Who we are

Jaime Zuckerman

College Prep, Executive Function, Writing, Humanities

Jaime grew up in the woods and now lives and teaches in Boston. Jaime earned her BA from Brown University with a concentration in comparative literature and literary arts, her M.Ed. from Harvard School of Education, and an MFA in poetry writing from Emerson. She taught English and the humanities for over a decade in Boston-area independent schools while also tutoring on the side. In 2015, she founded Zuckerman Education and now loves that her days are full of the depth and personal connection that is unique to one-on-one tutoring. Jaime builds relationships with each student based on respect and works with them to ask good questions about both their curriculum and the student’s unique learning process. She often works with neurodiverse or anxious students to meet their goals and feel confident. As a college coach, Jaime partners with families and their seniors to make the stressful process run smoothly and gain acceptance to a good-fit school. She provides support from the very beginning of the process in building a list all the way to submitting the applications. Jaime’s favorite thing about tutoring is that she’s always learning new things from her students and the work they do together.

When she is not working with students, Jaime can be found swimming, hiking, writing, reading at the beach, or walking her dog, Milo.   

Lola Argiró

Math, Spanish, Executive Function

Lola was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and immigrated to the U.S. in 2002. For her undergraduate and graduate studies, Lola attended Boston University where she studied applied mathematics and special education in undergrad and special education and social work in grad school. Lola is a math enthusiast who loves to teach through the lens of social justice! She believes education should uplift students and help them lead lives that interest and challenge them. Whether she is teaching calculus or Spanish, she wants her students to be relating the content to their lived experiences. A big part of Lola’s approach is spending time learning about each student and building a trusting relationship.

She likes to explore by taking long runs and getting lost in the crevices of the world. You can usually find her reading a few books at a time. Music also fuels her soul; she connects to her Latinx roots through music and dancing.

Emma Corcoran

Writing, College Essays, Executive Functioning, Social-Emotional Development

"Emma grew up south of Boston, but she’s moved north of the city near Tufts University, where she’s earning a Masters and Ed.S degree in school psychology. Prior to Tufts, she graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in psychology, a minor in education studies, and a creative writing certificate. At Wesleyan, she played for the women’s soccer team, worked in public after-school programs in the area, tutored low-income students K-12 as a volunteer, and pursued research in educational psychology. She worked as a special education teaching assistant before starting at Tufts, and most recently has been tutoring middle schoolers and interning for a school psychologist in Cambridge Public Schools.  

Emma is captivated by the intersection of creative and formal writing. She believes style, voice, and originality can be channeled into even the most technical writing tasks. She takes a strengths-based approach in working with her students, which involves expanding upon existing positive skills and traits to grow in areas of difficulty. This process prioritizes meeting students where they currently are in their academic, emotional, and socio-cultural backgrounds to set goals best suited to their multifaceted needs. Emma cherishes fostering meaningful relationships with each student, and she intends to learn from them as much as they learn from her.

In her free time, Emma enjoys spending time outside exploring both natural and urban areas, writing, napping, and learning about meteorology. She occasionally plays piano, but more often immerses herself in listening to indie and alternative music.

Mariana Colin

ACT/SAT Test Prep, Writing

Mariana is a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studies the political economics and anthropology of the media environment. Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, her parents, both of whom are professors, instilled a love of education in her from day 1. She graduated with a Film Studies degree in 2015 from the University of Arizona, and completed her Masters at north Carolina State University in 2019, also in Film Studies. As a tutor, she believes in the power of human connection and conversation with students to break down barriers in learning. While information retention is great, she lives for those moments of wonder, when her students see the link between the subject they’re learning and their own life. She believes those moments are key to shaping a student who has the excitement and confidence to learn more.

While her first love is philosophy and the stories people use to make sense of their world, she also considers herself a weekend scientist, and can often be found reading books about biology and the natural world, or doing maintenance on her coral reef tank.  

Isabella Darke

Math, Science

Before moving to Boston, Isabella was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. She grew up gardening, reading and baking, the latter of which she credits with beginning her life-long love of chemistry. She earned her BS in Bioengineering from UCLA, Magna Cum Laude and spent two years after graduating working as a Research Chemist for a biosensor start-up company. As an undergraduate, she mentored engineering students, tutored chemistry, math and physics, and brought high schoolers to campus to encourage more diverse STEM participation. During her time in industry, she authored two patents in Electrochemistry and led a university Capstone Design team. She is currently working towards her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. As a member of the Glial Engineering Lab, she synthesizes biomaterials which control cell reactivity in stroke and spinal cord injury, in order to induce healing and repair. More often than not, Isabella is thinking about chemistry; either she's setting up a reaction in her lab (to make a polymer), or in her kitchen (to make a cake). She is currently teaching an undergraduate course on biomaterials for tissue engineering, and volunteers with BU TISP, where she teaches local high school students about science and engineering design.

As a tutor, Isabella focuses on building the student's problem-solving toolkit, and helping them gain confidence in their technical abilities. She is dedicated to creating strong, supportive relationships with students and finds joy in being part of a shared learning process!

Kristina Domaney

Executive Functioning, Social-Emotional Development, Writing

Kristina grew up in Massachusetts and spent her undergraduate years in Worcester studying psychology, political science, and Deaf studies at the College of the Holy Cross. While Massachusetts will always be her home, Kristina has lived in Morocco, Turkey, and Azerbaijan. It was through her time living abroad that her appreciation for teaching really grew. She began her work in education as a Fulbright grantee in Turkey, working with university-level students. Continuing her teaching career, Kristina decided to return to the U.S. to join Teach For America and earn her Ed.M. from Boston University. She worked as a special educator in a variety of classroom settings from inclusion to substantially separate. While the content and grades she taught varied over the years, Kristina recognized that her emphasis on students’ social-emotional development remained centered and constant. This common thread led her to explore the field of social work. Currently, Kristina is studying to earn her M.S.W. from Smith College School for Social Work. In her work as a tutor, Kristina enjoys developing supportive, thoughtful relationships with youth. She enjoys learning about their interests, abilities, and goals and incorporating these elements into individualized, engaging sessions. Kristina aims to bring her unique crossover of education and social work to the tutoring space, attending to both academic and social-emotional needs.

Outside of tutoring, you might find Kristina teaching barre classes in the area, exploring local cafes for the best decaf coffee, reading about psychodynamic theory for clinical practice, or going for a refreshing stroll outside.

Tessa Fast

College Guidance

Tessa was born and raised in west Michigan. She moved to Ann Arbor and attended the University of Michigan where she received a BA in Political Science and Women’s Studies, and minored in Community Action Social Change (a combo of community organizing and social work). In undergrad, she delved into organizing around mass agriculture and mass incarceration industries, working with people who were incarcerated to tell their stories and use writing as a restorative tool.  She continued her work in reforming the juvenile justice system within schools throughout Rhode Island. During this time, she began mentoring high schoolers in preparing for next steps after graduation and has worked with high schoolers ever since. 

Her love for storytelling and her deep belief in the power of young people inspired her to attend graduate school at Brandeis University. She received a MBA in and an MA in Conflict Resolution with the goal of working within school systems to support more experiential, student-centered and restorative learning. Since 2018, Tessa has been on the leadership team and the Director of College Counseling at NuVu Innovation School. She has worked with students from traditional education backgrounds to students from homeschooling and creative backgrounds. Tessa loves connecting with students, sharing memories and stories, and laughing along the way.

In her free time, she loves hiking, spending time with her friends, exploring with her partner and her dog Zazu (a diva), and going on wild adventures both near and far. Other fun facts: her favorite season is summer, her favorite sport to play and watch is soccer, her role model is Ida B. Wells, she loves baths, and she occasionally has a Midwestern twang.

Adam Krafcik

Science, Math

Adam tutored in one way or another since his sophomore year of high school and has done it every year since then. He grew up in Agawam, Massachusetts before moving to Boston to attend Tufts University. While there, he studied biochemistry and spent most of his time tutoring middle school students at the YMCA through the Tufts Literacy Corps. He also tutored his Tufts peers in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biology. Apart from tutoring, he worked in the Tufts labs as a laboratory teaching assistant and as an undergraduate student researcher where he did research on human protein-protein interactions and their links to diseases such as cancer. This fall, Adam will continue his educational journey at Tufts pursuing a masters degree in Innovation and Management. He plans to use this new degree to work with engineers and other scientists to develop new technologies and products that may be of benefit to the world. Adam’s favorite aspect of tutoring is watching students grow academically and conquer previous struggles. More than anything, he is happy to provide mentorship and guidance to his tutees and wants to assist them in any way that he can, whether it be inside or outside the classroom.

When he's not a tutor, Adam enjoys walking, writing in his journal, eating quesadillas, or playing video games with his friends. 

Bobby Gay

Executive Functioning

Bobby was born and raised in the Boston area. After a brief stint in Washington DC his freshman year of college, he returned to Massachusetts and earned his BA in History from the Honors College at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Bobby’s love of exchanging ideas with people of all ages and identities, as well as his desire to work for positive change, inspired him to earn his MA in Teaching from Simmons University. Upon graduation, he worked for a few years in a middle school in Lawrence as a Special Education teacher. Currently, Bobby works at a Boston middle school as an ELA and Social Studies teacher in an inclusion classroom.

He loves watching students ask increasingly thoughtful questions, gain confidence and independence, and think about their future.

Dani Guberek

Writing, Executive Functioning, Sciences, Math

Dani is a writer, artist, and educator who once planned to be a theoretical physicist. After graduating from M.I.T. in 2019 with degrees in physics and literature, he pursued his love of teaching through a fellowship in Madrid, Spain. At a public secondary school there, he co-taught classes in English, physics, biology, technology, and music. Dani has since returned to the U.S. He is now an M.F.A. candidate in creative writing at Rutgers-Newark. For his thesis, he is writing a novel. At Rutgers, Dani also teaches one English composition course per semester.

Born in Bogotá and moving ever since Dani is an avid crosser of borders. He means this metaphorically, mostly—and tutoring is one example. In tutoring, Dani works to learn about his student’s world, both to best support the student and to widen his own. He knows everyone has individual needs and wants, everyone has good days and bad days, and everyone deserves flexibility in finding strategies that work.

Dani is also keen on coffee, cooking, asking questions, resting, and long, aimless walks, preferably where there are butterflies.

Ella Johnson

Writing, Reading Comprehension, College Essays, Biology

Ella is from the Big Island of Hawaii and has enjoyed getting to know the Boston area while earning her undergraduate degree in English and Biology at Tufts University. She also enjoyed learning about different educational systems studying abroad at Queen Mary University of London for her junior year. She looks forward to completing a Masters in Secondary English Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Ella dreams of becoming a high school English teacher and cannot wait to have her own classroom someday. Her experience with education includes tutoring with Tufts Literacy Corps for three years and teaching Genetics and other subjects through Breakthrough Greater Boston. Her teaching and tutoring philosophy is shaped by her belief in the talent and intelligence of every student. She also believes in the transformative potential of literature and the freeing power of creative writing–especially poetry. Ella is passionate about making students excited about learning and loves getting creative with different tutoring games and strategies.

Outside of tutoring, Ella loves to think in puns, explore the world, admire adorable puppies, work on acquiring her dream personal library, drink tea, and watch soccer with friends.

Emma Lincoln

Math, Executive Function

Emma earned her B.S. in math education with a minor in special education as well as her M.Ed. in special education from Boston University. This is Emma's third year as a math teacher at Framingham High School, where she has taught algebra 1, algebra 2, geometry, and financial literacy at various levels. While Emma finds math incredibly interesting, her real passion lies in helping others with their math skills. This will be Emma’s tenth year tutoring middle and high school students in math (though she’s said she’s wanted to teach since she was five!). Her experience teaching high schoolers with a variety of backgrounds and lived experiences has shown her that learning math goes far beyond the numbers on the page, and she finds it incredibly rewarding to teach students in the same community she now lives in. Emma believes that all students can do math, but not without first recognizing their individual strengths, needs, experiences, and learning styles, and she is dedicated to finding the accommodations and individualized instruction that will help every one of her students succeed - something she finds to be one of the best parts of tutoring sessions. She most looks forward to meeting new students and helping them see their cultures, their communities, and their lives in the math they learn. 

When Emma is not in the classroom or tutoring, she's often outside biking, in the kitchen baking, juggling wedding planning, and (best of all) snuggling with her cats Cheddar and Brie.

Noah McCollum-Gayley

Math

Noah is a PhD student in Applied Mathematics at the University of Arizona with nearly a decade of experience teaching and tutoring math. Raised in the greater Phoenix area, he describes his journey into mathematics as “highly non-standard.” Throughout his K-12 education, he struggled academically and was placed into middle school level-math upon entering community college. After transferring to university, he initially declared a Philosophy major. However, as he continued fulfilling his math requirements, he discovered a passion for mathematics that led him to switch majors and earn a Bachelor's degree in math in 2016. Following his undergraduate studies, Noah completed a Master's in Statistics at the same institution and worked as a statistical analyst at an economic consulting firm shortly thereafter. He returned to academia in the fall of 2024 to pursue his PhD. Drawing on his unconventional background, Noah excels at helping students who struggle with math. His teaching method is distinctly Socratic, often asking targeted questions to pinpoint misconceptions and guide students toward a deeper, intuitive grasp of mathematical concepts. Rather than simply providing solutions, he guides his students towards discovering solutions on their own with the goal of modeling how a mathematician would think about the problem. 

In his free time, Noah enjoys rollerblading, weightlifting, meditation, reading, and hiking the mountains of Arizona.

Siddhartha Modur

Writing, Computer Science

Sid was raised in the Boston area and graduated from Oberlin College with majors in Computer Science and Politics, a combination that reflects his multi-faceted interests. In college, he worked as a grader and tutor for his fellow computer science students, and he found it deeply rewarding to find ways of explaining complex topics by relating analogies and metaphors that spoke to individual students. After graduating, he worked as a software developer; however, he missed the individual connections he formed while teaching. Sid’s educational philosophy is one of demystification. Complex concepts and specialized vocabulary in any field can be overwhelming, but at their heart, even they only exist to name and link the intuitions that we all possess. Therefore, by working one-on-one with students and getting to know them on a personal level, he aims to establish a students’ relationship to the material in a way that resonates with them.

In his free time, Sid enjoys working on his coding side projects, reading about philosophy and political economy, and occasionally flying.

Livia Reider

Science

Livia is from Newton, MA, though her home has fluctuated since graduating from Occidental College in Los Angeles. At Occidental, she majored in biology. She enjoyed her liberal arts education because her diverse course load encouraged her to engage with new perspectives. She performed undergraduate research in a micro-pathogenesis lab, investigating the behavior of Group A Streptococcus (strep throat), and was the social president of her ultimate frisbee team. Since graduating she has bounced combined work in tutoring and in the service industry to support her love of travel, backpacking through Asia and appreciating the nomad life. Livia prioritizes safety and acceptance in the learning space. She believes there is no correct way to learn and adjusts each session to the comfort and goals of her students. She aims to construct individual relationships built on mutual trust while motivating her students to push themselves. She hopes to spread her passion for learning and support her students as they continue to forge their path.

Outside academia, Livia loves to explore and says yes to almost anything. Hiking, climbing, and baking are among many favorites.

Livia was once one of our students, and we’re so happy to have her come full circle and join the team!

Eli Siegel-Bernstein

College essays, Writing, Science

Born and raised in Cambridge, MA, Eli's home base is now (mostly) in Middletown, CT where he is a student at Wesleyan University. Eli studies Anthropology and Biology in Wesleyan's Science in Society Program, and he enjoys the opportunities this course of study offers to think and question across disciplines. An avid language learner, Eli has also had the opportunity to study Arabic both domestically and abroad in Amman, Jordan. Before college, Eli took a gap year working in reproductive healthcare and agriculture. He is also a writing and math tutor for incarcerated college students through the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education and is part of the Wesleyan Doula Project. 

Eli believes that curiosity and asking difficult questions are crucial to solving complex problems. He enjoys tutoring for the flexibility it offers to meet students at each unique stage in their academic journey. Eli brings his love of learning to each session and is passionate about working with students to discover what and how they like to learn.

In his free time, Eli enjoys cooking, rock climbing, and testing his language abilities by watching films and YouTube videos from around the Arab World.

Eli was once one of our students, and we’re incredibly proud to have him on the team now!