Our Team
Corinne MacDonald
Director of Programs
Corinne MacDonald is the co-founder of the John Paul II Project, where she currently spearheads program development and communications projects. With 16 years of experience in program building and apostolate with youth and young adults, she has now lost track of the number of adventures she has led, from mission trips, retreats, camps, and pilgrimages, including various World Youth Days around the globe,.
Corinne enjoys opportunities to be with our young adults, from teaching communciations courses to training alumni for leadership roles, to hanging out with students when her kids go bed. She recently finished a 2 ½ year stint living with her family in Krakow, Poland, accompanying fellowship students and pilgrims journeying abroad with the JP2 Project.
Previous to launching the JP2 Project, Corinne worked for the Mother Teresa Project at her alma mater, Ave Maria University. Prior to that, she spent 5 years living in Rome, working as a student life director for an undergraduate study abroad program while completing her licentiate in Institutional Communications from The Pontifical University of Santa Croce. On the side, she was always engaged in communications projects, from professional translating and editing, to helping launch an international academic journal.
Most importantly, Corinne and her husband Joe are going on 10 years of marriage and are incredibly blessed with their 5 crazy little kiddos under 9, whom she loves to bits. So that’s where her free time is given! But she always finds time to read books at night, would hike mountains daily if she could, and often has something yummy cooking with lots of garlic. Among many favorite saints, one of her best friends in heaven is Pier Giorgio Frassati.
Robert Mixa
Director of Intellectual Formation & Mission Advancement
Robert Mixa is happy to join the John Paul II Project after years of admiring its work from afar. With fifteen years of experience working in Catholic ministries and education and twelve years of traveling to Poland, finally moving to Poland last year, Robert is eager to lead and assist students in their journey abroad. Prior to moving to Krakow with his Polish wife, Robert worked for four years as the Education Fellow of the Word on Fire Institute, where he worked with Bishop Robert Barron on various projects. His degrees are in philosophy and theology from St. Louis University (B.A.) and the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. (M.T.S.). In addition to the JP2 Project, Robert is a history teacher at an international school in Krakow.
Kai Weiss
Alumni Representative (Outdoor Retreats)
Kai is originally from Regensburg, Germany, but currently resides in Washington, DC. He is a graduate student in theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception and is the founder of Frassati Germany. Before moving to America in 2021, he fully found the Catholic faith on a visit to the U.S. in 2019. Kai loves to spend time outdoors, especially hiking in the Alps and the American West, and he is stubbornly working towards traveling to all 50 states (he is currently at 47!). Prior to joining the JP2 Project in his current role, he participated in several outdoor retreats and was one of our missionaries at World Youth Day 2023.
Board Members
Robert Lee
CPA and Owners at Emmett Financial Services (Chicago, IL)
Adam Dombrovski
Co-owner and VP Sales at Dombrovski Meats (Foley, MN) - Board Treasurer CPA and Owners at Emmett Financial Services (Chicago, IL)
Abigail Allen
Associate Attorney - at Hilgers Graben PLLC - Lincoln, NE
Ashley Noronha
Professor at Santa Croce/Host of "Revelant in Rome" - Rome, Italy
Corinne MacDonald
Co-Founder of JP2 Project Krakow, Poland - Board President
Joseph MacDonald
Co-Founder of JP2 Project / Principal of St Peter's Catholic School - Board Secretary
Ramon Tancinco
Global IT Director at CISCO-Krakow
Szymon Czyszek
Director of International Growth at the Knights of Columbus
Luke Condit
October 12, 1978 ~ January 31, 2024
Affiliates
Dr. Keith Houde
Professor, JP2 International Fellowship
Keith A. Houde, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Ave Maria University in Florida. He served as founding chair of the Department of Psychology at Ave Maria from 2011 to 2021. He has developed and taught numerous course offerings within the psychology curriculum, which have most frequently included Foundations of Psychology, Psychopathology, Health Psychology, Sport Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, and History and Systems of Psychology. He has served as internship coordinator for the Psychology Department and as faculty advisor for the Wojtyła Society (Psychology Club). Dr.Houde has also held an affiliation as Visiting Professor of Psychology at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, Poland, where he has taught summer study abroad courses on the personalist psychology of John Paul II and the history of faith and culture in Poland.
Dr. Houde previously trained and worked (1982-1985) conducting psychological assessments within the special education department of a K-12 public school system. He had the privilege to serve for over twenty years (1990-2011) as a Clinical Psychologist within a Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Maine in the areas of post-traumatic stress disorder and health psychology. Within this role, he also provided clinical education as Psychology Training Director (1998-2011) for an accredited predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship program.
With an academic background in psychology and theology, his primary scholarly interests are theological anthropology, philosophical psychology, and the history of psychology, with an emphasis on the psychological thought of John Paul II. He is co-author (with James F. Brennan) of History and Systems of Psychology from Cambridge University Press (7th ed., 2018; 8th ed., 2023). He has also written on Christian personality theory, Christian anthropology in the Catholic undergraduate psychology curriculum, the personalist psychology of John Paul II, and the contributions of John Paul II to faith and culture. He has been an active member of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association (CPA) and the Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS). He serves as an Associate Editor of Integratus, the journal of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association, and on the Editorial Board of the Annals of Cultural Studies, affiliated with the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. He has served as a reviewer for Integratus, Studia Gilsoniana, the Journal of Positive Psychology, and the Journal of Psychology and Christianity.
He has been honored with an Advisor of the Year award from Ave Maria University, a Distinguished Member Award from the Christian Association for Psychological Studies, and an alumni award in recognition of a distinguished career in psychology from Franciscan University.
Professor Houde has traced his ancestry through twelve previous generations of Franco-American, Roman Catholic forebears. He and his wife have been abundantly blessed as parents of five adult children and as grandparents of five.
Samuel Trizuljak
Professor, JP2 International Fellowship
Samuel Trizuljak studied political science and history at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Heidelberg. His interest in the history of Catholic thought is further developed as a PhD student at Charles University in Prague. As a lecturer he cooperates with the Ladislav Hanus Society and the Anton Neuwirth College. As a speechwriter, he has worked for several politicians, most recently for the Minister of Defence Jaroslav Naď. His book At Height to Depth: 33 Advice to Faithful Students in Bratislava, Oxford or elsewhere was published in September 2021.
Jaroslaw Kupczak OP
Fr. Kupczek is Head of the Department of Theological Anthropology at the University of John Paul II, Director of the John Paul II Thought Research Center at the University of John Paul II, and President of the Board of the Society of Dogmatic Theologians.
Fr. Bernardo Ibarra
Chaplain, JP2 International Fellowship
Born in Argentina in 1992, Fr. Bernardo grew up in a very Catholic family having 11 siblings, of which 7 are consecrated religious. After joining the Minor Seminary of the Institute of Incarnate Word (IVE), he studied humanities and classical literature at the Institute's High School. His priestly formation was done in the Philippines, in the Institute's new seminary for Asian vocations, as a way of helping the new communities in the Far East.
He was ordained to the priesthood in 2018 and spent the last two years as a formator for the institute’s major house of formation in the Philippines. Fr. Bernardo has teaching experience in fields ranging from philosophy to sacred music to Marian spirituality. He has served youth and young adults in pastoral ministry initiatives in China, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brazil.
He and his brother priest in the community, Fr. Jonas, have come to Krakow to deepen their theological studies with a focus on the thought, teaching, and spirituality of St. John Paul II.
We are overjoyed to welcome Fr. Bernardo and Fr. Jonas as Krakow study abroad chaplains. They are incredible priests, on fire for their vocations and dedicated to young people. They live in the same residence as our students- at the John Paul II ‘Be Not Afraid’ Center-with the other priests who serve the sanctuary.
John Hittinger
Dr. John Hittinger is a professor of philosophy and has published four books. Hittinger founded the Pope John Paul II Forum for the Church in the Modern World in 2009. He has published articles and presented papers on a variety of topics including John Locke, Jacques Maritain, military ethics, liberal education, political philosophy and the thought of John Paul II. He can speak on John Paul II, philosophy of war and peace, and issues in political philosophy.
Fr. Władysław Zuziak
Fr. Zuziak has taught as a guest professor from the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland, where he served as its Rector (provost) from 2010-14. Previously, Fr. Zuziak served as its Vice-Rector for Science and International Relations and Dean of its Faculty of Philosophy. From 2003-08, he served as President of the European section of the Conference Mondiale des Institutions Universitaires Catholiques de Philosophie. More recently, he held the vice presidency of the Federation of European Catholic Universities (FUCE). Fr. Zuziak is a moral philosopher interested in the conjunction of values and civic life in Europe. His most recent book is Aksologia Louisa LavellÕa wobec ponowoczesnego kryzysu wartosci (Axiology of Louis Lavelle in Response to the Postmodern Crisis of Values (Krakow, 2012).
John Sikorski
John Sikorski teaches in the Business Ethics and Society Program in the Mendoza College of Business, focusing in his courses on the intersection of theology, philosophy, business, and political economy. He holds his undergraduate, master's, and PhD from the University of Notre Dame, and specializes in the thought of Pope John Paul II and of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He has served as a visiting professor in the Global Institute for Church Management at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (Rome), the Pontifical John Paul II University (Krakow), and the Saint Meinrad School of Theology.
Fr. Zack Swantek
Fr. Zack is a native of New Jersey. He studied Literature and Religious Studies at Drew University, and worked in business for several years. He attended seminary at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he earned a Masters in Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Newark in 2014. After ordination he was sent back to Rome for a Licentiate (S.T.L.) at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and for a doctorate at the Pontifical University of Saint John Paul II in Krakow. Fr. Zack has served as a parish priest, as a college chaplain at Stevens Institute of Technology and Seton Hall University, and as a high school teacher and chaplain at Seton Hall Prep. He continues to teach graduate level courses at Seton Hall University’s Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, and loves offering seminars, reading groups, and Bible studies at Aquinas. When not reading, Fr. Zack loves hiking, kayaking, soccer, and making pilgrimages.
Emily Thomas
Emily is a JP2 Project Ambassador and Media Intern. She is from Baltimore, MD and she is a senior Theology and Religious Studies major at The Catholic University of America with minors in psychology and philosophy. She is also President of the Thomistic Institute chapter at Catholic U and serves on the liturgy team. She participated in the JP2 Project International Fellowship in Summer 2024.
