A native of the South Bay, I have lived in Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, where I attended Homestead High School. At Homestead, I was struck by the difference an attentive and enthusiastic instructor could make in the experiences of their students and developed lifelong admirations for a handful of my teachers.

After high school, I moved to the beautiful Pacific Northwest and attended the University of Oregon where I studied Human Physiology and later transitioned to Neuroscience. I was fascinated by how physical, biochemical mechanisms in the brain could produce our deeply layered sensory experience, as well as complex thought and emotions. My majors granted me the privilege to explore chemistry, biology, physiology, psychology, and physics, which provided me with an excellent base of knowledge about the world around me. I took this foundation with me into the study of the brain, where it all comes together! I spent time as a research coordinator in the Developmental Social Neuroscience Lab at UO and in the Clinical Affective Neuroscience Lab at UCSF. My time in the world of research taught me many valuable skills, chief among them being an attitude of continuous learning and relentless positivity (our lab motto at UCSF was “it’s CAN Lab, not CAN’T lab!”). It is also where I discovered my passion for teaching.

It was in Eugene that I first began to learn how to learn, and discovered that there is no tool more useful for learning than persistence and a strong positive mindset. Confidence in your ability to improve is integral to learning and, like a muscle, is strengthened over time when exercised. My goal as a tutor is to help students grow this muscle and become more confident in their abilities to learn and to demonstrate their understanding in test settings.

In my free time I love to read, cook and take care of my backyard garden. Being active is paramount to me and I am an avid hiker, lifter of weights, and practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu!