Alison Chaney has served Great Hearts for 17 years in a variety of leadership and instructional roles. She began as a founding teacher at Scottsdale Prep, later served as a network instructional coach and Master Teacher, and went on to lead Scottsdale Prep as Headmaster for eight years. She now serves as Senior Director of Talent, where she oversees key aspects of talent acquisition for the network, including leadership recruiting and recruitment marketing. Alison holds degrees from The Ohio State University and Baylor University. A classically trained singer, she performed for 15 seasons with the Grammy Award winning Phoenix Chorale, where she now serves on the board.

Mary Chin (M.Ed., Arizona State University, M.Eng. M.I.T.) is a Professional Development Associate for Great Hearts working to support PD and instructional coaching throughout the network. Prior to this role, Mary was a Master Teacher in mathematics and an instructional coach. She also developed and ran PD and served on the Academic Leadership Team on her campus. She believes in instructional coaching because the autonomy it provides to teachers while also helping to improve learning outcomes through addressing behaviors and beliefs. Outside of education, Mary is passionate about ice hockey: playing in women's tournaments in the Southwest and coaching her children's youth teams in Gilbert, AZ.

Jeannette DeCelles-Zwerneman is Director of Instruction and one of our Master Teachers, specializing in teaching writing and leading seminars on imaginative literature and philosophy. For 44 years she has taught and consulted in schools with an emphasis on classic humanities. In 1981 she co-founded Trinity School at Greenlawn in South Bend, Indiana, where she taught until 1997. From 1999 to 2016 she taught at Trinity School's campus in Virginia. She served as Dean of Humanities for the national group of Trinity Schools and as a master teacher for all three campuses of the organization. As part of The Academy Project LLC, she co-authored the original curricula and helped train faculties for Thomas MacLaren School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Trinity Academy in Portland, Oregon. Twice she received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, one for the study of Plato, Kant, and Hegel, another for the study of Dante's Divina Commedia. Education: B.A., M.A., University of Notre Dame.

For over twenty-five years, Carrie Eben has championed classical education in both the private school classroom and homeschool arenas. She currently serves as founding board member at Sager Classical Academy in Siloam Springs, AR and is a Head Mentor for the CiRCE Institute Master Teacher Apprenticeship for the Ozark Mountain region. As a consultant, she develops and delivers customized workshops and mentorship for administrators, teachers, and parents in both classical school and homeschool settings (www.classicaleben.com). Carrie holds a BSE in Intermediate Education, a MSEd in Curriculum and Instruction from Oklahoma State University and is currently a PhD (abd) candidate in the Great Books Humanities program at Faulkner University. She is co-author of The Good Teacher: Ten Pedagogical Principles That Will Transform Your Teaching with Dr. Christopher Perrin. She loves to sing, read, ride, and provide a hospitable place for transformative conversations in her home.

Anthony Fredette is a teacher of Latin and Greek as living languages, as well as a scholar of classical reception. Both activities center on premodern methods of teaching the works of great authors in the language in which they were originally composed.

Neil Gillingham is a classical education leader with over two decades of experience in K-12 instruction, school leadership, and organizational strategy. He currently serves as the Senior Director of Academics for Great Hearts Arizona, where he oversees curriculum implementation, instructional coaching, and student achievement across 24 academies. Previously, Neil served as Senior Director of Online and Special Projects, leading the successful transition of Great Hearts Online from a state-chartered K-12 school to a national private academy. As the founding Headmaster of Archway Classical Academy | Arete, he spent a decade building a thriving classical liberal arts community in Gilbert, Arizona. Neil holds a bachelor's degree in visual art, a master's degree in elementary education, and is a NAATE School Leaders Fellow.

John J. Goyette is vice president for advancement and dean emeritus at Thomas Aquinas College, which offers a four-year liberal arts program focusing on the study of the great books of western civilization in small Socratic seminars at its campuses in California and New England. Goyette, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of America, has taught for 23 years at the California campus of the College and has also served in various administrative capacities including Dean of the College. He edited St. Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition (CUA Press, 2004) and has published articles on natural law and the political common good in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. He has also written and lectured on the natural philosophy of Aristotle and Aquinas, the Trinitarian theology of Aquinas, and on John Henry Newman's Idea of a University. As dean he helped develop the College's plagiarism policy prohibiting the use of AI for writing term papers. He recently published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on artificial intelligence and education.

Larry Hampton is the founder and CEO of Satori Learning Designs, Inc. and the developer of the Satori Alternatives to Managing Aggression (SAMA) risk management of aggressive behavior training system.

He developed the Prevention and Management of Aggressive Behavior (PMAB) program for the state of Texas.

While with the state he was granted clinical privilege to practice individual and group counseling with Rational Emotive Therapy, Reality Therapy, Gestalt Therapy and Behavior Therapy.  He also has black belts in Judo and Aikido.

He has served as an expert witness in Federal and State court cases related to aggressive behavior interventions.

Jacob Howland served as Provost and Dean of the Intellectual Foundations Program at the University of Austin from 2022 to 2025. Before that, he was McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa, where he taught for 32 years. Howland is the author of Glaucon's Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato's Republic (2018); Plato and the Talmud (2011); Kierkegaard and Socrates: A Study in Philosophy and Faith (2006); The Paradox of Political Philosophy: Socrates Philosophic Trial (1998); and The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy (1993). His articles on literature, politics, and the academy have appeared in the Atlantic, The Free Press, The New Criterion, Commentary, Newsweek, the Claremont Review of Books, the Jewish Review of Books, City Journal, Mosaic, Tablet, the New York Post, UnHerd, Quillette, Forbes, and The Nation, among other venues.

Ms. Jacobson is the National Senior Director of Professional Development at Great Hearts. She served as Headmaster at North Phoenix Prep from 2019 to 2024. Prior to that, Ms. Jacobson served as Head of Middle School, Assistant Headmaster, and Dean of Students in the Great Hearts network for eight years. She earned her Master's degree in Biology and a Bachelor's degree in Developmental and Cellular Biology. Additionally, Ms. Jacobson completed her Certificate in School Management and Leadership from Harvard Business School Online in March of 2022. Ms. Jacobson has two boys, a third grader, and a sixth grader, and enjoys spending time outdoors, gardening, and cooking with her family.

Junius Johnson is a writer, teacher, speaker, independent scholar, and musician. His work focuses on beauty, imagination, and wonder, and how these are at play in the Christian and Classical intellectual traditions. He is the executive director of Junius Johnson Academics, through which he offers innovative classes for both children and adults that aim to ignite student hearts with wonder and intellectual rigor. An avid devotee of story, he is especially drawn to fantasy, science fiction, and young adult fiction. He performs professionally on the french horn and electric bass. He holds a BA from Oral Roberts University (English Lit), an MAR from Yale Divinity School (Historical Theology), and an MA, two MPhils, and a PhD (Philosophical Theology) from Yale University. He is the author of 5 books, including The Father of Lights: A Theology of Beauty and On Teaching Fairy Stories, and has authored volumes and been a contributing writer for the Humanitas series of history textbooks with Classical Academic Press. An engaging speaker and teacher, he is a frequent guest contributor to blogs and podcasts on faith and culture. He is co-host of The Classical Mind podcast and the Director of Education for The Cultivating Project.

Alex Julian has spent the last fifteen years in education after receiving his bachelor's in Medieval History from Arizona State University. He has taught middle and high school students, leading Socratic seminar courses on great works in literature, philosophy, theology, and politics, spanning classical to modern periods. His leadership roles include dean of students, assistant headmaster, and headmaster at multiple classical schools, where he specialized in school turnaround. Alex has delivered professional development on classical education philosophy, pedagogy, and the Socratic method for K-12 schools and advised on curriculum development in history, literature, and philosophy.

Currently, he serves as a managing consultant at Arcadia Education, supporting Catholic, Christian, and charter schools in executive search and operations to foster lifelong learners and virtuous citizens. Alex resides in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Katie, and their four children."

Jessica Kaminski, M.Ed. is an experienced educator, author, and international math consultant with over 16 years in education. She has supported thousands of teachers as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, and national trainer, specializing in Singapore's approach to mathematics. Early in her career, she discovered a passion for helping students build deep conceptual understanding and a love for problem-solving.

Jessica is the author of the Math in Focus 2020 Third Grade Teacher's Edition and co-author of the Primary Mathematics 2022 Grades 2-5 Teacher's Editions. Her work reflects a strong commitment to turning research-based strategies into meaningful classroom practice.

As founder of Math with Purpose, Jessica now delivers custom professional development to schools worldwide with a mission to raise confident teachers who create lasting learning. Through her extensive knowledge of working with neurodiverse students, Jessica equips educators to make math meaningful, engaging, and effective for every learner."

Dr. Stephen Knott is the Thomas & Mabel Guy Professor of American History & Government at Ashland University, and an Emeritus Professor of National Security Affairs at the United States Naval War College. Prior to accepting his position at the Naval War College, Knott was Co-Chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He also served for seven years as an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at the United States Air Force Academy. He is the author or co-author of ten books dealing with the American presidency, the early republic, and American foreign policy. His most recent book, "Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy," was published in October, 2022.

David M. Lubin is the Charlotte C. Weber Professor Emeritus of Art at Wake Forest University. Lubin is the author or co-editor of eight books on American art, film, and popular culture. As an undergraduate he studied filmmaking at the USC School of Cinema while reviewing music for Rolling Stone magazine. He has lectured throughout the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, China, and Australia. He has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and been named an NEH public scholar. Professor Lubin's latest book is Ready for My Close-Up: The Making of Sunset Boulevard's and the Dark Side of the Hollywood Dream.

McClay Biographical Sketch
Wilfred M. McClay is Professor of History at Hillsdale College, where he holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair of Classical History and Western Civilization. His book The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America received the 1995 Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American intellectual history. Among his other books are the award-winning bestseller, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story; and Jewish Roots of American Liberty: The Impact of Hebraic Ideas on the American Story. 

He has taught at the University of Oklahoma, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Tulane University, Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, and the University of Dallas, and has served as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Rome. He has been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and serves on the boards of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Jack Miller Center, and the National Association of Scholars. He served for eleven years on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is currently a member of the U.S. Commission on the Semiquincentennial, which has been charged with planning the celebration of the nations 250th birthday in 2026. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Academy of Education, and received the Bradley Prize in 2022. He is a graduate of St. Johns College (Annapolis) and received his Ph.D. in History from the Johns Hopkins University.

Susan McWilliams Barndt is Professor of Politics at Pomona College and the William F. Podlich Distnguished Fellow in Government at Claremont McKenna College. She serves as the elected president of the American Political Thought section of the American Political Science Association.

McWilliams is the author of The American Road Trip and American Political Thought (2018) and Traveling Back: Toward a Global Political Theory (2014). She is also the editor of A Political Companion to James Baldwin (2017) and a co-editor of several books, including The Best Kind of College: An Insiders Guide to America's Small Liberal Arts Colleges (2015) and The Princeton History of American Political Thought (forthcoming).

McWilliams is the co-editor of the American Political Thought book series at the University Press of Kansas and a past editor of the peer-reviewed journal American Political Thought. Her writing has appeared in both scholarly and popular journals, and she is a regular media commentator on American politics for outlets such as The Atlantic, Business Insider, KPCC's AirTalk, LiveNOW From FOX, The Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, The Nation, The New York Times, Newsweek, Pacifica Radio, Politico, the Tavis Smiley Show, and Today in LA on KNBC.

For her work, McWilliams has received accolades including the Graves Award in the Humanities, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and the Jack Miller Center's Teaching Excellence Award in Higher Education. 

McWilliams holds a B.A. in political science and Russian from Amherst College, an M.A. and Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, and a Certificate in Advanced Education from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education"

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America's political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populisms impact in other democracies in the developed world.

From 2019-2023, Mr. Olsen was an opinion columnist for The Washington Post, where he wrote daily pieces focusing on politics, populism, foreign affairs and American conservative thought. He is also the author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism and The Four Faces of the Republican Party, co-authored with Dante Scala.

Mr. Olsen taught as the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Arizona State University for the Winter/Spring 2023 semester. He has taught at Villanova University, the Catholic University of America, and the Hillsdale College D.C. Graduate Studies Program.

Mr. Olsen was previously an editor at UnHerd.com and a regular contributor to American Greatness, City Journal, and World Magazine. Mr. Olsen's work has been featured in many prominent publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, POLITICO, The Telegraph (London), National Review, and The Guardian.

Angel Adams Parham is Associate Professor of Sociology, and senior fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Parham is passionate about education across the K-16 educational spectrum.  At the college level she is Associate Director of the Political and Social Thought major at the University of Virginia and does research in historical sociology, examining the past in order to better understand how to live well in the present and envision wisely for the future. At the K-12 level she homeschooled her daughters from pre-k through ninth grade, and is the co-founder and executive director of Nyansa Classical Community, an educational non-profit focused on K-12 students which creates classical curricula for schools and homeschools. Nyansa curricula and programs are designed to connect with students from diverse backgrounds, inviting them to take part in the Great Conversation, cultivate the moral imagination, and strengthen foundational academic skills. Parham is the co-author (with Anika Prather) of The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature (Classical Academic Press, 2022) which examines the lives of several Black intellectuals, their formation in the classics, and their contributions to their communities.  In addition to publishing scholarly work in various journals and with Oxford University Press, Parham has written for popular outlets including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Public Discourse, The Hedgehog Review, and Common Good Magazine.   She is a contributing editor to Comment Magazine: Public Theology for the Common Good and for Principia: A Journal of Classical Education. Parham completed her B.A. in sociology at Yale University, her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was the recipient of a Fulbright grant.

Cammie Passey has been in public education for 20 years, beginning her career with the Sunnyside School District in Tucson, Arizona and continuing the adventure with Great Hearts Academies in Phoenix. Throughout her time, she's served in a variety of roles at the elementary level including (but not limited to) classroom lead in both 4th and 5th grade, campus math instructional coach, assistant headmaster, and currently as the National Director of Lower School Curriculum for Great Hearts. In keeping with her childhood dream of becoming a teacher, Cammie earned a BS in Elementary Education from Utah State University in 2002 and an MA in Educational Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2012. After joining Great Hearts in 2012, her eyes were opened to the wonders of the classical liberal arts, and she strives every day to deepen her experience in and knowledge of the great tradition.

Alex is the host of Cost of Glory, a podcast dedicated to reviving the biographies of the greatest Greek and Roman leaders and applying the best practical wisdom of antiquity. He is Co-Founder of The Classical Society, a business network for successful leaders dedicated to reviving the classical spirit across industries.  A former tenure-track professor, he holds a PhD in Classics from Princeton university and has taught at Princeton, UC San Diego, and CSU Fresno.

Jennifer Ramirez (M. Ed., Curriculum and Instruction) has spent the last seven years working for Great Hearts after ten years of working in school districts around the US and abroad in Germany. She is the Director of Career Pathways on the Great Hearts America Professional Development Team. Prior to this role, she served as a teacher in various grades K-8, mentor teacher and instructional coach, and as a Headmaster. She is passionate about the impact of instructional coaching on both teacher development and student outcomes, which has led her to this current role. Jennifer and her husband Rogelio are the proud parents of five kids, three of which are still school-age and attend Great Hearts Forest Heights as 9th, 8th, and 5th graders. Outside of education, Jennifer enjoys hitting the trails with her dog and volunteering in various children's ministry programs.

Jeffrey Rosen is the President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He was previously the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a staff writer for the New Yorker. 

Rosen's new book, Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle over Power in America, is out in October 2025. His other books include New York Times bestsellers The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America and Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law, as well as biographies of Louis Brandeis and William Howard Taft. 

Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute. In 2024, the French government recognized him as a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres"

Soren Schwab is a passionate educator with over a decade of experience in classical education. Born and raised in Germany, Soren moved to the United States in the late 2000s to pursue his literature and theology studies. He earned a B.A. in English from Hillsdale College and an M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction from Colorado Christian University. For several years, Soren led the Humanities Department at The Vanguard School Colorado Springs. Soren joined the Classic Learning Test in 2018 due to his desire to see classical education flourish across the country. Soren currently serves as the Vice President of Partnerships, overseeing all of CLT's sales and marketing efforts, including the Anchored Podcast, which he co-hosts. He and his wife Paula live in Annapolis, MD.

James Tanton (PhD, Princeton 1994, mathematics) is an author, a consultant, and an ambassador for the Mathematical Association of America, currently serving as their Mathematician-at-Large. He has taught mathematics both at university and high-school institutions. James is absolutely committed to promoting effective and joyful mathematics thinking, learning, and doing at all levels of the education spectrum.

James writes books, advises on curriculum, consults with teachers, and gives demonstration classes and professional development sessions across the globe, and is founder of The Global Math Project, an initiative set to transform the entire world's perception of what mathematics can and should be.

Erin Davis Valdez is the Education Policy Director at the Cicero Institute and Executive Director of the Center for Education at Public Service Incubator at the University of Austin. She has been passionate about the transformational power of education all her life, having been given the gift of being homeschooled. She taught for over a decade in Austin-area schools and served as an assistant principal at a charter school in the DFW area. These experiences have given her the opportunity to see first-hand how students can thrive when they have excellent options.

Valdez's subsequent work in educational philanthropy and policy focused on expanding choices in higher education and K12, with a special emphasis on postsecondary and workforce programs in Texas.  

Valdez earned an M.A. in classics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. in classical studies from Hillsdale College. She studied in Athens, Greece her junior year and worked as an excavator at the Agora archaeological site for three seasons. 

Valdez has lived in the Austin area (on and off) since 1990.  She enjoys yoga, reading, volunteering, and spending time with her husband Jeremy, her family, friends, and cocker spaniel, Scoops."

Steven F. Wilson is a senior fellow at Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. An education entrepreneur, policymaker, and writer, Wilson founded and built Ascend Learning, a network of tuition-free, liberal arts charter schools in Central Brooklyn. The Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University identified Ascend as a gap busting network for its success in closing and reversing achievement gaps of race and income. His most recent venture, the National Summer School Initiative, provides accelerated instruction in the wake of the pandemic to 150,000 urban students. Wilson drafted the Massachusetts charter school law and helped shape the state's landmark 1993 education reforms. His first book, Reinventing the Schools: A Radical Plan for Boston, drove the development and passage of the Massachusetts charter school law. Learning on the Job: When Business Takes on Public Schools won the Virginia and Warren Stone prize for an outstanding book on education and society. His new book, The Lost Decade: Returning to the Fight for Better Schools in America, was published this year.

Andrew J. Zwerneman is co-founder and president of Cana Academy. He blogs weekly at www.canaacademy.org and is the author of History Forgotten and Remembered (2020), The Life We Have Together: A Case for Humane Studies, A Vision for Renewal (2022). and the forthcoming REMEMBER: Freedom and Responsibility Under History (2026). Andrew is writer and narrator for the film series, HISTORY250. Andrew holds degrees in history, politics, and theology. Since 1983, he has been a teacher. Since 2016, he has helped train over 5,000 teachers.