Each Central Park Tutor has a Master’s degree in their field from a top institution and teaching experience. Most important, they relate well to students. Many are native New Yorkers who graduated from Stuyvesant, Hunter School, and Brooklyn Tech and all went on to leading schools including Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Princeton, and the Sorbonne. We love our tutors. We know you will too.
Allissa Wall graduated from Harvard in 1997 with an AB in geophysics. She then became a teaching fellow at Harvard, in the Department of Applied Mathematics. Allissa has taught high school physics, chemistry and biology and all levels of math, from fifth grade arithmetic through multivariable calculus and linear algebra at Harvard, the Commonwealth School of Boston, Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, and Columbia University. Allissa is on leave from Columbia University where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in statistics.
Ben Phillips graduated Dartmouth College and then worked as a Statistical Analyst for two years at a prominent international pension fund in New York. Now he is back in school doing premedical work at Columbia University. A Fullbright scholar who taught Middle School in Strasbourg, France, Ben is fluent in French, Spanish, German and proficient in Russian. He was a teaching fellow at Dartmouth, where he was trained in the Rannias method of language learning, the system used by the Peace Corps, by Professor Ranias himself. While at Dartmouth, he also taught SAT prep, French, Russian, Calculus and Statistics.
Carter Ingram is a Doctor of Philosophy from the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, England. She holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Change and Management, School of Geography and the Environment, from University of Oxford, England and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Carter was the scientist in residence at Island Wood Education Center, Bainbridge Island, Washington where she taught a field course in forest ecology and human impacts on forest ecosystems. She has also developed and delivered tutorials to undergraduate students in environmental monitoring and assessment at the University of Oxford. Her experience in applying science to real world situations helps her both to teach the sciences in an interesting way and allows her to create and teach enrichment curriculum that blends academic science curricula with environmental and ecological projects.
Eimear Kenny is a current PhD student in Computational Biology and Medicine at the Tri-Institutional program between Cornell University, Rockefeller & Sloan-Kettering. She holds an M.Sc. Bioinformatics (first class honors, with distinction) from the University of Leeds, Leeds, England. She has also been a research scholar in molecular biology at MIT. She was a Teaching assistant for the Undergraduate Developmental Genetics program, Department of Biology, University of Leeds. And she was a volunteer tutor for elementary level children as part of the Trinity Local Outreach Program, Dublin City, Ireland.
Gilly Nadel has taught middle school for over five years. She has taught a range of children -- very wealthy to homeless, reading far above to far below grade level, coming from backgrounds that represent the full diversity of New York City. Before teaching, she was a lawyer. Most of her work was in litigation; she is particularly proud of a Supreme Court brief that she wrote defending civil rights and environmental legislation, and that was praised in a New York Times editorial. She graduated summa cum laude from Indiana University and cum laude from Harvard Law School. Her undergraduate degree was in Journalism and History.
Greg Gorden received his Bachelors of Science Degree and Secondary Science Teaching Certificate from Texas A&M University. He has taught high school chemistry, physics, and biology as well as human anatomy & physiology. He has also been the Manager of School Programs for several nationally recognized science museums including the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Museum of Health & Medical Science. A certified science teacher with nearly 10 years of experience in the field, Greg has been a classroom teacher, a curriculum developer, a museum educator and a private tutor. Greg has experience teaching students with a wide range of backgrounds and learning styles (Homeschool, Honors, Advanced Placement, and Special Education students). He is patient and understanding, especially with struggling students and looks forward to helping each student succeed.
Jared Killian is a writer and teacher who has been living in New York City his whole life. He graduated from Bard College with a degree in psychology and from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature. He has taught reading and writing at the Wequonic School of Norwich, and math and language skills at the Groton Public Summer School Program. Jared thesis 'Writers on Writing: Cognitive Processes Involved in Character Creation" crossed the disciplinary boundaries between psychology and literature, seeking to better understand not the product but the process of writing.
Jose Solis has been a foreign language instructor for over 10 years. He has worked with New Rochelle High School, the NYC Department of Education, the NYC Department of HHS, and numerous private language institutes throughout New York. Jose has an MBA in finance and is currently in the CUNY graduate program for Secondary School Instruction. He is multilingual in French, Spanish and English.
Justin Clark is a Ph.D. student in philosophy at NYU. His philosophical interests are as broad as can be, but he has probably thought most about problems in metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics and logic. He has an undergraduate degree in both philosophy and mathematics. For his senior thesis, he bored his philosophy and math professors with yet another development and defense of a property-theoretic account of natural number arithmetic. Justin’s study of the foundation of mathematics and logic allows him to teach with a rich understanding of both math and standardized test curricula. He can approach it both from a “math” and from a “verbal” perspective. Outside of philosophy, Justin enjoys music and theater. He also loves the outdoors, and spent last summer in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, working for the Appalachian Mountain Club -- a non-profit conservation organization.
Lelia Scheau is a graduate of the University of Chicago and is a current PhD student in Art History at Columbia University. To pursue her studies, Lelia lived and studied at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris, where she received the “Diplome de Premier Cycle de l’Ecole du Louvre.” While living in France, Lelia also taught for the French Ministry of Education, and tutored students individually in their homes. As a Docent at the Smart Museum of Art and through her work at the Department of Education at the Art Institute of Chicago, she has learned to make her lessons interactive. She is fully fluent in French.
Marvin Blaustein is a college professor and has tutored Math and Physics for over thirty years. He has taught at Case University, Touro College and St. Joseph’s College, where he now teaches. The success and strength of his tutoring comes from putting students at ease and by encouraging them not to be afraid to make mistakes. Marvin breaks down material into parts students can understand, building physics and math knowledge with a strong foundation.
Mike Wallach is a graduate with honors in Philosophy from Cornell University and holds a Masters degree from Columbia University. He is the winner of the Harrop Freeman Prize for Research and he was the Director of the Cornell Education Department Tutoring Program, for which he won the "Innovation In Public Service Award." He won the National CINDY Silver Prize for "Best New Educational Material" for his curriculum "Teaching Peace," is the co-author of the book "The Enemy Has A Face" and is a contributing writer for The American Prospect Magazine. Mike was recently a Presidential Management Fellow with the US State Department, where his analysis was delivered directly to the Secretary of State, the White House and the National Security Council, but he left politics to become a writer and teacher. He scored perfectly on his GRE verbal section and knows his students can score great too!
Musyoka Munkyoki is a patient, understanding and effective tutor. Throughout his years of schooling he benefited greatly from tutors and mentors. Now as an adult, he would like to give back to students who are seeking a little help to reach their academic goals. Musyoka graduated from Cornell University with both a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's Degree in Aerospace Engineering. Simply said, he went to college and graduate school to become a Rocket Scientist. While there, he learned a great deal about Mathematics, Physics, Engineering and many other subjects, "but the most important lesson I took away is how to learn. When I am tutoring I aim to pass on these lessons to all of my students." Musyoka tutors in Mathematics, General Chemistry, Physics from elementary school to college. He also instruct students in the quantitative sections of the PSAT, SAT I & II's.
Polly Ho is a Mathematics Education student in the Graduate School of Education at Pace University, and holds an undergraduate Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. “I love math and truly want people of any age get over their fear of math. Math is a fun subject, and many teachers instruct it in such a way that it is bland and complicated.” She has taught math for seven years, both as a full time math teacher and as a personal tutor. Polly uses hands on methods of games and cards she has developed to ensure that math is clear, visual and engaging for all her students. She is also an accomplished SAT instructor asked by the City of New York to teach numerous classes.
Stephen McFarland is a test-prep pro, in fact he has written the questions themselves. Stephen has written SAT and other standardized test prep questions for Princeton Review and Kaplan test prep material. He has taught the SAT and standardized test for more than six years . Stephen has taught at the Brooklyn Free School and the One Step Ahead Academy, and was asked by the NY State Department of Technology to join them in creating new ways of teaching standardized test prep using distance learning technology at the Brooklyn Libraries. Stephen is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Trinity College, and holds a graduate degree from Cornell University in Urban Planning.
Susana Kraglievich began her teaching career as a New York City Teaching Fellow. After four years in the classroom teaching secondary school humanities, she decided to focus on tutoring. Over the course of two years, she worked primarily with a 4th grade learning-disabled student. She then moved to Washington D.C. and worked with students attending the National Cathedral School. She worked with several families as a homework helper and also taught SAT, SSAT, and GRE prep classes. She was then hired as the head academic teacher at the Junior Tennis Champions Center, College Park, Maryland, the nation's premier tennis training academy. She holds a B.A. in French and European History from the University of Vermont, a Diploma in Advanced Studies of French Language and Culture from the Sorbonne and a Master's degree in Secondary School Social Studies Education from City College. Susana's mother is from Ecuador and her father is from Argentina, so she is also fluent in Spanish.
