Growing up around the forests of Durham, North Carolina, I fell under the spell of the great outdoors. I loved hiking and camping, but more than anything else, I enjoyed making maps of all the trails I went on. There’s something profoundly rewarding about organizing data from a hike into a diagram that helps others along their own routes — it’s the same joy I get from helping students navigate the uncertain terrain of academic life.

I enrolled at Stanford with the intention of majoring in chemistry, but I was won over by a lively history program. In the history department, I specialized in the development of science in the Renaissance and focused on mapmaking. Researching historical cartography required that I know a little about physics, paper-making, geology, literary studies, and anthropology. My experience with maps has inspired my philosophy of learning: sometimes, the best path to  understanding one subject is seeing how it intersects with many others. 

I put that philosophy into practice when I taught a freshman history class. It was inspiring to see how engineering, physics, and biology students made familiar historical texts suddenly unfamiliar by approaching them from a fresh perspective. As the editor-in-chief of my school’s history journal, I prioritized publishing student work that offered new interpretations of tired historical narratives by looking outside of history. My experiences in college as a researcher, teacher’s assistant, and editor have fostered my passion for helping others identify their own fresh angles for essays in history and English.

My interest in interdisciplinary work has also influenced my approach to test prep. It’s much easier to retain key concepts in reading, writing, math, and science when you understand not only how they work, but also how they connect to wider contexts. I value 1-on-1 time with students as an opportunity to learn about what interests them in order to make tailored, engaging lesson plans. Above all, I understand that there are many routes to the same destination — we should all have the power to draw our own educational maps.

When I’m not tutoring (or coming up with map analogies), I’m walking my two dogs, reading sci fi, or exploring the Bays many trails.