Josephine (Jodie) B. Moore '96 is the president and co-founder of The Neighborhood Academy, a faith-based, independent, college-prep high school for Pittsburgh’s low-income youth.

A native of St. Louis, Jodie began her career in Philadelphia as an interior designer and project manager. Drawn by the potential of Renaissance II, she arrived in Pittsburgh in 1980 to found the Pittsburgh office of a regional interior architectural design firm. Several years later Jodie started her own high-end design firm. 

In the late 1980s, hearing a call to ministry, she channeled her entrepreneurial spirit into the fight for urban education and social justice. Supported by five East End churches, Jodie started the Larimer Avenue Youth Club, a street ministry working with at-risk youth in some of Pittsburgh’s most distressed Pittsburgh neighborhoods: Larimer, Garfield, and Northview Heights.

Concurrently, while studying for her MDiv at PTS, Jodie met and recruited the Rev. Tom Johnson (fellow distinguished alum) to assist in her youth group by providing a strong African American presence. Together, in 1991, they founded and ran a summer school for at-risk teens—a 10 year pilot program that proved to be a fertile testing ground for many of their educational ideas. In 1998, after six successful summers, R.K. Mellon Foundation funded their development of the business plan that would become The Neighborhood Academy, which opened in Garfield Sept. 12, 2001. Seven years later Jodie launched the successful $10.2 million capital campaign that provided The Neighborhood Academy with its beautiful new campus in Stanton Heights.

She is a lay reader and chalice bearer in the Episcopal Church, an associate member of the Women’s Committee and her garden club, and a founding board member of the Energy Innovation Center. Jodie also continues to create interiors for a few long-standing clients.

Jodie earned her bachelor’s in Russian history from the University of Pennsylvania, her associate degree in interior design from the New York School of Design, and her MDiv from PTS. She’s the mother of one son, Tory.

Josephine (Jodie) B. Moore '96 is the president and co-founder of The Neighborhood Academy, a faith-based, independent, college-prep high school for Pittsburgh’s low-income youth.

A native of St. Louis, Jodie began her career in Philadelphia as an interior designer and project manager. Drawn by the potential of Renaissance II, she arrived in Pittsburgh in 1980 to found the Pittsburgh office of a regional interior architectural design firm. Several years later Jodie started her own high-end design firm. 

In the late 1980s, hearing a call to ministry, she channeled her entrepreneurial spirit into the fight for urban education and social justice. Supported by five East End churches, Jodie started the Larimer Avenue Youth Club, a street ministry working with at-risk youth in some of Pittsburgh’s most distressed Pittsburgh neighborhoods: Larimer, Garfield, and Northview Heights.

Concurrently, while studying for her MDiv at PTS, Jodie met and recruited the Rev. Tom Johnson (fellow distinguished alum) to assist in her youth group by providing a strong African American presence. Together, in 1991, they founded and ran a summer school for at-risk teens—a 10 year pilot program that proved to be a fertile testing ground for many of their educational ideas. In 1998, after six successful summers, R.K. Mellon Foundation funded their development of the business plan that would become The Neighborhood Academy, which opened in Garfield Sept. 12, 2001. Seven years later Jodie launched the successful $10.2 million capital campaign that provided The Neighborhood Academy with its beautiful new campus in Stanton Heights.

She is a lay reader and chalice bearer in the Episcopal Church, an associate member of the Women’s Committee and her garden club, and a founding board member of the Energy Innovation Center. Jodie also continues to create interiors for a few long-standing clients.

Jodie earned her bachelor’s in Russian history from the University of Pennsylvania, her associate degree in interior design from the New York School of Design, and her MDiv from PTS. She’s the mother of one son, Tory.