Our Team
-
Leonisa Ardizzone
Founder & President
The Rev. Dr. Leonisa Ardizzone has been a science and peace educator for 30 years. She has degrees in Biology (BA), Science Education (Ed.M.), and International Educational Development with a specialization in Peace Education (MA, Ph.D.). She received her MDiv in 2017 (Union Theological Seminary) and was ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 2019. Currently, Leonisa is a Visiting Professor at Vassar College, the founder of the Peace Education Center of the Hudson Valley, the C0-Chair of the Broader Social Impacts Committee at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, a Community Minister in Ulster County, NY, an author, a musician, and a mom. -
Josie Estes
Media Director
Josie is a designer and visual artist. She graduated with a BFA in Design from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts. She enjoys exploring the ways design, communication, and art can aid in creating a better world. She has a deep interest in museum work, exhibition design, and education. Josie lives in Kingston, NY where she loves to spend time with friends, family, and her cat, Chai. -
Noe Perry-Greene
Programming Director
Noe is a scientist, writer, and educator based in the Hudson River Valley. They graduated Vassar College with a BA in Environmental Studies and a focus on Ecology and Science Education. Noe is passionate about rock climbing, science fiction, queer history, interdisciplinary creative collaboration, and, most recently, the Peace Museum! You can also find them amongst the dedicated and vibrant staff at Wayfinder Adventures, INC. -
Grace Cazzaniga
Development Director
Grace is a writer, editor, and musician based on Long Island. She started working with Leonisa as a research assistant at Vassar College and is so excited to be part of her latest project, the Peace Museum! Grace is also a teacher at a local music school and a master’s student. -
Rylie Jones
Museum Educator
Rylie is a dancer and artist, based in Rosendale, NY. They graduated with a BA in Dance from Dean College, Joan Phelps Palladino School of Dance. Rylie enjoys crafting and spending time in nature. They are interested in the intersection of performance and social justice, and are thrilled to be working at the Peace Museum. -
Georgia Mobley
Social Media Manager
Georgia is a writer, director, comic, and most importantly, midwesterner, currently based in NYC. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point with a BFA in Acting. Georgia loves storytelling in a way that pairs her strong passion for social politics and advocacy with a good laugh. She is an avid reader, aspiring yogi, and Tina Fey enthusiast. She feels so lucky to be able to be a part of the Peace Museum as she feels strongly that change starts within our communities.
Board of Directors
-
Jaguar Mary X
Jaguar Mary X is a glossolalia vocalist, ritual performance artist and mover, making work informed by animism, afro-futuruism and black/queer feminist discourse. They attended the Whitney Independent Studies Program in 1995 and completed MFA degrees at California Institute for the Arts (Film/Video, 2009) and at Pratt Institute (Performance and Performance Studies, 2019) in Brooklyn. After a life-shifting experience with mugwort, they began to share the plant's healing properties, organizing ritual smudging performance happenings. Jaguar Mary X developed Artemisia Negra, a pop-up event offering handmade incense and other healing tools infused with mugwort (L. artemisia vulgaris) in 2019. They identify as non-binary, agender. Originally from Washington, DC, they are currently in residence at the Art Life Institute founded by Linda Montano in Kingston, New York. In 2022, they received the City of Kingston’s Distinguished Artist Award. Currently, they are the full time show host for Radio Kingston, on Monday through Friday in the evenings.
-
Mimi Fortunato
Mimi served in the NYCDOE for thirty-nine years- as an Artist-In-Residence, an elementary school teacher, a founding teacher of the first educational-option themed HS in NYC, middle school director, high school assistant principal, HS principal, Director of Principal Performance/School Quality, and as Assistant Superintendent. Following her retirement, Mimi supported the NYC Office of School Design as a New School Design Coach and joined the non-profit Executive Leadership Institute as a Principal Leadership Coach. In 2025, Mimi earned her certification as an Emotional Intelligence Coach as well as a Multi-tiered Support Services Implementation Specialist Coach. A lifelong educator, political organizer, activist and artist, Mimi has an unwavering commitment to ensuring educational, economic and environmental equity and access for all.
-
Nathalis Wamba
Nathalis Wamba (Ph.D.) is a Professor in the Education and Instructional Leadership program within the Department of Educational and Community Programs at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY). He graduated from New York University (NYU) and completed post-doctoral fellowship in educational policy at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Before joining the faculty at Queens College in 2005, Dr. Wamba served as a Senior Researcher at NYU’s Institute for Education and Social Policy, where he co-spearheaded research evaluating charter schools across New York State and the United States. His current scholarship critically focuses on participatory action research, decolonization and decoloniality, the impacts of neoliberalism on public education, post-modern and trans-modern theories, and cognitive justice. A globally recognized scholar, Professor Wamba is a three-time Fulbright recipient, having served as a Senior Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Flex Scholar at Mzuzu University in Malawi, as well as a Specialist Fulbright Scholar at University College Cork in Ireland. Other academic honors include a Roothbert Fellowship, as well as NYU's Samuel Eshborn Award and Paul Lomax Doctoral Award for scholarship.
-
Brant Neuneker
Brant lives in Rhinebeck with his wife Alisa and served as an accomplished elected official there for over ten years. Brant graduated from Western Illinois University with a finance degree and graduated from the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Brant is a real estate entrepreneur who provides affordable housing in the Mid-Hudson Valley. He is a licensed attorney who follows Constitutional Law and has a special interest in social justice.
-
Jane Ahn
Jane (she/her) is a current graduate student in Sociology and Community & Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is deeply interested in issues of community, climate violence, and peace education. She also loves to read, play with her two cats, and cook new recipes.
-
Gopal Harrington
Gopal is a long-time Kingston local who cares most about people, conversation, and community. The community paved road he’s gone down has included deep volunteer work with local organizations like O+, Rise Up Kingston, Citizen Action, Kingston Land Trust, and T.M.I., as well as being a co-founder and co-host of Radio Kingston’s own Hip Hop 101 and a member of PlaceCorps first cohort back in 2019. Gopal’s biggest desire is to bring even more rootedness and connection to Kingston’s already blossoming community."
Advisory Board
-
Victoria Berrios
Victoria Berrios is currently finishing a two-year journey as the Manager of Education and Community Relations at the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History. Born and raised in Kingston, NY, but with a penchant for wandering, Victoria is passionate about place, people, and how intersectionality affects the work of peace and justice in our everyday lives. She graduated from Messiah University in 2022 with a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies, and a minor in Women and Gender Studies. Victoria’s professional interests include oral history and advocating for African and African-descendent Burial Grounds. She currently serves as the clerk of the Kingston Interfaith Council, and loves to engage in collaborative interfaith work. She enjoys salsa dancing, volunteering at the Pine St. African Burial Ground, writing poetry and a good, long story around a campfire. One of her goals is to become a published children’s book author.
-
Dr. Maria Hantzopoluos
Maria Hantzopoulos earned her BA from Boston University in History, her MA in Social Studies Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and her doctorate at Teachers College in International Educational Development. Her work broadly considers how educational processes structure inequity in their contexts and beyond. Her research interests include school culture and climate, project-based assessment, peace and human rights education, migration and education, and social studies curricula. She has written numerous articles and released two books about peace education. Her latest is “Educating for Peace and Human Rights”.
-
Dr. Dale Snauwaert
Dale T. Snauwaert is Professor of Educational Philosophy and Peace Studies at The University of Toledo. He is the Founding Editor of In Factis Pax: Online Journal of Peace Education and
Social Justice and author and editor of a number of books and articles, including the International Handbook of Peace Education (forthcoming), Teaching Peace as a Matter of
Justice, Reclaimative Post-Conflict Justice: Democratizing Justice in The World Tribunal on Iraq (with Janet Gerson), Human Rights Education beyond Universalism and Relativism (with Fuad Al Daraweesh), Betty A. Reardon: A Pioneer in Education for Peace and Human Rights, and Betty A. Reardon: Key Texts in Gender and Peace, Exploring Betty A. Reardon’s Perspective on Peace, among others. His core interests are political philosophy and educational theory with
a particular work in theories of justice, democratic theory, peace and human rights education, nonviolence and corrective justice, and teaching through a pedagogy of reflective inquiry. -
Dr. Tony Jenkins
Tony Jenkins, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Program on Justice and Peace Studies at Georgetown University. He is also the Managing Director of the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE) and Coordinator of the Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE). Tony is an international scholar and educator whose research and practice examine the transformative potential of education in addressing violence, injustice, and social change. His work bridges scholarship, policy, and practice across higher education, international organizations, and civil society. Through this work, he has developed a sustained line of inquiry into how transformative learning cultivates human agency, how educational institutions and knowledge systems reproduce or disrupt structures of power, and how pedagogical practice can create conditions for personal, institutional, and social transformation.
-
Dr. Kimberly Williams Brown
Our Supporters
