Faculty & Staff

Edward Caughlan grew up in New York State. He found his love of teaching while instructing at a Scout camp rifle range in the Adirondacks. After attending the University of Virginia, he embarked on his teaching career in the Commonwealth of Virginia. In his 14-year career as an educator, he has served in many school-related capacities including, but not limited to, teaching multiple grade levels and disciplines, founding an ultimate Frisbee club, and constructing a nature trail for Stations of the Cross. Among the figures of our faith, Ed ascribes to the models of Saint John Bosco in his dedication to education, Venerable Fulton Sheen in his logical and eloquent communication of the Truth, and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati in his devotion to the Eucharist and coming to know God more deeply in Creation through rigorous, outdoor activity.

Nicholas Lapointe was raised in Northern New York, where he spent his childhood between the waters of Lake Ontario and the Adirondack Mountains. As a high schooler, he deeply encountered God through studying the rationality of the faith. This summer, Nick is finishing his Master’s in Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he also completed his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Theology in 2022. Although he has served in various forms of youth ministry throughout college, Nick has a special passion for understanding and sharing the Catholic intellectual tradition especially concerning the beauty and dignity of the human person and the Catholic vision of society, which makes him especially excited to serve as a teacher at the Chesterton Academy of Northern Utah.

Born in Wadowice, Poland, Maria Zielinska began her life as an artist at the Bielsko-Biala High School of Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland. Having shown her work extensively throughout the United States and abroad, Maria has drawn inspiration from and has focused her work primarily around nature – her latest abstract works are large and colorful expressions of simple happenings she notices in the world around her. By exaggerating such small things in large sizes, she turns what is often times unnoticed or easily looked over into beautiful compositions bursting with color and life. Maria currently works out of her studios in Park City, Utah and Wadowice, Poland.

Utah native, John Payne, grew up in a musical family full of road trips, birthdays, and gatherings filled with song and four-part harmonies. He has been a teacher of music, religion, and choirs at all levels of education and has held music director roles at multiple parishes. He has a deep love and gratefulness for the forms of music which, in service to the Word, reflect the transcendental beauty of God and His Creation bringing us into closer relationship with Him. John holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Utah with an emphasis in composition and continues to pursue advanced education in music. He considers himself particularly blessed to be a husband, father, and grandfather.

Since converting to the Catholic faith in 2020, Miray Quintanilla has felt the constant pull toward deeper knowledge of the rich, wisdom of God. She has an affinity and love for all things music, philosophy, grammar, literature, and the Ancient world and its languages. She has previously taught Latin and Religion for the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.
Miray holds a BA in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Utah and is currently enrolled in the "Catholic Education Formation and Credential Program" through the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE). She considers herself an autodidact, both loving to teach and be taught; nūlla aetās ad discendum sērā - it is never too late to learn.
Miray plays the violin in the Taylorsville Symphony Orchestra and cantors for St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center, where she was recently joined to her husband in the sacrament of matrimony. Having discovered the beauty of the faith through a long and winding road, Miray has a special devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots.

Born in Kentucky and raised on the Wasatch Front, Gavin Doughty has over many years enjoyed the privilege of Utah’s many wonders, in both its natural beauty and one-of-a-kind mixture of people and culture. He grew up skiing at Snowbasin, running the hills of North Ogden, and researching Mormonism. A convert to the Catholic faith in high school from evangelical Protestantism, he has experienced in the last several years the seeming infinity of consolations that comes with membership in the Church—intellectually, aesthetically, interpersonally—and sought greater exploration of her treasures in his studies at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, and the International Theological Institute in Trumau, Austria, from which he graduated in 2024 with a BA in the Liberal Arts. Feeling uniquely suited and called to engage and continually renew the learning that has brought his mind and soul so much clarity and enthusiasm, he is eager to be part of the faculty and mission of Chesterton Academy of Northern Utah, in the heart of the Church and of his home state.