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France

They were born for this role.
They have dedicated their lives to teaching, have traveled extensively, and want to share their passion for travel with the next generation.
Spend a minute with any member of our Program Director Team - ask them about their favorite spots, or their fondest memory of traveling with students - and you'll want to drop everything and go travel with them.
Peggy grew up in northern Illinois, fell in love with Spanish during high-school, and majored in Spanish at college before spending several years teaching Spanish at the middle-school and college levels. She has traveled to Mexico (extensively), Spain, Guatemala, Argentina, Uruguay, and Costa Rica. But Illinois is still home.
In 2014 and 2016 Peggy served as co-director of a summer study abroad program in Tuscany, where she fell in love with all things Italian. She returned to Italy in 2018 and spent the summer living with a wonderful Italian family in Cesena, helping them learn English while simultaneously learning Italian and immersing herself in the culture.
Through all of these experiences, Peggy has seen first-hand the life-changing power of international travel and thoroughly enjoys nurturing this change in others!
While growing up in northern Maine, Jen was inspired to learn languages by the region’s French Acadian heritage and the many exchange students her family hosted. During a high school exchange year in Arras, France she took her first Spanish class. Her love of French and Spanish led her to McGill University in Canada, which led to working/living on a coffee cooperative in Costa Rica for a month. After earning her teaching credentials in California, Jen taught at a bilingual school in Puebla, Mexico before returning to Maine. She has been teaching Spanish at the high school and junior high levels for the past 13 years, leading many student trips to Quebec for the French Club and to Puerto Rico for the Spanish Club.
During the fall of 2017, Jen took her family on a sabbatical semester to Spain during which time they lived and studied in Salamanca, and hiked the Camino de Santiago del Norte.
Liz grew up in NH and developed a love for traveling at a young age. Visiting family in California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina evolved to visiting Costa Rica, Spain, Canada, and the British Isles. During her undergraduate studies, Liz lived in Dijon, France for 9 months, studying alongside French citizens at the Univeristé de Bourgogne.
Liz started learning French in middle school and fell hard for languages, picking up Spanish and Latin in high school. She received a BA in French from UNH in 2013, as well as her Master's of Education from UNH in 2014. Liz has taught French to middle school students and now teacher French and Spanish to high school students at Pinkerton Academy.
Liz's love of languages and cultures has led her on many adventures and she loves sharing that passion and experience with students!
Kristin Gillett began learning German in seventh grade in Massachusetts. Everything clicked for her when she participated in a three-month homestay during her junior year in high school, and she fell in love with the culture of Germany, and with travel abroad. Kristin went on to study German, earning her B.A. (including a junior abroad year in Salzburg) and M.A. in the language she loves.
She has worked tirelessly to share that love with her students during her 25 year teaching career in both high school and middle school, including a year as a Fulbright Exchange teaching year in Magdeburg, Germany. Kristin believes that travelers are stewards and students of the world, and takes special care to engage students in viewing their experiences as more than just tourists.
Chris is a proud UW-Madison Badger who caught the travel bug when he spent his junior year abroad at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. After graduation he traveled to Trinidad, Tobago and Venezuela before moving to Zaragoza, Spain where he taught ELL for two years before completing a Master’s Degree in Spanish Literature at the University of Santiago.
Chris has taught for thirty years and has led students on trips to Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay, France and Spain. He has found these trips to be as eye-opening and rewarding for his students as his time abroad was for him and is committed to and excited about continuing to work with students that are excited to explore the world.
Over the years he has been to every continent except Antarctica, walked three different Camino de Santiago routes in Spain (he can’t recommend them highly enough) and has taken his two daughters along on many of his trips. His hobbies include backpacking, mushroom hunting, gardening and cooking. He lives with his wife and their two daughters along with two dogs, two guinea pigs and twelve chickens in Minnesota.
Rodrigo Rosa-Blackburn, "Profe" as his students call him, was born in Brazil, moved to the US at a young age, and grew up bilingual in Southern New Hampshire before graduating high school and attending Keene State to pursue a career teaching Spanish.
After teaching high school Spanish for a half a decade, he took his first trip to Spain, caught the travel bug, and now, 11 years later, has traveled all over Europe, Mexico, Canada, and even Central America; with students, with adults, with family, with friends, with whomever wants to go with him!
Profe brings years of experience in student travel, fluency in three languages (Spanish, Portuguese & English), and a growing competence in Italian to our programs.
He's looking forward to sharing his passion for language, culture, and travel with your group!
Janet spent her youth in Indiana and North Dakota, receiving her B.A. in Spanish from the University of North Dakota and her M.S. in Foreign Language Education from Purdue University. She has also studied at the University of Madrid and at the University of Barcelona.
She took her first trip abroad at fifteen years of age when she visited Spain, and she has visited thirty-one countries since. She enjoys cycling and once spent five weeks biking and camping throughout Western Europe.
Janet enjoys sharing her love of travel with students and seeing the growth they experience as they encounter new places and people.
Antonia started studying French in middle school while doing home stays and she added German to her language classes in high school. She kept up her French and German skills while attending the University of Illinois, and studied francophone culture at the Institut Catholique in Paris for her junior year abroad.
After college she returned to France for a year with TAPIF (Teaching Assistant Program in France) where she taught English through music before returning to teach French at Neuqua Valley High School and at Chicago World Language Academy.
Antonia is an ultimate frisbee player and coach, and sits on the board of Illinois Ultimate.
Living, traveling, and learning abroad have defined Justin’s life. He studied abroad in both high school and college, and he was stationed in Germany with the US Army.
Justin's a high school German teacher, and he's an Art History teacher specializing in the effects of war and Nazism on art and politics throughout Europe.
He holds a B.A. in German Studies and an M.A. in Art History and has taught in North Carolina and Maine, where as a State Representative he passed the largest high school diploma reform in more than a decade among other pro-student and pro-teacher initiatives.
Justin loves to help students become more independent while traveling, become more confident interacting with locals, and find hidden art and historical treasures in the world’s most exciting cities.
Despite never having been in an airplane before turning 16 and having only 3 years of high school Spanish experience, Jocelyn exchanged to Uruguay during high school. During her time as an undergrad at Grinnell College, Iowa she spent a semester in Sevilla, Spain. She completed her masters in Santiago de Compostela, Spain and has spent summers in Costa Rica and Mexico teaching English and developing her Spanish.
Jocelyn has been teaching Spanish for 30 years! During that time she has led her students on trips to central and southern Spain as well as Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has also taken personal trips throughout Europe, to Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Montreal. She and her husband, along with (at the time) their 13 year old daughter, did half the Camino de Santiago on bikes.
Her favorite experiences abroad are: going to grocery stores, experiencing art museums, navigating, and trying new foods (rabbit and cow brains, once, by accident!). She encourages and supports learners trying new things, stretching themselves, and accepting other people and cultures. Jocelyn resides in Center Harbor, New Hampshire.
Megan caught the travel bug at the age of ten when her family left New Hampshire's Seacoast to spend a semester in Budapest.
In high school and college Megan fell in love with ancient history and worked three summers on an archaeological excavation in Turkey. She then pursued a B.A. in Classical Languages at Carleton College, spending a semester at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome.
Megan earned her Masters Degree in Teaching Latin at UMass Amherst and has been teaching both French and Latin in Western Massachusetts for the past 12 years. It’s a perfect combination of the ancient and modern. Most recently she’s acquired Italian in order to take her Latin students to Rome. She enjoys seeing them take advantage of the skills and knowledge they've developed, working together to read and translate Latin inscriptions on monuments, or navigating the city confidently!
Andréanne grew up in Quebec City, Canada where she developed a passion for music and linguistics at an early age. She followed her passion and graduated from le conservatoire de musique and l’université Laval, then later she earned her M.A. in French (with a minor in music) from the University of North Texas.
Andréanne has traveled to several countries with her Middle and High School students over the past 30 years. She believes that travelers are ambassadors, and passionately engages students in experiential learning to foster their linguistic growth. When Amber Burks (one of our Program Directors) met Andréanne on French teachers trip to Senegal she immediately realized Andréanne would make a great Program Director. We agreed!
Andréanne now resides in Texas with her husband and their three adult children. She continues to nurture students in acquiring cultural knowledge and communicative tools, and love for family and friends regularly brings her back to Québec.

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