Staff

Mrs. Webster

With over 10 years of tutoring and editing experience, Mrs. Webster specializes in teaching biology, preparing students for standardized testing, and editing college applications. Funny, articulate, and knowledgeable, she is often referred to as "the best teacher" by her students.

Raised by Jewish parents, Mrs. Webster was a National Merit Scholar. Funded by a thirty-thousand dollar writing scholarship, she earned a BS in biology minoring in Studio Art at Lake Forest College, Illinois. She then studied neuroscience at UAB and received a M.S. in Biomedical Science.

Juliet Davoren

Juliet Davoren graduated from Edinburgh University with an M.A. Honours degree. She currently teaches in the Cupertino Union School District, where she gains insights on how SAT and ACT concepts correlate with the school curriculum.

At SpringLight, Juliet has successfully helped students with their college application essays, high school essays, and SAT/ACT preparation. Many of her students have been able to raise their test scores in a short period of time, and her students feel a heightened sense of responsibility and care when working with her. Students she has worked with for college applications have been admitted to Stanford, Yale, MIT, and more.

In her spare time, Juliet shares her Scottish cultural background with others by teaching Scottish Country Dance to adults and children in the Bay Area.

Words from Juliet’s students

Matthew Sloane

Matthew Sloane graduated from Pomona College in 2015, majoring in computer science and minoring in philosophy. The summer after his first year, he received funding to work alongside a Pomona English professor to do research in Seoul. Throughout his time at Pomona, he was a teacher's assistant for a number of courses in the computer science department.

Carolyn Milon

Mrs. Carolyn Milon has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism and a Doctorate of Jurisprudence from Golden Gate University School of Law. After practicing law for nine years she turned her attention to raising her family. Carolyn has worked as an English tutor and college essay editor at SpringLight since 2014. Carolyn is dedicated to helping students excel in their language arts skills. Carolyn has successfully helped students with their college application essays, high school essays, and standard test preparation. Her students have been able to raise their test scores in a short period of time, and they feel a heightened sense of responsibility and care when working with her. Many of Carolyn's students have been admitted to their dream colleges after working with her on their application essays.

 

Padma Ramaswamy

Padma Ramaswamy graduated from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, with a Bachelor’s degree in English, Psychology and Economics. She pursued post-graduate studies in Computer Software, moved to the U.S., and worked in the IT industry for over 12 years. During her time as manager of e-commerce systems at Sun Microsystems, she was the recipient of the Best Cross-Organizational Teamwork Award. She then turned her energies into raising her children, devoting many hours to tutoring, assisting and volunteering in Los Altos Schools.

Padma has now gone back to her first love: English. At SpringLight, she edits college application essays and helps students with their school writing assignments. She strongly believes that a student’s sense of self-worth is the most precious thing, that every student is uniquely talented, and she encourages them to articulate their true voices through their work.

Padma is also a registered yoga instructor and enjoys teaching yoga, running and hiking.

Cindy Jin

Ms. Cindy Jin graduated from Peking University with a major in microelectronics. She also has tutored high school math and physics (AP Calculus and AP Physics) in the Bay Area for more than 5 years. Her teaching is logical, clear. She has helped many students have improved their GPA and inspired them to love science. She has over 22 years of software engineering experience in the communications industry.

Ian Davoren

Ian graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern University’s Honors College with a combined degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and Psychology. During college internships and after graduating, he has worked in investment banking and other financial services positions. At SpringLight, he has tutored students to help them improve their English and reading comprehension skills in preparation for standardized tests, and he has edited college admissions essays to help students get into highly prestigious universities.
In high school, Ian attended Archbishop Mitty High School and was a National Merit Scholar, National AP Scholar, and scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT.
In his free time, Ian plays flute, where he has performed around the world, and water polo, where he played in the New England division of the Collegiate Water Polo Association.

Kenton Freemuth

Instructor Kenton Freemuth (Pomona College, Class of 2015) is a professional freelance writer based in San Francisco. At Pomona, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and double-majored in English and Philosophy, subjects in which he completed a writing portfolio and senior thesis respectively. He writes professionally for several digital marketing agencies.

Desiree Raja Tejero

Desirée Raja Tejero completed her Bachelor’s Degree at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She’s a Spanish and Catalan native speaker and she’s also fluent in English and Italian. Desirée has worked with children for many years.

While she was studying at university she worked as a tutor for children with special needs. She also volunteered as a Spanish teacher for a preschool in Nicaragua. Her most recent teaching job was as a lead teacher in a Spanish immersion school. 
In addition, Desirée is currently starting her studies in Psychology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. 

Dr. Yi He

Dr. He is an esteemed educator who holds a Ph.D. degree in Analytical Chemistry and possesses an impressive teaching background of twenty years at the college level in the United States. With a strong emphasis on general chemistry, AP Chemistry, and USNCO (US Chemistry Olympiad), she brings a wealth of expertise to her instructional approach. Since joining the SpringLight teaching staff in 2019, Dr. He has been making a significant impact on students' academic journeys through her exceptional teaching skills and commitment to fostering a positive learning environment.

何博士毕业于上海交大应用化学系,有二十多年美国大学化学教学经验, 专长于普通化学, AP化学, 化学奥林匹亚。2019年加入春晖教育以来帮助了数百高中生取得了优异的成绩。

Words from Dr. He's students

Moses Ho

Dr. Moses Ho earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Penn State University and has been a dedicated instructor at SpringLight since 2019. With a genuine care for his students and a strong sense of responsibility, he ensures their academic success. With over six years of experience as a private tutor, Dr. Ho possesses a solid foundation in science and math. His ability to logically explain mathematical and scientific concepts to students makes him an effective educator.

Felix Huang

Mr. Felix Huang has taught math, computer science, and physics to high school students in learning centers in the Bay Area for over 10 years. He has helped many students pass the AMC 10, 12, and AIME. He also helped several students to advance on USACO Bronze, Silver, Gold to Platinum. In computer science students advanced to USACO Bronze, Silver, Gold to Platinum. He is passionate about helping students overcome their barriers and reach challenging goals. He helped students gain a profound understanding of math, computer science, and physics. He works as a software engineer in multiple areas including Java, C++, Python programming, backend data, and optimization problems. As background, he received a M.S. in Math from U of Washington, M.S. in Computer Science from U of Arizona, and a B.S. in Math from National Taiwan University.

Dr. Paul Du

Dr. Du has taught mathematics to high school and college students for more than 15 years. He holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of Ottawa and a MS in mathematics from Wuhan University and was a mathematics instructor at Tsinghua University as well as with AoPS. Dr. Du currently teaches mathematics at De Anza College. He has taught and tutored high school math subjects and test preparations including SAT Math, AP Calculus and AMC 8/10/12 for many years. Dr. Du enjoys working with students of different backgrounds and helping them gain better understanding of concepts, improve math problem solving skills, and achieve high scores in standardized tests.

Courses Dr. Du teaches include: Calculus AP and I-IV, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, Finite Mathematics, Statistics, Precalculus, and Intermediate Algebra.

JohnLee Fan

Dr. Fan graduated from Peking University and UC Berkeley with Ph. D. in Engineering. He has tutored and taught math for many years from algebra to calculus for all level students. Many of them got 5 on AP Calculus BC, 800 on SAT Math and high scores on competitions, and most of them have improved their grades. He also taught Java and web software development courses at Software College in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications for many years in his spare time.

In college, he had the privilege of taking classes from some truly extraordinary professors and was lucky to be their teaching assistant. By helping students to understand the concepts, skills, and solve the problems, he felt that good teaching is an art and fun. He likes to start with fundamental contents and skills, to fully understand why and how, and to move on to harder problems. He also likes to give some fun examples of how math solves real-world problems and how math is useful and important. When students get better and better, they no longer feel math is that hard, but is fun to learn. Students are different, and they all have great capabilities; just to be patient while encouraging them to realize and reach their potential.

Anthony Jordan

Anthony is an attorney with a passion for history. He holds a major in history and philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been teaching APUSH and other history courses since 2013 at SpringLight Education. Anthony's students consistently achieve exceptional results, with all of them receiving A's in their high school history courses, and nearly all earning a 5 on their AP history exams.

Anthony's teaching style centers on developing his students' analytical writing skills, which is crucial for excelling in this rigorous course. He is committed to helping his students identify key historical information, analyze historical documents critically, and express their insights effectively through written communication. With Anthony's guidance, his students develop a deep understanding of American history and learn valuable skills that serve them well beyond the classroom.

Mahama Nyankamawu

Mahama Nyankamawu graduated from Georgia Tech with an MS in environmental engineering and has an MPA from Columbia University in Environmental and Energy Finance. Mahama is a life coach, professional engineer and teacher with more than 20 years experience tutoring Math and Science. He is passionate about helping students achieve successful and fulfilling lives through practical scientific and life skills. Mahama is a practicing professional who enhances students’ understanding by linking theoretical concepts with their real world applications.

Mahama is also an NLP practitioner who has taught and inspired thousands of students to earn better grades in school and thrive in life. He uses a unique combination of intellectual and emotional problem approaches that are applicable to many aspects of life.

He co-authored the book entitled ‘Career 3.0: Career Planning Advice to Find your Dream Job in Today's Digital World’ published in 2016.

Adam Xu

Adam Xu qualified for the USACO Platinum and scored a 5 on the AP computer science. He has taken the AP CS class at Lynbrook and as a result is familiar with the struggles of high school Java programming and AP CS assignment/projects. This puts him in the best position to help other students going through the same struggles. As an experienced SpringLight AP Computer Science teacher, his past students who took his AP CS prep class enjoyed it and scored 5. All of his students say that they learned a lot from him not only to prepare for AP CS test, but also to do well in their high school programming classes. He has been teaching AP CS classes at SpringLight since 2016. He is one of our most popular instructors.

Adam不仅自己计算机奥赛晋级白金级,他亲历高中的APCS课程以及APCS考试(5分),深知高中生在学校学习Java以及APCS的挣扎。他长期在春晖教育1对1辅导学生以及教团体APCS课,获得了一致好评。他的APCS的学生去年均获得的5分的好成绩。他自2016年开始在春晖教育教AP CS课,是我们最受欢迎的电脑老师之一。 

Sherry Wang

Sherry Xiaorui Wang graduated with a Master's in Chemistry from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1990 and a Bachelor's in Chemistry from Tongji University in Shanghai. She continued working at Shanghai Jiaotong University, doing extensive research, teaching classes, and mentoring college students for six years. After moving to the United States in 1996, Sherry focused her efforts on helping the community through non-profit organizations such as the Shanghai Jiaotong University Alumnus Association, Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association, Silicon Valley Women Association, and her church. In 2010, Sherry began mentoring high school students through the Bay Echo Association, which “seeks to inform, counsel, and support both teenagers and parents by offering valuable insight on social issues encountered in the everyday lives of teens and creating a safe environment for conversation.” Inspired by these high school students, Sherry founded SpringLight Education Institute in August 2012 with "Faith, Hope, and Love" as its educational philosophy.
Through the Bay Echo Association and SpringLight Education, Sherry has had the opportunity to meet and get to know students of varying backgrounds. She is passionate about remedying the education achievement gap between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds. With extensive knowledge in Chinese and American instructional methods and experience teaching in both the non-profit and private sectors, Sherry has fresh ideas to remedy the disparity in the quality of California public schools. She is confident that the right reforms can help change California education for the better.

How I started SpringLight Education.