OUR Team

Adam Grode, Founder & Director

Eduardo A. Acarón-Padilla, Academic Advisor

Paula Zhang, Director of Student Affairs

Zarnigor Faimahmadzoda, Administrative Officer

Megan Ferry, Academic Mentor

Fawad Ahmad, Lead Instructor of Dari and Pashto

Lemar Ahmadzai, Lead Instructor of Dari and Pashto

Mavjuda Hojieva, Lead Instructor of Tajik

Sareh Hezarkhani, Lead Instructor of Farsi

Caitlin Legere, Technology and Communications Officer

Administrative Staff

Adam Grode, the Founder and Director of Rudaki Language Academy, has spent the last two dozen years learning the languages and music of the Silk Road.

As an Ethnomusicologist, Adam has learned to play traditional instruments with local masters across Eurasia. As a Linguist, Adam also has learned from the leading pedagogues in countries around the world.

Adam is presently fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and French, proficient in Turkish, Kazakh, Uyghur as well as Farsi, Dari, and Tajik, with conversational Spanish and Korean.

A sought-after public speaker and cultural consultant, Adam believes in the power of digital platforms and the ever-growing thirst for education on-demand, especially in Modern Languages. Rudaki aims to increase public access to high quality language learning through convenience and affordability.

In 2005, Adam earned his self-designed degree in Eurasian Studies from Union College after which he was named a Watson Fellow and embarked on a Silk Road wanderjahr, traveling from Italy to China like a musical Marco Polo. Since then, Adam has received numerous awards including two Fulbright Scholarships, Critical Language Scholarships as well as a Smithsonian Baird Resident Fellowship.

In 2020, Grode graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a Master’s in East Asian Languages and Civilizations. During this time, Adam was appointed to the Penn Middle Eastern Center’s Speakers Bureau and conducted his Silk Road concert-lecture series for numerous local high schools, colleges and institution.

Adam presently serves as a Researcher-at-Large for the Smithsonian Institution's Asian Cultural History Program, and contributes to several ongoing projects in coordination with the Republic of Tajikistan Ministry of Culture.

As Rudaki flourishes these next few years, Adam plans to pursue Hindustani languages and resume his doctoral studies. At present, Adam resides with his family in his hometown of Philadelphia.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Eduardo A. Acarón-Padilla graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology, with a minor in English from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico- San Germán in 2018 and recently earned a Master’s degree from the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington in August 2021.  He is currently a Dual PhD student in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. Eduardo speaks Spanish natively and is fluent in English, Persian (including Dari and Tajiki), Hindi, and Urdu. His penchant for learning languages and passion for research has earned him numerous awards. Eduardo has earned multiple Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships in Persian and Urdu from 2019-2021, has participated in the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS)  Program for Persian in the Summer of 2019, and was named 2021 Distinguished Pol-IU-glot Scholar. In addition, Eduardo is a McNair Scholar and holds the 2021-2022 Renaissance Studies Fellowship from the Renaissance Studies Program at Indiana University-Bloomington. Eduardo’s research primarily focuses on Persian Poetry and Historiography from the 14-16th Centuries in Iran, Central Asia and South Asia.

Director of Student Affairs, Paula Zhang is an enthusiastic language-learner with a background in international education, including critical language programs and exchanges. Her purview at RLA will promote student engagement and foster a cohesive academic community. A graduate of NYU and alum of the US Department of State's Fulbright program in Uzbekistan, Paula adds invaluable expertise in international and foreign language education that anchors Rudaki with seamlessly exacted administration.

The academy’s administrator Avvalmo Nazaramonova has always wanted to be able to learn languages and share the knowledge of Farsi and Tajiki with others. Being born and raised in a Pamiri family, she could speak both Shughni and Tajiki as a child. Her love of fairy tales and cartoons led her to learn Russian through children’s movies and books. That is not where she stopped. After learning the Tajik Alphabet she started to learn English, she never gave up on learning languages.

Her passion for learning languages and especially English helped her succeed in life. She became a scholarship recipient of the ACCESS Program funded by the U.S. Department of State. She was recognized as one of the active students of the program and was given a chance to participate in an International Camp in Turkey. After the completion of one scholarship, she was a FLEX recipient. This program taught her  about other people’s languages, cultures and traditions. The FLEX scholarship was followed by many other opportunities such as Logistics Assistant and Coordinator for different programs of American Councils.

During all this time she did not forget about her love of English: she started as an English Tutor then Instructor, but her most significant job  from her point of view was her teaching Nursery children English through games, songs and dances. She had a chance to share her passion and love of learning new language to small children, and that is her mission at the RLA. She is here helping you- the Rudakians to learn the language  of Rudaki, Sino and Firdawsi , she wants you to believe in yourselves and do not give up your dreams. 

Rudaki’s chief administrator, Zarnigor Faimahmadzoda, spent a half-decade overseeing several highly prestigious US educational exchange programs in Tajikistan before eventually making her own journey to study in both West Virginia and New Jersey. A recent graduate of Tajik State Pedagogical University, Zarnigor not only oversaw State Department initiatives such as the US-Central Asia Education Foundation’s Enterprise Student Fellowship Program (US-CAEF) and the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program but is also a 2017 FLEX Scholar herself as well as an English Access Microscholarship recipient and a recognized Global Youth Service leader. She takes great pride in her current role at RLA assisting students pursue Persian language study in that she is able to help further this spirit of international academic cooperation only now from the equal yet opposite side of exchange.

Megan M. Ferry is Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Union College (Schenectady, NY). Her professional work spans a diverse body of research and courses. In addition to Chinese language at all levels, she teaches Chinese and Asian American film, Gender and Sexuality on Modern China, East Asian literature and culture, Media China, as well as co-teaches an interdisciplinary course with a civil engineer on China’s Three Gorges Dam and development. She authored Chinese Women Writers and Modern Print Culture (Cambria, 2018), and numerous articles on advertising, consumerism, and sexuality in contemporary China, and China-Latin America and China-African relations. She additionally has written the Chinese curriculum for the Schenectady Public Schools District and served as evaluator for several K-16 Chinese language programs. Her most recent publication is “Project-Based Language Learning: Addressing Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Issues in Climate Action,” in Education for Sustainable Development in Foreign Language Learning: Content-Based Instruction in College-Level Curricula, Maria J. De la Fuente, editor. Routledge (2022). She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature (Chinese and German, with an emphasis on modern Chinese literature and culture) from Washington University in St. Louis and B.A. in Asian Studies and German from Mt. Holyoke College.

Teaching Staff

Fawad Ahmad is the lead instructor at RLA for both Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto. Descending from a family of foreign language teachers, Fawad holds dual degrees from the Kardan Institute in Kabul, Afghanistan and the Vision Institute of Professional Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan. In 2015, he and his family formally moved to Tajikistan where he received additional pedagogical training at the Dushanbe Language Center while simultaneously instructing both Pashto and Dari at every proficiency level including a specialized curriculum for heritage speakers. Furthermore, Fawad is an accomplished graphic designer which he is presently putting to good use in RLA’s forthcoming textbook series publication.

Lemar Ahmadzai is an Afghan refugee residing in Tajikistan. As lead instructor for the RLA Afghan Language Immersion Program he is proud to teach Dari and Pashto to those also assisting Afghan refugees in the US. After receiving his BA and MBA from Kabul University, Lemar gained an additional degree in Education from the Institute of Ekhlas, specializing School Management. With fluency in both Dari and Pashto, as well as English, Urdu and Tajiki, Lemar first was an accomplished translator of technical and medical materials before finally finding his calling as an educator. For the past 6 years, he has taught Dari and Pashto at Tajikistan’s leading foreign language institutes. When not giving others the gift of language, Lemar enjoys taking long and quiet walks in Dushanbe’s Rudaki Park.with his beloved canine, Cantor.

Dushanbe-native, Mavjuda Hojieva, is the Lead Tajik instructor for all RLA foreign language curriculum. With over 4 decades teaching experience, she is one of the country’s most experienced and effective instructors. Since 1982, following her graduate work at the Shevchenko Pedagogical Institute of Tajikistan, Ms. Hojieva rose to Senior Instructor for Tajik Military Institute. Since 2009, Mavjuda Apai exclusively has been teaching Tajik to top US academics and diplomats for numerous prestigious language programs. 

Originally from Gorgan via Behshahar, Iran, Sareh Hezarkhani, PhD, is RLA’s Lead Farsi Program Instructor and is a peer-reviewed published expert in Persian Poetry and Literature. She received her BA from Azad University of Gorgan-Iran in 2005, her MA in Persian History and Literature from the Isfahan University in 2009 and her PhD in Persian Language and Literature from the National University of Tajikistan in 2012. Fluent in Farsi, Tajiki, Turkish, Arabic and English, she has been instructing Farsi language and literature classes in English for over a decade. 

Support Staff

Caitlin Legere is an IT and Creative services designer living in Taos, New Mexico. With 10 years of Instructional Design and Technology Systems Design experience added into a Creative Web and Print Design background she provides support to the RLA for all manner of tech-and-design-based needs. Graduating Magna Cum Laude from Union College in 2004 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Studio Fine Arts, and graduating University of New Mexico in 2013 with a Master’s Degree in Organizational, Information and Learning Sciences from the College of Education and Library Sciences, including a focus in social entrepreneurship and culturally responsive e-learning design, she combines unique skill sets from the arts, communications, new media, technology and e-learning fields to help organizations function smoothly and make their knowledge visible.