Claudio González-Chiaramonte

Associate Professor and Director of the Schools in Argentina and Uruguay

After studying in the United States as a Fulbright Fellow and Scholar from 1992-1994, Claudio returned to his native Argentina and designed the International Studies Program at the Centro Universitario de Idiomas—Facultad de Agronomia, Universidad de Buenos Aires. He directed the Dickinson College summer program in Málaga, Spain, and most recently worked with the Pepperdine University program at the Universidad de Belgrano. He has also worked at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and the Universidad del Salvador and he has taught at Middlebury College and Dickinson College as a Visiting Instructor. Currently, Claudio teaches a semester-long seminar, “U.S. Diplomacy in the Cold War: Foreign Policy, Society, and Culture,” at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Universidad de Buenos Aires). Claudio is based in Buenos Aires, but remains in regular contact with all Middlebury Schools Abroad students studying in Argentina and Uruguay.

Sean McIntyre

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Brazil

Sean grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied abroad in Germany and Russia. He has a Ph.D. in German Studies from Stanford University. Somehow Sean got lost on his way to writing his dissertation in Berlin and ended up in Rio de Janeiro instead, where he has lived for over 15 years. Sean most appreciates the outdoors and street life in Rio, where he enjoys hanging out in public parks with his son and friends, swimming, biking, and hiking.  

Christiane Magnido

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Cameroon

Christiane is a native of Cameroon, and is passionate about education. She holds a master’s degree in business management from the University of Dschang and a master’s degree in development and peace from the Protestant University of Central Africa. Christiane recently joined the Middlebury Schools Abroad as Director of the School in Cameroon. Before Middlebury, she was the Academic Director of SIT Study Abroad in Cameroon for 17 years. In this position, she oversaw the administration of the program, designed the academic program and syllabi for five program courses, taught the research method and ethics course, and a virtual course on women’s rights and resilience in conflict situations. She recruited relevant and experienced professors for lectures and worked with program staff, partner institutions and internship providers for conducive field-based learning for students. She also facilitated students’ learning and experiences in the classroom, during field activities, and in the community. Before SIT, Christiane worked with the Peace Corps for five years as a cross-cultural, language, homestay coordinator, and co-technical trainer for the Small Enterprise Development project. She supported Peace Corps volunteers during pre-service training in learning the target language, adapting to living with Cameroonian homestay families, integrating smoothly into the community, and understanding how small businesses and microfinance institutions worked in Cameroon. With a team of French trainers, she wrote a French manual for trainees and trainers of the Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. 

Juan Pastene

Director of the Middlebury School in Chile

Juan has worked for the Middlebury program in Chile since its beginnings, first as professor of the Writing for Linguistic and Cultural Competence course and as a journalist for a newspaper in Valparaíso. Following this he served as the Interim Director from 2016-2018, and became Director of the School in Chile in 2018. Juan studied both Spanish and Journalism at the Universidad de Playa Ancha at Valparaíso. He has taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the major of Journalism and Public Administration at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso (PUCV), respectively. He obtained an M.A. in Communications from PUCV, and studied at SUNY-Plattsburgh and McGill University, as well. Today, Juan is working on his PhD thesis in Latin American Literature from PUCV. Contemporary Chilean literature, marginalization, transnationalism and hegemony are among Juan’s academic interests. 

Zhang Kai 张凯

Director of Middlebury in Beijing

A native of Hebei province, Zhang Kai received his BA in Economic Law from Hebei University in 2001, and an MA in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language from Middlebury College & the Monterey Institute of International Studies in 2010. From 2001 to 2005, he taught intermediate and advanced Chinese at the Inter-University Program (IUP) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, serving as the Director’s Assistant from 2002 to 2003. During this time he also compiled a course textbook for business Chinese. From 2005 to 2006, he taught beginning and intermediate Chinese courses as a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University. He has taught fifth year and third year Chinese as a member of the Middlebury College Summer Chinese School (2006, 2008, 2011), and also taught beginning and advanced Chinese as Visiting Lecturer at Middlebury College (2008-2009; 2010-2011). In addition to his teaching experience, Zhang Kai also served as Director of Instruction at the Inter-University Program (2004-2005; 2006-2008). In this role he oversaw the supervision, hiring and training of new teachers, he advised students and organized course schedules, and continued to teach Chinese language courses. During this time he also compiled two textbooks for use in IUP legal Chinese courses: Cases of Criminal Law and Cases of Civil Law. Zhang Kai is happy to be back in Beijing where he and his family can once again enjoy the local cuisine, and he looks forward to working with students and teachers to explore the diverse and ancient cultural treasures of China’s capital city. 

Hung I-Chiao 洪亦喬

Director of Middlebury in Taiwan

As a native of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, I-Chiao is an experienced educator with a strong background in Chinese language teaching (beginner to advanced levels) and Chinese language program management. I-Chiao received her B.A. from the National Taipei University of Education, and an M.A. in Teaching Second Language from Utah State University in 2017. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University. Her research interests are Chinese reading strategies and instructional technology.   

David Paoli

Associate Professor and Director of the School in France; Director of Graduate Programs in Paris and of the Undergraduate Program in Poitiers

Ph.D. French Studies, M.A. International Comparative Education, Stanford University, Maîtrise de Lettres Modernes, Université de Paris III. Professor Paoli held the position of Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Dickinson College (PA) 1996-2001, where he designed and directed a Francophone Africa Institute in Yaoundé, Cameroon in the summer of 1998. Dr. Paoli directed Dickinson in Toulouse, France 1999-2001. He also taught French at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Stanford University. 

Amy Tondu

Associate Director of the School in France; Director of the Undergraduate Programs in Paris and Bordeaux 

PhD. French Literature, Vanderbilt University; M.A. French literature, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill; B.A. Comparative Area Studies and French, Duke University. Amy joined the team of the School in France as Assistant Director after nine years with the Franco-American Commission for Educational Exchange where she was responsible for the American Fulbright program for Research Scholars and Lecturers, Advanced Students, Teaching Assistants and Secondary School Teachers in France. Amy directs the undergraduate programs in Bordeaux and Paris and assists the director in liaising with local universities. 

Heike Fahrenberg

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Germany

Heike Fahrenberg, PhD in American Studies (2006) at Johannes Gutenberg University (JGu) Mainz; Director of the School in Germany since August 2000; Lecturer at JGu’s American Studies Department till end of July 2000. Awarded lectureship in English at U.C. Davis 1997-1998; Teacher State Exam I in German and English, M.A. in German, English and American Studies (JGu) 1997; German Assistant (Middlebury College) 1994-1995; Biological Lab Tech. (Hoechst AG, 1991)).  Heike pioneered documentation and assessment of students’ language acquisition and intercultural competence through the development of a culture portfolio course before she became a Qualified Administrator of the IDI in 2012.  Taking Intercultural Communicative Practice to be at the heart of Conflict Resolution, Heike and her colleague, Prof. Roman Graf, German Department gave a presentation called Initiating Democratic Behavior through Intercultural Communicative Practice  at ACTFL in 2021, while Heike completed her Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) Certification in November that same year

Rosa Cuda

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Italy

BA, MA, Ph.D. in Italian Studies at the University of Toronto, M.A. Didattica delle lingue straniere from the Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice  She served as a junior faculty member and bilingual assistant for the Italian School at Middlebury College in 1998 and 1999. She was also Instructor in Italian at the University of Toronto 1997—99. Ms. Cuda has worked for the School in Italy since 1999. Her research interests are Contemporary Italian Literature and Second Language Acquisition. 

Sanae Eda

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Japan

Sanae received her first M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Puerto Rico (1994), and a second M.A. and a Ph.D. in Japanese Linguistics and Pedagogy from the Ohio State University (1997, 2004). She held a position as an Educational Exchange Program (EEP) Lecturer and taught Japanese at the University of Puerto Rico for three years, where she was the first teacher ever to teach Japanese. Sanae taught at the Middlebury College Japanese Language School for eight summers between 1994-2004 and served as an assistant director of the Japanese School in 2004. She held a position as an Assistant Professor and taught Japanese and linguistics at University of Kansas from 2004 until the spring of 2010, before returning to Middlebury in 2010 as the director of the School in Japan. Sanae loves jogging and learning foreign languages. 

Kerstin Wilsch

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Jordan

Kerstin Wilsch has spent many years in the Middle East and North Africa in a variety of academic positions.  Her Ph.D. is in Arabic Language and Translation, from the University of Leipzig.  For the four years prior to becoming the Director of the program in Jordan, Kerstin was living in Jordan, working as the Coordinator of the Translation Section at the German-Jordanian University in Amman, where she also served as acting Vice Dean.  Before coming to Jordan, she was at the German University in Cairo for two years, and from 1999 to 2005, she was the Coordinator of the German Department at the Ecole Supérieure Rio Fahd de Traduction at the University Abdelmalek Essaadi in Tangier, Morocco.  Kerstin has also taught Arabic at the University of Oxford for three years, and spent some time early in her career in Yemen. 

Samir Jaafar

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Morocco

Samir Jaafar received his doctorate in Linguistics specializing in Applied Linguistics of Technology and Communication in 2012. While working on his Ph.D., and thereafter, he has taught Arabic and administered programs at a number of universities, language centers, and study abroad programs in Morocco.  He was a co-founder of a linguistics magazine called Communication and Discourse Analysis in 2014. In 2015, he trained graduate students in teaching Arabic as a foreign language at Mohammed V University. He comes to us, most recently, from AMIDEAST where he served as the Arabic Coordinator for their programs in Rabat. 

Teresa Peña-Jordán

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Puerto Rico

Teresa was born and raised in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. She earned a PhD in Latin American Literature (2005) and a MA Certificate in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies from the University of Pittsburgh (2003). Once back on the archipelago, she taught courses on Humanities, Transatlantic Literature, Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Gender Studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she also worked as the Director of the Women and Gender Studies Program (2018-2022). Teresa has also taught courses on Spanish as a second language at the University of Pittsburgh and at George Mason University in Virginia. Decoloniality, Caribbean ecocriticism, and the intersections between ecology and gender, are among her current academic interests. As an undergraduate student at Carnegie Mellon University she studied abroad in Salamanca, Spain.  

Nana Tsikhelashvili

Associate Professor and Director, School in Russia, Russian Program in Kazakhstan

Ph.D. (Kandidat nauk) in History (History of Russian-American Relations), Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), 1998. Ms. Tsikhelashvili joined the School in Russia in 1997. Her previous experience includes work with the Russian State Archives, Russian Television, the American Collegiate Consortium (USIA-supported exchange program administered through Middlebury College) in Moscow, and part-time teaching American History to Russian students at RSUH. Nana previously served as the Assistant Director. 

Patricia Rodríguez

Associate Professor and Director of the School in Spain

Associate Professor and Director. Patricia Rodríguez was born in Madrid, Spain, where she got her B.A. in English Philology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She later received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2002 she has taught courses in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture at different institutions, such as Williams College, UC Berkeley, Saint Mary’s College of California, and Middlebury College School in Spain. Before joining Middlebury, she directed two summer programs in Madrid from UC Berkeley. Her research interests are 20th Century Spanish Literature and Film, the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War, Cultural Studies, and Performance Theory. She is author of La reinvención de la identidad española durante la Segunda República (Las Misiones Pedagógicas y el teatro profesional en las tablas madrileñas). 

Guy Perry

Associate Professor and Principal of the Middlebury-CMRS Oxford Humanities Program, and Fellow by Special Election of Keble College, Oxford

Guy Perry did his BA, MA/MSt and DPhil at Lincoln College, Oxford. He then served as a tutor or lecturer at a wide range of universities across the UK: from Royal Holloway, University of London and Leeds to St Peter’s and Merton Colleges, Oxford. His research focuses, above all, on social and geographical mobility during the central Middle Ages – and, in particular, during the epoch of the Crusades. His publications include John of Brienne: King of Jerusalem, Latin Emperor of Constantinople, c.1175-1237 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Briennes: the Rise and Fall of a Champenois Dynasty in the Age of the Crusades, c.950-1356 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); and a co-edited volume, The Fifth Crusade in Context: the Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017).