When our faculty community grows, so, too, do our students’ intellect, curiosity, and sense of self.

This year, St. Andrew’s welcomes 11 new faculty members whose deep breadth of experience, education, and passion for boarding school life will animate our classrooms and beyond.

"This is the work of lighting fires," says Head of School Joy McGrath '92. "St. Andrew's teachers fully immerse themselves in our students' whole education: across the classroom, the fields, the stages, and the dormitories. They are in the business of throwing open windows and doors, helping students to pay attention, be purposeful, be curious, and do hard things. They help students observe and listen; hypothesize, test, and revise; analyze, critique, solve, create, and ask big questions. These new members of our community will do all that and more. I can't wait to work with and welcome them to St. Andrew's."

 “We are very excited about this group,” adds Dean of Faculty Wilson Everhart ’95, P'30. “They are talented and caring people who feel called to work with students in a range of different settings. They are kind, thoughtful, and poised to be worthy colleagues to our outstanding faculty team.”

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Peter Carey will lead the spiritual life at St. Andrew’s as head chaplain. A Vermont native, Peter attended Bates College, where he studied political science and philosophy and played soccer and lacrosse. After college, he spent a year living in an intentional Christian community in Washington, D.C., where he ministered to the homeless and other at-risk individuals. He then embarked on a career in education, teaching, coaching and advising at Durham Academy in North Carolina and Episcopal Academy in Pennsylvania before entering seminary and being ordained in the Episcopal Church. 

Peter was Head Chaplain at St. Catherine’s School in Virginia and Berkeley Preparatory School in Florida. He also served as Senior Associate Rector at St. Paul’s Memorial Church in Virginia, and Rector at St. Mary’s Church in Pennsylvania. He has spent his career helping individuals live lives of abundance and joy while also supporting communities to embrace unity and diversity based in mutual care and love. He is thrilled to bring this work to the St. Andrew’s community. A voracious reader and lover of nature, Peter also enjoys running, biking, hiking and wandering. He and his wife, Lisa, are looking forward to moving to Middletown, along with three adult children, who will visit often.

Thomas Cavanaugh brings more than a decade of film industry experience to his new role as film instructor. He’ll also coach thirds soccer and JV tennis. Tom’s involvement in the world of film started at a young age and has only grown. From his own projects, to spending years working in the film industry in Austin, Texas, he has held various roles: writer, director, producer, actor, sound engineer, script supervisor, cinematographer, and editor. He served as the production manager at the Austin Film Festival, and remains the technical director at the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival. When he moved to Delaware, he brought his passion for film with him. He has hosted lectures and screenings at Theatre N, the Rehoboth Beach Film Society, and the Delaware Art Museum, where he serves as film curator. He’s also the founder and executive director of the Delaware Film Institute, a nonprofit that seeks to inspire and educate through film screenings, classes, workshops, and lectures. 

Elizabeth Cobb, who joins St. Andrew's as director of counseling, is thrilled to return to working with young people in the middle of figuring out who they are. Born in the mountains of North Carolina, it was along the coast and wetlands around Hilton Head and Savannah that Elizabeth found her sense of place and self. She earned her B.A. in psychology from Meredith College in North Carolina and her master of social work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Elizabeth's clinical life began with young people. As an intern at the Meredith College Counseling Center and later as an intensive in-home therapist in Durham, North Carolina, she worked with adolescents and families navigating crisis, trauma, and the hard work of growing up. She then spent nearly a decade at The Women's Initiative in Virginia, deepening her practice in trauma-informed care and LGBTQ+ affirming therapy, supervising and training clinical staff and graduate interns, and developing programming that weaves together individual therapy, group support, and community-based healing. 

Elizabeth is passionate about the healing power of relationships, and believes that asking for help is one of the most courageous things a person can do. She enjoys gardening, painting, and walking in the woods. She is happiest around the water: kayaking, paddle boarding, snorkeling, or scuba diving. She joins the SAS community alongside her partner, Blair Wilner, their daughter, Alma, and their dog, Louise.

Elena Deanda joins the Modern Languages Department as a Spanish teacher. Prior to St. Andrew’s, she served as a professor of Spanish and Black studies at Washington College in Maryland. There, she specialized in early modern transatlantic literature, forbidden literature, the Inquisition and the 18th Century, and Mexico. She has published Offensive to Pious Ears, Obscenity and Censorship in 18th Century Poetry in Spain and New Spain (Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2022) and Trovar: Metapoetics in Occitania and Sotavento (University of Veracruz, 2024). Elena is the co-chair of the Mexico Section of the Latin American Studies Association and vice president of the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. From 2023 to 2025, she was a Fulbright Global Scholar in the universities of Bonn (Germany), Oviedo (Spain), and UNAM (Mexico). She’s won multiple awards for her publications, including the 2023 Best Book Award from the Spanish Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies.

Henry Didden, a former Division 1 athlete from Bucknell, joins St. Andrew’s as a math teaching fellow and assistant cross-country coach. He graduated cum laude from Bucknell University with bachelor’s degrees in environmental studies and economics. There, Henry combined his interests in environmental policy, economics, and geographic information systems, conducting research on topics including wildfire risk assessment, climate planning, and the environmental impacts of artificial intelligence data centers. A four-year member of Bucknell’s men’s cross-country and track and field teams, during his senior year, he served as captain of both programs and earned a Patriot League Academic All-League selection.

Henry grew up in Southern California as the child of two teachers, and was raised in a close-knit independent school community. In his free time, he enjoys running, hiking, birdwatching, photography, and exploring the natural world. He is excited to join St. Andrew’s and contribute inside and outside the classroom.

Amanda Dominique will teach religious studies and philosophy and coach JV girls basketball and varsity girls soccer. An Ohio native, she graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.A in international relations and religious studies with an honors research distinction. 

She began her career by teaching high school English Language Arts in Alabama with Teach for America. There, she learned about secondary education systems and discovered her passion for working with high school students. She completed her first graduate degree at the University of West Alabama, earning an M.Ed. in secondary English language arts. Amanda then completed her M.A. in religious studies at Georgia State University, focusing her research on decolonial frameworks for introductory religious studies education. She also taught undergraduate sections of Introduction to World Religions at GSU.

She has been living in Atlanta for the past five years, teaching religious studies at Holy Innocents' Episcopal School and Georgia Gwinnett College, and coaching girls soccer. She has continued to pursue professional development in pedagogy and instructional design, gaining a certificate in instructional leadership from Harvard's Graduate School of Education and completing a fellowship with Teach for America's Academic School Leadership program. She and her dog, a German Shepherd mix named Lucifer, are excited to make a new home in Middletown.

Elaine Gorom joins the St. Andrew’s math department as a math teacher, and will coach cross-country and girls varsity soccer. Elaine holds a Ph.D in applied mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Before that, she attended Drake University, where she studied mathematics and minored in physics and psychology while balancing her athletic pursuits as a Division I soccer player. She was awarded Defender of the Year her senior year for the Missouri Valley Conference.

Before joining St Andrew’s, Elaine was a postdoctoral fellow at Smith College, where she divided her time teaching, creating two new applied math courses, and conducting computational fluids research. She spends her free time with her daughter, JJ, and partner, Travis. She stays active through climbing, running, biking, and lifting, and always finds time for a good book.

Carolyn Marino brings a passion for service and Renaissance literature to St. Andrew’s, where she will teach English and contribute to the community service program. Most recently, Carolyn taught English composition at Indiana University Bloomington, where she earned her M.A. in English and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English literature. Her dissertation project explores constructive conflict in the domestic space, and features writers like Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne.

Her passion for Renaissance literature began at Bucknell, where she earned her B.A. in English, and blossomed during her junior year abroad at the University of Oxford. At Oxford, she cultivated a passion for archival research and enjoys considering how manuscripts of texts we know and love can alter our perspectives of an author’s oeuvre. While at Bucknell, she served as a residential advisor, where she discovered a love for cultivating meaningful experiences for her residents. Carolyn spent her nonacademic time in various leadership roles for campus ministries at universities she attended, and is excited to bring service experience to Middletown.

Carolyn loves to visit her family throughout New England, where she enjoys cooking family recipes, searching for hidden gems in antique stores, and being near the ocean. She spends time reading, hiking, taking photos, and brewing Chemex coffee with freshly roasted beans.

Jana McGovern, who moved to the U.S. from France, will serve as a teaching fellow in French and English. She arrived in the states to pursue a degree in English and philosophy at Wellesley College, with a  special interest in Ekphrastic poetry. She has spent the past year working for the AmeriCorps City Year program, serving as a Student Success Coach in 8th grade classrooms in Boston. Jana loves traveling, learning new languages, and experiencing new cultures through food and music. In her free time, you’ll find her trail running, practicing guitar, or drawing cartoons.

 

Valeri Wallace will serve the St. Andrew’s community as the director of the library, as well as the other roles that come with boarding school life, like dorm parent, coach, and advisor. Over the course of her career, Valeri has served educational communities as library director in secondary and higher education, most recently as the college librarian at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire. She is excited to get back to the strong community that comes along with a residential campus. Valeri holds a B.A. in art history from Whitman College, a master of library science from Syracuse University, and is in the dissertation stage of a doctoral degree at Manhattanville University.

Valeri will live on campus with her cat, Frankie, and will be occasionally visited by her daughter, who is in college. She fondly remembers having hobbies before writing her dissertation, like leisure reading, knitting, watching independent films and world cinema, baking, and enjoying free time.

Blair Wilner joins St. Andrew’s as a teacher in religious studies, as well as a squash and tennis coach. Raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, he received his B.A. in biblical studies from Eastern Mennonite University and his master of theological studies from Duke Divinity School before earning his Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of Virginia in 2025.

A Christian theologian and environmental ethicist, Blair draws from many religious traditions and the wider humanities to consider how relationships with the environment shape our identities and ways of living. He has presented his research widely, and is a founding member of the Applied Collaboratory for Religion and Ecology based at Stanford University. For nearly a decade, Blair has taught undergraduates at Eastern Mennonite University, Augustana College, the University of Virginia, and Washington and Lee University. He is passionate about helping students engage deeply with religious and philosophical traditions while fostering the moral and intellectual virtues of attention and hospitality.

Blair enjoys tennis, cycling, cooking, and DJing the occasional dance party. He and his partner, Elizabeth Cobb, are excited to join the community alongside their daughter, Alma, and their dog, Louise. He hopes to offer SAS students what so many teachers, mentors, and coaches offered him: an invitation into the daring work of life together.