s, then fell in love with Ancient Greek in Calder Classic’s Thessaloniki program. Now a student at Yale, Sonnet is majoring in Philosophy and is continuing her study of Classics. She is interested in using Classics as a lens to explore other disciplines such as philosophy, art, and linguistics — oftentimes, reading classical literature has served as inspiration for her artwork. A former student, she returned in 2019 as the chaperone for the Tuscany program.

Dr. Eric Casey earned his B.A. from Haverford College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Classical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a Professor of Classics at Sweet Briar College for 15 years where he was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award twice and had a teaching and research focus on Greek cultural history and Latin literature and poetics. He has published on strategies of commemoration in ancient Greek funerary inscriptions and the threshold between the living and the dead, as well as on the Great Library at Alexandria, connections between ancient Greek mystery cults and the Freemasons, among other fascinating topics. Dr. Casey is also the recipient of the American Philological Association’s award for Excellence in Teaching at the College Level, and the Classical Association of Virginia’s Teacher of the Year Award. He currently teaches Latin and Greek at The Trinity School in New York City and served as one of the official graders for the AP Latin Exam for over 10 years. Dr. Casey teaches several online courses for Calder Classics and co-led the Greek section of the 2023 trip to Thessaloniki and Mt. Olympus.

Dr. Collomia Charles holds a Ph.D. in Classics from Boston University. As a professor of Latin and Greek in the Classics Department at Barnard College and Columbia University, she also taught courses in the Comparative Literature and English departments. At CUNY’s Latin/Greek Institute, she has taught both the Basic and Advanced Program in Latin and Greek. Collomia now teaches at Collegiate School in New York City. Calder Classics has been lucky enough to have Collomia share her deep knowledge with our students as a teacher in both our Rome and Thessaloniki programs, for which she has also served as our Curriculum Consultant.

Foteini Chasikou studied for her Ph.D. at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Language and Culture, where she received an M.A. in Technology and Language Education, and a B.A. in Greek Philology specializing in Classical Language and Literature: Ancient Greek and Latin. She has served as a Lecturer of Greek Language and Culture in Beijing Foreign Studies University and Professor of Ancient Greek Language in Peking University. Foteini has taught ancient Greek during the summer in Calder Classics’ online programs.

Phoebe Chu holds a master’s degree in architecture from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (2019) and a bachelor’s degree from The Polytechnic University in Hong Kong (2012). With eight years of professional experience in Hong Kong, Belgium, and Norway, she has been involved in projects from concept development to detailed construction. The projects she completed, namely “Tuve Hotel” and “Silver Room,” with Design Systems Ltd, have both received more than 25 awards globally, including recognition in Asia, the UK, the US, and Australia. These two projects also earned Design Systems Ltd. and her a golden award at the 2017 Asia Design Awards. In addition to her professional experience, she taught cross-course at Bergen Architecture School for BArch and MArch students.

Jasmine Clarke graduated from Bard College where she studied Photography under Stephen Shore and Gilles Peress. Her work has been chosen for many group shows and can be seen at https://jasmine-clarke.com. Jasmine currently teaches Photography classes at Bard where she has also been a Visiting Artist-in-Residence. She has many photography credits to her name associated with articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine. Jasmine was the photographer in Greece for our Reading Greek program and she is the designer for Calder Classics marketing material.  

Annie Costa graduated from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a concentration in fiction writing. After working in fashion merchandising for many years, she left the start-up world for the classroom and received her M.A.T. from the Relay Graduate School of Education. Annie taught at KIPP NYC College Prep in the Bronx before relocating to New Hampshire, where she is the English Department Coordinator at Hanover High School and teaches ninth-grade English, composition, and rhetoric. Inspired by the Writers in Paris study abroad program she completed at N.Y.U., Annie has led writing-focused student trips to Florence, Italy, for several years.

Dr. Crispin Corrado is a classical archaeologist specializing in Roman art, who received her Ph.D. from Brown University, her M.A. in Art History, and B.A. in Classics from the University of Chicago. Professor Corrado ("Crispin") has fieldwork experience at Pompeii, and has worked in a curatorial capacity in the departments of ancient art at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Vatican Museums. She assisted these institutions in the creation and implementation of exhibitions of ancient art, co-authored catalogs, wrote articles, and presented guest lectures. Crispin's major research interests include Roman wall painting, sculpture, and domestic architecture. She currently teaches at several American universities in Rome, and is the founder and an acting officer of the Rome Society of the Archaeological Institute of America. She has lived in Rome for over fifteen years and is our resident Ancient History teacher and guide. She co-led our 2023 Reading Latin + Ancient History program in Rome this spring and our Learning to Read Latin program in Rome and the Bay of Naples this summer.

Aulden Foltz graduated as a Classics major from Stanford studying Ancient Greek. Over the summers, she has worked at several archaeological field sites, including tracking the path of Hannibal over the Alps and studying Pre-Incan society at Peru’s Chavín de Huantar. Aulden was a student in our Pompeii and Tuscany programs, and she returned as a chaperone with Calder Classics in Florence. Outside of Classics, Aulden also studies biology. She has worked in several types of labs, in addition to spending a winter in the field studying the social behavior of spider monkeys in Panama. She values her varied academic background and loves to find ways to connect Classics with other disciplines.  

Lizzie Fox is a writer, actor, and teacher. She graduated Cum Laude from Williams College, with a degree in Comparative Literature and Latin, and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas, where she teaches writing studies and Latin. She has received a Rona Jaffe fellowship, a Carolyn F. Walton Cole fellowship, and a Martha Boschen Porter grant for her work in Latin translation and fiction. Lizzie recently performed Off-Broadway in her translation of the Medieval Latin play Dulcitius, and is currently translating the complete Latin works of Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, the first female playwright in recorded history. You can learn more about her at her website: www.lizziefox.com.

Zoe Fox has her B.A. in Classical Languages from Bryn Mawr College, her M.A. in Classics from UCLA, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Classics through the University of Birmingham. She focuses on the ways in which ancient and modern leaders use the city of Rome as a political tool. During the academic year, Zoe teaches History and Classics in Los Angeles. Zoe also volunteers as a docent at the Getty Villa. She spent 6 months living in Rome while in college at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies and has spent many summers as an archaeologist excavating around the city at the Gabii Project, the Sant’Omobono Project, and the Signum Vortumni Project in the Forum Romanum. Zoe has taught several online classes for Calder Classics and co-led our 2023 Reading Latin + Roman Imperial History travel programs.

Dr. Sam Goldstein got his PhD in Asian Religious Traditions at Brown University, and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. His dissertation focused on an unearthed manuscript called “The High Progenitor of Yin Questions the Three Venerables,” and his work generally relates to the topics of unearthed Warring States-period (450-220 BCE) manuscripts, early Chinese Daoism, and early Chinese rhyme and phonology. He is especially interested in practice culture in the Warring States period, including contemplative practices and divination practices, as well as in expanding the concept of “religion” as it applies to early China. He has taught and TA-ed courses on ancient Chinese philosophy and religious practices, Buddhism, contemplative studies, and American spirituality and religion.

Sarah Grover earned her B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brown University and her M.A. in Classics from NYU, where she focused on Latin and Greek literature. She has been teaching Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish at Riverdale Country School since 2007 and has led both middle and high school students on trips to Greece, Italy, Spain, France, and Peru. She loves the study of modern languages and enjoys speaking Italian. Sarah has led many Calder Classics programs in Rome in the summers and over Spring Break and has developed several online Reading Latin courses. She has also taught Greek in Thessaloniki for Calder Classics. Sarah is the co-leader of our 2024 Reading Latin program in Rome.

Rebekah Junkermeier earned her B.A. from Dartmouth College, where she played 4 years of Division 1 varsity soccer. She earned her M.A. in Early Christian History at Harvard, specializing in Roman and early Christian archaeology. While at Dartmouth and Harvard she studied Latin and ancient Greek. After grad school she was awarded the James B. Reynolds and H. Allen Brooks Post-Graduate Fellowships to spend 2 years in Rome pursuing her own research.  She now works with professors to develop study abroad programs around the world for college students. Rebekah has a special love for Italian cuisine, ancient Roman mythology and history, and the intersections of ancient Roman religion with early Christianity. She has taught several Calder Classics programs, served as Program Director and social media maven.

Zari Havercome is a graduate of Brandeis University, with a double major in Health and International Global Studies. She is a member of the E-board for the Women of Color Alliance. With a foundation in ancient languages from her Latin class at Saint Joseph's, Zari went on to study Italian in college and plans to become fluent. Zari has been a student in our programs in Florence and Pompeii, and returned as a  chaperone with Calder Classics in Florence. She was the first recipient of the Calder Classics “Scholarship for the Study of Classics in the Wild”.

Kate Hildreth is a PhD student in Classics at Rutgers University. She earned her B.A. in Classical Languages and Literature from Dartmouth College in 2017. After graduating, she spent four years teaching 2nd grade in public schools in New York City.  During her time teaching, she also earned an M.A.T. from Relay Graduate School of Education. Kate joined Rutgers Classics as a Master's candidate in 2021. In 2023, she completed her M.A. thesis titled Aeneas and Dido Transfigured: Juvenal’s Engagement with Vergilian Epic in Satire 6 under the supervision of Dr. Jeffrey Ulrich. Kate has taught online classes for Calder Classics and chaperoned our Reading Latin program in 2023.

Felicia Kang is the Chair of the History Department at The Spence School. She was previously the Chair of the History Department at Saint Anns School where she taught for over twenty years. Felicia teaches a wide range of topics including a middle school course on Ancient History in which her students delve into a reading of Homer. At the high school level, she teaches American History as well as electives on the Cold War, Modern East Asia, and a political theory course, Democracy and Dictatorship, in which her students closely read the works of many Greek philosophers and dramatists such as Plato, Aristotle, and Sophocles. Felicia received her B.A. in political science from Barnard College and her MSc in International History from the London School of Economics. Both her undergraduate and master’s theses focused on collective political thought and its influences on communism. She has also taught History at the Spence School and Prep for Prep. Felicia's second year of teaching for Calder Classics was in 2023, where she brought the words of ancient theorists alive while on-site in Greece!

Clare Kearns is currently a Ph.D. student at Brown. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Classics and Comparative Literature and played on the varsity squash team. She has taught Latin through the Penn branch of The Paideia Institute’s Aequora program that strives to make Latin more accessible to children from all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds and is always excited to teach and share her love of Latin outside of school. She has been to Rome several times and was the assistant teacher and chaperone for Calder Classics Rome 2018.

Lizzy Kildahl graduated from Williams College in 2014 with a major in History and a focus on the Middle East. While at Williams she took every opportunity to study Spanish and Portuguese on campus and abroad, becoming proficient in both, and developing a love of learning languages. After graduation she taught English for a year in Northern Thailand. Lizzy is currently at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership, a semester school in Washington D.C., where she teaches U.S. History, Comparative Government and Politics, and serves as the Dean of Faculty. Lizzy was a chaperone for Calder Classics in 2015 and 2023 and is returning in 2024.  

Hugh McElroy, B.A., Georgetown University, M.St. University of Oxford, teaches Latin at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. Hugh fell into teaching after three years of touring and recording in a punk band. He thought it would be a one-year job but, 18 years later, he is still excited about developing his teaching practice. An avid gardener, cook, and traveler, Hugh is happiest eating vegetables harvested from the volcanic soil of Campania after a day scrambling over archaeological sites. He and his husband Kevin live with two cats, Clare and Francis, who were adopted after a trip to Assisi in 2017. Hugh co-led our 2023 Reading Latin + Roman Imperial History program in Rome with Zoe Fox.

Athina Mitsi holds a Bachelor's degree in Classical Philology from University of Athens and a Master's degree in Greek language and Literature (ancient and modern) from University of Cyprus. She is a passionate tutor of Greek (modern & ancient) and Latin. Her mother tongue is Greek and she has extensive experience in teaching children and adults in both Greek and Latin. Her teaching method is enjoyable and effective, introducing the amazing worlds of etymology, mythology and Greek history, and the richness of Greek literature, starting from Homer through the Byzantine world to modern Greek writers and poets. She has curricula for all ages can adjust her approach, with patience and a smiling face, to fit students’ needs and pace of learning.

Becky Marder graduated from Dartmouth College with a major in Psychology and a minor in Education, completing Dartmouth’s Teacher Education Program followed by a Master’s in Education from Vanderbilt. She played for Dartmouth Women’s Rugby Club and was a member of Kappa Delta Episolon sorority.  She is also fluent in Italian and studied Latin in high school. Becky currently teaches at the PAVE School in Red Hook and has also taught at Greenwich Country Day School and in Thailand. She was a counselor in the Rome program in 2014 and maintains close ties with Calder Classics.

Dr. Sarah Nix earned her B.A. in both Classics and History from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, and from there returned to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she had spent a college semester, to teach at Chiang Mai University. She moved back to the U.S. to earn her Ph.D. in Classical Languages and Literature from Brown University, graduating in 2005. Dr. Nix taught in the Classics Department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, before shifting to secondary education, taking a position at Miss Hall’s School in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, where she currently teaches Latin and Greek. For ten summers, she also taught courses on the ancient city of Rome in both undergraduate and pre-college programs in Rome. Dr. Nix co-led our 2023 Learning to Read Latin program in Rome and the Bay of Naples.

Dr. Linda Nolan earned her Ph.D. and M.A in Art History from USC, and her B.A in fine Arts and Art History from Lake Forest College. She has taught art and architectural history courses in Rome, Italy, for over a decade where she addresses the impact of social and political change on the creation of art and architecture from antiquity to the modern period. She helped found the Rome Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, developing multivocal art and architectural history courses and an MA program in Art History. Before moving to Rome, Nolan was a Gallery Teacher at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has also been Project Manager for artist Sandy Rodriguez, studio assistant to artist Raymond Pettibon, both in Southern California, and recipient of fellowships from the American Association of University Women and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in support of her research. She also received grants from the Dorot Foundation of the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Academy in Rome (Summer Archaeology Program). She has excavated at both Pompeii and in the Roman Forum, has experience in art conservation, and has published and presented at conferences on ephemeral devotional practices, politics of gift exchange, xenophobia, and female patronage. Her current book project, entitled “Tangible Devotion” considers the ephemeral material forms of devotion that filled sacred architecture in early modern Rome.

Alyssa Northrop is a fiction writer and teacher from Brooklyn, NY. She teaches Creative Writing and Composition at Brooklyn College and for Calder Classics in the summers. Her B.A. is from Williams College and her M.F.A. is from Brooklyn College, where she was the recipient of the Himan Brown Award, a Truman Capote and a Lainoff Fellowship. Her short fiction has been published in the Colorado Review, the South Carolina Review, and Joyland, among others. In 2023, she received funding to attend the Exeter Institute for the Humanities, to study student engagement using the Harkness Method, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where was a writer in residence. She is working on her first novel. Here is her website.

Alyssa spent a summer chaperoning for Calder Classics in 2014 and returned in 2017, 2019, and 2023 to teach Creative Writing Workshops in Florence and online in 2020 and 2021. A lifelong student of the Classics, she is co-leading our Reading Latin + Writing Workshop in Florence in 2024. Alyssa was the first recipient of the Calder Classics Scholar-in-Residence award in 2023.

Daniel Paul has been teaching Latin and Greek for 12 years now at the middle, high school, and college levels. He has a Master’s in Classics from Oxford University and an advanced degree in teaching Classics from Cambridge University. Daniel’s interests in Classics are wide-ranging and include prose composition in Latin and Greek, the fall of the Roman Republic, and Alexander the Great, topics on which he lectured regularly as part of his duties as Director of the National Classical Summer School at Repton, England. He is a frequent speaker for the Calder Classics’ Salon Series for which he has won great critical acclaim. Daniel has taught several very popular Greek and Latin courses online for Calder Classics.

Caitlin Petty is a Ph.D. candidate in Art History. She earned her M.A. from Syracuse University where she was a Fellow in the Florence Graduate Program in Renaissance Art. Having presented her Capstone Project at SU’s annual Graduate Symposium in Florence, Caitlin was a teaching assistant for Art History courses at SU’s Florence Campus, while continuing to pursue her research interests in the intersection of art and anatomy. Her interest in the history of art was greatly influenced by her undergraduate studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where Caitlin studied Art History, Studio Art, and European Studies in Antiquity and availed herself of many study abroad programs. Caitlin is passionate about experiential learning and truly enjoys working with students onsite. In July of 2019, Caitlin shared her love of Florence with the Greek students at Calder Classics, lecturing on Michelangelo and Neoplatonism. Caitlin joined Calder Classics in our online programming in 2020-22 where she shared her passion for the history of art and the rich treasures of Florence in particular. She co-led our 2023 Reading Latin program + Art History program in Florence and our Journeys to the Underworld course in the Tuscan countryside and is returning in 2024 to co-lead our Reading Latin + Writing Workshop.

Tobias Philip first kindled his love for Classics at Bard High School Early College in NYC. He continued to study Classics at Swarthmore College, where he earned a B.A. in Greek and Latin with High Honors, winning the Gil Rose Prize for top graduating Classics student. He has completed his M.A. and is currently a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University where he is writing a dissertation on Tertullian and the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition of criticizing spectacles. At Rutgers, Tobias has led courses in Greek, Latin, Plato, and ancient athletics. He is currently researching his dissertation in Heidelberg on a Fulbright scholarship. Tobias has taught Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy for Calder Classics and is the co-instructor for our 2025 intensive Introduction to Ancient Greek program in Monemvasia and Samothraki.

Lana Robinson-Sum is a Latin teacher at St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco. She earned her B.A. in Classics at Brown University and a M.A.T. in Latin and Classical Humanities at Boston University. Lana also studied abroad at the Intercollegiate Center forClassical Studies in Rome, where she loved the experience of reading Latin in a place teeming with Roman heritage. Wanting to pursue her passions in international travel and education, she then spent a year teaching English in rural Thailand as a Fulbright grantee. Lana has led numerous Latin-themed field trips as the moderator of her school’s Junior Classical League, as well as longer school trips to New Hampshire and New Orleans. Lana has taught Latin in our Avignon program where she has enjoyed practicing her French in the summer while tracing the footprints of Julius Caesar in Gaul.

Emma Schneider earned her B.A. in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies from Penn State in 2018 and her M.A. in Classical Languages and Literature from Texas Tech University in 2021. She researches the benefits of incorporating comprehensive input into ancient language pedagogy as well as the didactic characteristics of ancient comedy. Emma has been teaching and tutoring Latin and Ancient Greek for six years at all grade and age levels and teaches Latin at STEMCivics in New Jersey. Outside of school and academics, Emma is an avid baker and self-proclaimed over-protective dog mom. In the summer Emma teaches Latin online courses for Calder Classics.

Carol Anderson Shaw holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from University of Washington, where she now teaches classes on writing, ethics philosophy, and leadership communications. Carol graduated as an English major from Dartmouth College in 1979, and has worked since then as a writer, editor, and enterprise consultant. She has designed and taught numerous creative and expository writing seminars in Seattle public schools. In her master’s thesis novella, characters reminiscent of Penelope and Ulysses explore time travel, scientific breakthroughs, legendary romance, and adventures in creative writing. Carol has taught in the Calder Classics Creative Writing program in Florence.

Meg Shore earned her B.A. in Art History from Vassar College. Fluent in Italian, she is also a writer and translator, specializing in texts on Italian art and culture. Her numerous published book translations (under Marguerite Shore) include Artists’ Self-Portraits (Omar Calabrese, Abbeville Press), The Book of the Wind (Alessandro Nova, McGill-Queen’s University Press), Giuseppe Penone: Writings 1968-2008 (Ikon Gallery, Museo d’Arte Moderna  di Bologna), and Dinosaurs (a 5-book series for children (Matteo Bacchin and Marco Signore, Abbeville Press). She also works as a translator with Aperture, Artforum, the Museum of Modern Art and the National Geographic Society. Meg’s experience and contacts in the Italian art world provided our students with exceptional insight into the history of art along with special access to exclusive art collections. Meg taught Art History in our 2013-19 Florence programs.

Dr. Jeffrey Ulrich earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania where he taught Latin and Greek, as well as Greek and Roman Mythology and Critical Writing.  At the CUNY Latin/Greek Institute, he was an instructor in both the Basic and Upper-Level Latin courses. Before entering Penn’s graduate program, Jeff earned his B.A. at Rutgers, with a double major in Classics and Mathematics, then taught mathematics at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, NY for two years. He is currently a Professor of Classics at Rutgers University and has also taught at Wellesley College and at Haverford College. Jeff has taught Greek in the Calder Classics program in Thessaloniki and has led the Greek section of our programs in Tuscany.

Jeff Wright’s mission is making Homer’s epics accessible (and FUN) for audiences who are not necessarily educated in the Classics. Following 20 years of teaching the humanities, Jeff launched his career as a 21st century Homeric Bard. Over 10,000 teenagers had their first introduction to Achilles, Helen, Odysseus, and the Trojan Horse through Jeff’s shows. Trojan War: The Podcast and Odyssey: The Podcast brought Homer’s epic stories to adult listeners, with a growing 1.3mm downloads in 191 nations. In 2020 the Society for Classical Studies awarded Odyssey: The Podcast its Forum Prize as the year’s “best public-facing essay, book, poem, article, podcast, film, or other piece.” Jeff’s live shows include on-stage performance storytelling - “Blame it on Zeus’s Thunderbolt” - intimate salon gatherings, and raucous affairs in bars and clubs. Jeff’s leadership lectures- “Leadership Lessons from a Bronze Age War” – fuse the fun of Homer’s tales with the contemporary insights of Behavioral Economics and Leadership Theory. In “On Being a 21st Century Homeric Bard” Jeff recounts his personal journey in “singing Homer” to 21st century audiences. Beginning with the comically disastrous first time he attempted to teach Iliad, Jeff then explores the real challenge of navigating contemporary audiences through the Scylla and Charybdis of Bronze Age epic. When not geeking out on Greek epic, Jeff’s passions include wilderness canoe tripping, playing in the kitchen, and hanging out in the gym.   Jeff co-led our 2023 Homeric Storytelling + Creative Writing course.

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