Nadia Smith, TOF, is a co-founder of Chesterton Academy of St. Padre Pio. She is an award-winning journalist with a career that spans three continents. After serving as a public relations specialist for a nonprofit international aid organization in Australia, she moved to Rome, Italy, where she worked as a radio host and news reporter for Vatican Radio during the papacy of St. John Paul II. In the United States, Nadia continued as a correspondent for various diocesan and national Catholic publications. She currently fulfills the role of director of communications and marketing for the Catholic Medical Association.

Nadia dedication to ministry work extended over several states. She founded a number of ministries dedicated to the formation of young adults and women. Additionally, she served as a retreat and conference speaker on topics such as virtues, encyclicals of St. John Paul II, the Culture of Life, and Catholic spirituality as exemplified by the saints. She also served as a catechist for several years in Long Island, NY and Madison, Wisconsin. She emceed the Diocese of Venice Women’s Conference for five years and co-emceed the diocesan Youth Rally with her husband, George Smith, for eight years.

Committed to the pro-life cause, Nadia has been a sidewalk counselor and has volunteered at pregnancy clinics, mothers’ homes, and post-abortion healing ministries in New York, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Her work included collaboration with the Missionaries of Charity in the United States, Ecuador, Australia, Canada, and Italy, as well as serving the homeless and destitute alongside the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR) in the Bronx and New York City. She met her husband through their work with the CFRs and have three children. She is a Third Order Franciscan of the Immaculate Conception Province.

For the past three years, Nadia has led the establishment of Chesterton Academy of St. Padre Pio as the board president, driven by her belief that its time-tested curriculum and Catholic culture will cultivate Christ-centered young men and women committed to a much-needed cultural renewal.