Simone Rizkallah is currently the Director of Program Growth for Endow Groups. Previously she worked at St. Mary's Catholic High School in Phoenix, Arizona as Theology Department Chair and Senior Theology Teacher and at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Annandale, Virginia as the Director of Religious Education for both youth and adults.
Her graduate degree is in Theological Studies with an emphasis in Systematic Theology from Christendom College. Her undergraduate studies and professional background include marketing communications, media, radio, and theatre before discovering her passion for the Faith and the call to evangelize.
Simone is also an Institute of Catholic Theology Fellow, a Witherspoon/John Jay Institute Fellow and an Acton Institute Fellow. She has studied at the St. Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies in Norcia, Italy, at the Phoenix Institute at the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria, and at the Tertio Millennio Seminar in Krakow, Poland.
She has led local chapters of the ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation in Virginia and Arizona and the Washington, D.C. based non-profit organization In Defense of Christians. She is an Episcopal appointee of the Eparchial Directors of Religious Education (ECED). The ECED is a catechetical committee of Eastern Catholic directors of religious education appointed by the USCCB’s Eastern Catholic Association of Bishops (ECA). As of 2022, she serves on the Board of Directors for the Institute of Catholic Culture.
As the daughter of immigrants from the Armenian Diaspora in Cairo, Egypt, she has a particular interest in matters of religious freedom and culture. In her free time she enjoys teaching, speaking, writing, and mentoring people through the Vision for You process.
She has been published in Catholic Answers, ChurchPOP, Aleteia, Verily, CatholicU, Ethika Politika, The Catechetical Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Catholic Exchange and Angelus and was featured as a Guest Contributor in the book Road Signs for Catholic Teens published by Our Sunday Visitor.
She blogs at www.culturalgypsy.com