Fanari Academy is proud to have a very well qualified faculty, comprised of teachers from the United States as well as Greece.
Faculty Members
Maria Asteriadou. Maria received her undergraduate degree in Surveying Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and her Masters degree in Human Geography from Arizona State University. After 5 years in Phoenix AZ and 6 years in Athens Greece, she moved to Fremont two years ago with her husband, Agam, and their beautiful daughter, now 4, Venya and joined our school a year ago. Maria is also teaching the Apollonas 1st grade class.
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Christine Antonakopoulos. Christine is a Greek-American raised in Athens, Greece until the age of 18 when she moved to Massachusetts for her bachelor studies. She grew up in a bilingual home, began her schooling in a Greek public school and continued her high school education in an American school in Kefalari, Greece. Her bachelor degree led her to an experience in Management in the high tech world of the Silicon Valley. Soon after that Christine returned to school at SFSU to finish her 2 year program in a Multiple Subject credential to teach k-5 grades. Her education in a world class program, growing up bilingual, believing in children�s abilities and her passion for Greece, the Greek language, and the Greek culture led her to her classroom at Fanari Academy.
She believes that constant exposure to a second or third language in different forms leads to comprehension and speech. She also believes that linguistic and cultural diversity only leads to a more intelligent and sensitive population. Taking her experience and applying it to the classroom is very exciting for Christine. She teaches the Apollonas Kindergarden class
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Dafni Dedopoulou. Contact Dafni
Athina Drouvalakis. Athina Drouvalakis was born and raised as a first generation Greek in the Greek community of Melbourne, Australia. She graduated high school with her proficiency certificate in the Greek language. Athina received her PhD in medicine from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and came to Stanford for her postdoctoral studies. Her professional experience includes working in a start-up, a consulting firm, and as an instructor at CSU East Bay (formerly CSU Hayward). She has taught at every level, from preschool, elementary, middle, high and college/university, in both the private and public sectors of education. Regarding the Greek language, she has taught at the preschool and elementary levels, tutoring middle and high school, and the adult education level. Her focus on the Greek language has been on dialect, grammar, spelling, composition and culture.
Coming from a strong academic background with established experience in teaching at all levels, and with great student rapport, she brings a wealth of knowledge, ability, and stimulation for teaching the Greek language. Her dedication and belief in a solid foundation of education is complemented by her belief that each student learns differently, such that her instruction is tailored to the needs of each individual student. Her belief that learning should be fun, stimulating and fruitful is evident in her class dynamics.
Greek being her fist language and mother tongue, and living the Greek culture, she identifies herself as a Greek. Since becoming a mother, her passion and commitment for teaching the Greek language has been reinvigorated especially in a community so far from Greece. She strives to pass the passion, warmth, inspiration, and education of the Greek language and culture to our next generation of Greeks aboard! She teaches the Artemis Pre-K classes and adult classes
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Natalia Grigoropoulou. Contact Natalia
Anastasia Karaglanis. Anastasia Karaglani received her Ph.D. and Master�s in Education from the University of Southern California. She completed her undergraduate studies at the Capodistrian University of Athens, at the Department of Pedagogics. In Greece, she taught for several years at the elementary school level in the private and public sector. In terms of educational research, her work has focused on quantitative methods, standards and assessment development. For the past three years, she has worked as a research associate at the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education. Prior to that, she was a research associate at the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching at Stanford University. Previously, she worked as a research assistant at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at UCLA, and at the Writing Project at the University of Southern California.
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Laura Moussa. Laura has been involved with the educational sector for 7 years. She started as a teacher of English as a foreign language to children of preschool age and adults and soon found her way to highly specialized studies in education and Second language acquisition. After receiving her Bachelor's in English Language and Literature from the University of Athens, Greece, she pursued a Master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Brighton, UK. During her postgraduate studies she focused in Second Language pedagogy and Curriculum Development theories and at the same time taught Greek language class at the Brighton College. Being a native Greek speaker and having broad experience and a very strong background in teaching methods, Laura is a valuable addition to the teaching staff at Fanari Academy. Laura has been an active educator for 7 years teaching Greek and English in 3 countries and among all age groups.
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Dionysis Nikiforos. Contact Dionysis
