About Me
Philosophy
I love to learn. That love is contagious — and my greatest joy in life is helping others get excited about learning, too. 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 to a whole class is very rewarding, my hospital and tutoring experience also 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 scientific and mathematical reasoning than they think — they just don’t realize that the thinking they’re doing is academic! By taking a curious approach, I hope to help students uncover their skills and find their confidence.
For those who appreciate the jargon, I practice culturally responsive pedagogy, mainly through problem-solving. My science classroom is phenomenon-driven, exploration-based, and primarily project-based.
Experience
See my résumé for the highlights.
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 worked with students ranging from elementary to graduate school. I continued tutoring on-and-off through 2024.
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 social-emotional support programs. 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.
From 2023-2025, concurrently with other work, I taught private music lessons through Guitar Stop. Students ranged from preschoolers to retirees. I approached them as a teacher first, really more of a coach, and as a musician second. The lessons were totally student-centerd, following no curriculum unless requested. I’m proud of how well I adapted to varied needs.
From 2024-2026, I taught with LearnWell, a company that provides in-hospital educational services. I taught all core academic subjects to adolescent students in two inpatient psychiatric units. One of the units specialized in treating patients whose treatment needs intersect with acute presentations of autism. In this role, I carefully balanced students’ educational needs with their mental health needs.
In spring of 2026, I taught 6th grade science at Gibbs School in Arlington. This was a long-term substitute role, but it launched me back into the traditional classroom. As of fall 2026, I am the 7th grade science teacher at Frost Middle School in Lawrence.
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.
Interests
I play guitar, bass, ukulele, and banjo, plus I dabble in piano, mandolin, and drums. I have a personal curiosity cabinet of animal bones and fossils. I like to code and do recreational math, and I’m always chewing on some puzzle or another. I’ve been performing card and close-up magic since 6th grade, although I was really bad at it for most of that time. I am sadly allergic to most pets, but I have a cat named Rosalind. We make it work. My favorite party trick is crossing one eye and moving the other independently.
Friends have described me as compassionate,
flexible,
extremely nerdy,
and good at a lot of things but not sports.