Three-Sentence Bio

I'm a math teacher from Somerville, MA. I got my teaching master's from BU in 2023, and I've been using it in classroom and hospital contexts. I've always loved learning but only occasionally liked being a student.

Why I Left the Classroom

I’ve already spent more than half my life working and volunteering in STEM education. Why? Because I love to learn. That love of learning is contagious — and my greatest joy in life is helping others get excited about learning. Most of us have had a teacher who made us really appreciate a subject that we thought just wasn’t our thing. I strive to be that teacher.

While teaching in a classroom is very rewarding, I have found that hospital work and tutoring let me focus attention on students who most need it. Our school systems don’t work equally well for everyone. They leave many kids feeling “bad at math” or just plain stupid because they find rote procedures confusing or stressful. In reality, almost everyone is better at mathematical reasoning than they think — they just don’t realize that the thinking they’re doing is math! By taking a curious approach like a mathematician or scientist, I hope to help students uncover their skills and find their confidence.

Experience

My experience in education began during my freshman year of high school. I started volunteering at the Hall of Human life in Boston’s Museum of Science (MOS). There, I conducted interactive activities about human anatomy and evolution for a diverse array of visitors. I continued to volunteer at MOS throughout high school, eventually becoming an intern and training youth volunteers. In college, I returned for a summer as a Program Assistant. In my time at MOS, I developed an activity calling on visitors to use their observational skills to analyze various skeletons. I am very grateful to have found my passion for STEM communication there.

Also during high school, a friend and I developed “MathMagical” programs, in which we would go to local middle schools and teach a supplementary math lesson. We covered topics like base systems, exponents, and modular arithmetic. I developed and taught a significant majority of the lessons. We would then perform various math “tricks,” like mentally cube rooting large numbers, and explain to the students why they worked.

In college, I began working with Grinnell College’s Crecemos Unidos tutoring high-need middle- and high-school students at Meskwaki Settlement School in Iowa. We worked on a variety of subjects, ranging from astronomy to arithmetic and even poetry!

In August of 2020, I saw how family friends struggled with distance learning. Recognizing their need, I began working as a private tutor focusing on STEM subjects. This was the start of my tutoring, during which I have worked with students ranging from elementary to graduate school. You can read some of their their testimonies here!

When I finished college in March 2021, students were just beginning to return from remote learning. I began working at Somerville High School, tutoring students in several programs for social-emotional support. During this time, I worked extensively with students experiencing anxiety, depression, and difficulties with executive function. I loved this role, and I only left it in Spring 2022 because I wanted to pursue my teaching degree.

During the 2022-23 school year, I completed my student teaching in Somerville as part of my Master’s program. I taught geometry and precalculus, and I assistant taught AP Calculus. In the fall of 2023, I held a part-year role teaching geometry, filling in for a teacher on parental leave. My geometry classes were open honors, meaning that there was a mix of students taking honors geometry and college prep geometry.

As of 2024, I teach with LearnWell, a company that provides in-hospital educational services. I teach all core academic subjects to adolescent students in two inpatient psychiatric units. In this role, I am always carefully balancing students' educational needs with their mental health needs.

My Education

In August of 2023, I graduated with a Master of Arts in Teaching from Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. I studied as a Noyce scholar on a full scholarship, focusing on secondary mathematics education for high-need populations. Notable coursework included Equitable Pedagogy, Problem Solving in Mathematics, and Special Education. During this degree, I completed my practicum by student teaching at Somerville High School, my alma mater.

In March of 2021, I graduated from Grinnell College with a major in Biology. My advanced biology coursework included Mechanisms of Evolution, Comparative Vertebrate Morphology, Aquatic Biology and Ecology, and Ornithology. I also took a variety of upper-level math courses, including Linear Algebra, Number theory, Differential Equations, and Applied Statistics. In addition, I completed coursework in biological anthropology, such as Primate Comparative Skeletal Morphology, as well as culture-oriented classes. Further studies included data manipulation and GIS.

In the summer of 2019, I completed the Koobi Fora Field School in northern Kenya. There, I studied diverse topics around paleoanthropology including paleoecology, anatomy, evolution, and archaeology. I conducted research about the production of early stone tools.

I graduated high school in 2017. I took AP Biology, AP Physics, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, and AP Computer Science among my STEM courses, scoring a 5 on eaceh AP exam. I additionally took a Calculus II college extension course.