Adam holds a PhD in Spanish & Portuguese from Stanford University and a BA in English Literature from Swarthmore College. Adam has taught college-level language courses in Spanish and Portuguese and works as a translator of literary fiction. He is also an accomplished author. His book, American Messiahs, was published in 2019 to accolades in NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic and elsewhere, and was named New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Learning languages is a lifelong interest for Adam: he has studied Spanish, French, and Portuguese for many years, and aspires to learn German and Russian. In addition to his academic pursuits and travel, Adam enjoys attending San Francisco’s galleries, museums, and music venues. He adores film, and is especially fond of San Francisco’s Roxie and Castro theaters.

My dissertation is about how everyday movements (such as vibration and stretching) can help us read novels in a different way. My passion is helping students realize how complex, challenging and rewarding the activities of reading, writing and critical thinking can be. In one-on-one tutoring, my emphasis is on getting to know how you think and figuring out strategies and topics that will help you approach and complete assignments in a way that makes sense and that is meaningful to you. I want to give students the skills and confidence to do well in school, but to also to be articulate and empathic readers, writers, and citizens of the world. Some of the things I do in my spare time: plan backpacking trips, explore the bay area, go on food adventures, hang out with my cat and skype with my niece and nephew. My most recent accomplishment: I built my own desktop computer, and I’m not even a techie!

Dr Asatar Bair is an activist, professor, teacher, and author of Prison Labor in the US: An Economic Analysis (Routledge, 2008). He teaches economic theory at Riverside College in southern California and has written over 200 articles for the Boursen-Kourier, Austria’s oldest weekly financial newspaper. Asatar has a Youtube channel with his lectures on economic theory and a weekly livestream meditation class youtube.com/asatarbair.

These days, I take pride in my organizational and time management skills. As a professional writer and editor, I continuously juggle multiple projects on tight deadlines. But I wasn’t always Dr. Productivity. In my early college years, I struggled with procrastination, often pulling all-nighters to submit essays on time. I loved writing and reading to my core—I’d known since high school that I’d major in English—so why, oh why, couldn’t I seem to give myself enough time to write and read?

Since then, I’ve learned not only to master my own distraction and fear around writing and productivity habits, but to help many others do the same. Over the course of fifteen years of teaching and tutoring, I’ve prioritized patiently working to understand each student’s starting-point and needs—and then thinking outside the box together to smash their specific goals. Sometimes that’s meant helping EAL writers learn to notice and correct patterns in their own drafts (as a tutor at my college’s Writing Center, and in my current editing work). Other times, I’ve used visual brainstorming and other new classroom technologies to help STEM majors develop key communication and research skills (in the Writing and Rhetoric course I designed and taught at Stanford). I’ve sought out informal opportunities to teach, too, leading a science fiction book club for undergrads and serving as a mentor to younger TAs in my PhD program.

In my spare time, I enjoy film, French conversation, and playing classical piano. Even after finishing the gauntlet of graduate school, I remain an incorrigible readaholic (I’m currently in two book clubs); I just can’t get enough of literature, the way it places us directly inside other minds. I see my students as my co-captains in that journey of discovery and connection.

I fell in love with history and its power to illuminate the world around us years ago. I’m currently chair of the history department at Lick-Wilmerding School here in San Francisco. Previously, I worked at Drew School for five years. Before deciding to devote myself to high school teaching, I taught at Auburn University, Brandeis University, and San Francisco State University. While some of the names, dates, and events of history may fade with time, I hope that my students take away a deeper understanding of the past, as well as the abilities to raise questions and to think critically and creatively about the world around them, to construct a persuasive spoken or written argument, and to view their own endeavors – in school and out – within the long arc of history. When not at school, I enjoy spending time with my three children and exploring the East Bay with them.

I am currently in my 30th year as an educator as a community college mathematics professor in California. I began tutoring math when I was 10 years old in elementary school and I vividly remember the joy and pleasure of assisting others in the ‘ah ha’ moments that come with learning something difficult. I find it ironic as I come to the latter part of my career as a professor, that I’ve arrived back to the one-on-one tutoring that launched my passion for teaching.
I was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of 8 and my learning difference has been a gift as an educator. Thinking differently allows me to relate to my students’ feelings of frustration and discouragement. My determination to figure out the one misconception, is the same determination I have in helping others in math and life. I provide students contextual meaning to the material rather than having them follow a series of steps with no understanding as to why it works. I am quick to adjust the modality of teaching to meet the needs of any student’s intrinsic learning style.
As a coach, a mentor, advocate, cheerleader and friend to my students, I provide them skills and confidence to do well in school and life. I use mathematics as a catalyst to discover how to handle difficult situations and demonstrate how the logic used to solve math problems can be adapted and used to approach challenges outside of academia.
Some of the things I do in my spare time: travel, mountain bike, hike, camp, study Spanish, and romp with my Golden Doodle, Roo. I’m an active member of a Maker Space and I’m in the process of remodeling a 1964 Airstream with my father, whilst dreaming of building another home.

I am a poet who is passionate about teaching and all forms of writing. I have enjoyed being a language and literature teacher for years, and I am currently a member of the faculty at the Modern and Classical Languages Department at the University of San Francisco. My past research explored the Contemporary Lyrical Novel. I continue to explore how prose and poetry can fuse on the 20th and 21st centuries and I am at the moment working on the topic of poetry in the digital era. I love languages and work primarily on Spanish, English, French and German literatures. I am interested in the question of “form as content” and its relationship to historical and societal shifts. In the past, I worked for several non-profit organizations in the promotion of human rights around the world. I believe that what makes us human is our desire to relate and our ability to care and share our stories.