Ann was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to Texas from Detroit, Michigan.  A proud Midwesterner, Ann holds an BS from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio with concentrations in Political Science and Asian Studies and an MBA from Michigan State University.  Prior to moving to Dallas, Ann worked in international finance and as a sourcing and strategy lead for Ford Motor Company, where she served on an international team responsible for creating and sourcing from a newly established Ford joint-venture.  Ann graduated from UTA with a Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) in 2018, after which she joined TBG Partners’ Dallas office as a designer and contributor to the firm’s corporate positioning, community outreach and landscape equity initiatives.  While at TBG, Ann designed the firmwide intern orientation week where interns converge on a pro-bono design opportunity as a means of team building and learning design process.  She left TBG to spend more time with her children and recently accepted a position as an Adjunct Professor in UTA’s MLA Program.

 

Ann’s passion for Montessori education came as a result of seeing first-hand the limitations of teacher-focused curriculum.  Ann firmly believes that education is not to serve only the student, but society as a whole.  As Maria Montessori noted, “It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was,” and it is through this child a more empathetic, global-minded, and growth-oriented society will flourish. Mother to former Alcuin Student, Alex, and daughters Charlotte (MCHS) and Sophie (MCHS), Ann is a constant advocate for access to Montessori Education and the IB Curriculum through the establishment of the Alex Podeszwa Legacy Fund and her unwavering support of Alcuin and its community.