Rose Marie Wanchupela
Founder, Executive Director, and Academic Director
A remarkable American woman arrived in Thailand in 1962 as a member of the first contingent of U.S. Peace Corps workers and was assigned to the Northeast area of the country to assist Thai teachers. Today Rose Marie Wanchupela is Executive Director of Rose Marie Academy (RMA) in Nonthaburi, a school she founded eleven years ago to offer educational opportunities to almost any student who sought a somewhat different, more personalized and individualized approach to classroom studies.
Mrs. Wanchupela’s compassion rests on a strong set of values. To put it simply, she insists on honesty, responsibility, civility, and a respect for Thai culture and traditions from those around her.
Graduated from Syracuse University in New York State prior to first arriving in Thailand, she proceeded from her posts teaching at teachers’ colleges in Songkla and Khorat in the Northeast to help found the English Department at Bangkok University, and later taught at International School Bangkok (ISB) for eleven years.
In the early 1990s, Mrs. Wanchupela began a nursery school in the Muang Thong Thani area. Since 1998 a full schedule of classes has been offered. Starting that same year, a full four-year high school program in cooperation with Keystone High School in Pennsylvania, USA, has been available, leading to a high school diploma for those successfully completing the American curriculum course at RMA.