Meet the Team at Mathnasium of Kanata

Adriana Jordan

Emma Norlen

Emma is currently pursuing a double degree in Mathematics and Physics and brings her strong academic foundation and love for children to her work at Mathnasium. Her enthusiasm for math began at home, where she watched her mother tutor students. 

Known for her playful and caring nature, Emma is always ready to brighten a child’s day. She even keeps bubbles and sock puppets on hand just in case! She’s passionate about making learning fun, even if she’s not a fan of messy spaces or plastic soda lids.

Francis Kawan

Francis spent over 20 years teaching high school math and science in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board before taking time off to raise his children. Now back in the classroom, he brings patience, experience, and a deep love for math instruction to every session. 

He especially enjoys working one-on-one with students and watching their confidence grow. Outside of Mathnasium, Francis can often be found exploring the outdoors with a map and compass in hand.

Dulce Garza

Dulce holds a bachelor's degree in electronic and communications engineering and a master’s in IT Management. She spent years in Human Resources analyzing compensation models for thousands of employees, applying her mathematical skills daily. 

After a decade away to raise her children, Dulce now brings her enthusiasm and analytical mindset to Mathnasium Online. She finds joy in watching students experience that “aha” moment when a new concept clicks.

Ayesha Shaikh

Ayesha is currently an undergraduate student studying biochemistry and accounting at the University of Ottawa. Despite pursuing a bachelor's degree in the sciences, she's always felt a connection to math and was the unanimously appointed math tutor by her high school peers. This led to her obtaining a ton of informal tutoring experience throughout her high school career. Besides helping her classmates, siblings, and many others with their academics, Ayesha likes to spend her time online shopping. Her plethora of hobbies include knitting, drawing, painting, and bringing up how cold she is.

Selena Zou

Selena is currently debating whether she should major in mathematics, statistics, computer science, or some combination of the above. She actually came to her love for math quite late, having struggled throughout middle and early high school. But after meeting a teacher who really made the effort to make math make sense, she realized the beauty behind the sometimes-tricky concepts and sometimes-messy numbers, and very quickly fell in love with math! It's that same journey of finding excitement in learning that she wants to share with the students at Mathnasium. In her spare time, Selena enjoys reading about history, playing piano, and sometimes being (happily) conscripted into helping her roommates and friends with their math problems.

Annika Xu

Annika is currently an IB student who hopes to work in a math or tech-related field in the future. Over the past two years, she has spent time as an elementary math tutor, allowing her to gain knowledge and experience teaching kids. She has always enjoyed helping people with math—it being one of her favorite subjects in school—and she hopes to further help kids understand math concepts through Mathnasium. Alongside math, her other favorite subjects in school are art, computer science, and the natural sciences. In her free time, Annika likes to draw and paint both digitally and traditionally.

Christine Wu

Christine is currently a high school senior at Lisgar Collegiate Institute. She hopes to study computer science in university, and has always had a passion for mathematics. Throughout middle and high school, she loved helping her peers with mathematics and has experience working as a private tutor for elementary school students, so Mathnasium is the perfect place for her to grow her knowledge and tutoring skills. Besides academics, Christine does pre-professional ballet and plays piano in her free time.