Our Team at Mathnasium of Elmhurst

Myrtle Castro

Myrtle brings strong experience in student engagement and academic support to Mathnasium. She is dedicated to building inclusive learning environments where students feel comfortable, motivated, and confident in their abilities. 

Her favorite subject is Algebra, which she enjoys for its logic and creativity. Myrtle also likes using humor to make math less intimidating, including the classic: “Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine!” Her warmth and encouragement help students see math as both approachable and fun. 

Jacob Harvey

Jacob has been with Mathnasium for more than five years and has also worked as a substitute teacher in high school math. He holds a degree in General Mathematics from Illinois State University and is completing a Master of Arts in Teaching at McKendree University. 

He loves math for its balance of structure and complexity, with Algebra and Trigonometry among his favorite subjects. In his free time, Jacob enjoys baseball and piano. His favorite joke? Pi’s phone bill is high because it goes on and on forever. 

Richard Jeffrey

Richard brings 40 years of classroom teaching experience to Mathnasium. Known for making new ideas simple and memorable, he is passionate about showing students that learning can be fun. 

Beyond math, Richard is also a musician, director, and composer, with a deep interest in history and space. He often shares one of his favorite reminders with students: “Curiosity is the essence of our existence.” His enthusiasm inspires learners to approach both math and the wider world with curiosity. 

Adi Patel

Adi studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is pursuing his goal of becoming a high school math teacher. Passionate about math since childhood, he believes numbers and patterns shape the world around us. 

At Mathnasium, Adi enjoys sparking curiosity and helping students build confidence in problem solving. In his free time, he cooks, volunteers, and follows Formula 1 racing, basketball, and football. His favorite subject is Calculus, and he jokes that students wear glasses in math class to improve their “di-vision.” 

Jacob Suiter

Jacob Suiter is a Nutrition and Food Science major at UIC. In the past he also studied as an astrophysics major, but found a love for cooking. In his free time, he loves cooking, gardening, and playing video games. He also has a dog, cat, snake, tortoise, bird, and frog as pets.

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite Color: Blue
-Favorite Math Topic: Quadratics & Factoring
-Favorite Math Joke: An infinite number of students walk into an ice-cream shop.
The first student asks for 1 scoop, the second student asks for a 1/2 scoop,
the third student asks for a ¼ scoop, the fourth student asks for a ⅛ scoop, and so on.
...the ice-cream attendant realizes what's happening and says "STOP! I see what's happening here!" He then gives the whole group two scoops total to share amongst themselves. #IfYouKnowYouKnow XD

Alec Wasowicz

Alec is an engineering student who plans to teach engineering one day. His favorite part of teaching is finding the right explaination to make something click. In his free time, he enjoys cooking and cycling.

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite Color: Green
-Favorite Math Topic: Fourrier Series
-Favorite Math Joke: Do you know what's odd about math?
...every other number! XD

Shelvin John

Shelvin is a York Highschool Alumni currently studying Industrial Engineering. He also loves to travel and explore different areas of the world and is always eager to learn more. Shelvin believes that trying to understand math allows one to truly make sense of the world around us since we are constantly surrounded by equations, patterns, numbers, and etc. Outside of math, Shelvin also loves to cook, lift weights, and play the piano!

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite color: Green
-Favorite Math Subject: Calculus I
-Favorite Math Joke: Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 8 9

Nathan Stout

Nathan is currently in his first year at College of DuPage majoring in mechanical engineering. Nathan has enjoyed math since he learned to count to 10 and is excited to share this passion with others. In his free time you can find Nathan playing video games or sports.

*FUN FACTS*

-Favorite color: red
-Favorite math topic: Integral Calculus
-Favorite Math Joke: Why can’t you trust an atom? Because they make up everything.

Jack McGreal

Jack is a recent graduated from York Community High School, and he just took AP Calculus AB and AP Statistics. He enjoys math for its logical structure and the way it challenges him to think critically, and he plans to study statistics in college. In his free time, Jack enjoys playing and watching sports, cooking, and spending time with his dogs.

*FUN FACTS*

-Favorite Color: Navy Blue
-Favorite Math Topic: Probability
-Favorite Math Joke:
Why was the equal sign so humble?
Because it knew it wasn’t less than or greater than anyone else!

Mansi Shah

Mansi is a recent graduate from York Community High School. Her passions include physics, biology, and helping others. She also enjoys tennis, drawing, color guard, and, of course, math. She currently plans on pursuing a bachelors in BioMedical Engineering.

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite Color: Purple!
-Favorite Math Topic: Derivatives
-Favorite Math Joke:
To the person who invented zero...
thanks for nothing!

Adam George

Adam is a junior at York high school. He is currently enrolled AP Calculus AB and loves to teach math. Outside of school, he enjoys lifting weights, hanging out either friends, and wrestling! He looks forward to sharing his passion for business and math with all his students!

*FUN FACTS*

-Favorite Color: Red
-Favorite Math Topic: Algebra
-Favorite Math Joke:
What do you call two friends who enjoy math?
Algebros!

Johan Chae

Johan is a Junior at York High School and is currently taking AP Calculus BC. He enjoys competing in wrestling, chess, and economic competitions! Johan is excited to share his love of math with others because math is such a deep necessity for all things throughout life!

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite Color: Sky Blue
-Favorite Math Topic: Calculus
-Favorite Math Joke: What do you call two friends who love math?
...algebros! XD

Chris Brown

Christopher's day job is working as a flight attendant, but in addition to traveling the world, one of his greatest passions is empowering young people and aiding them in living up to their greatest potential. An avid marathoner, Christopher encourages bold goal-setting and always promises that persistence pays off.

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite Color: Blue
-Favorite Math Topic: Calculus
-Favorite Math Joke: Did you hear about the Mathnasium Instructor who's afraid of negative numbers?
...He'll "stop at nothing" to avoid them! XD

Danny Khananisho

Danny works as a professor of philosophy but also has a passion for math. He also used to tutor math when he was a college student as well. Besides teaching and tutoring, Danny enjoys traveling the world in his free time.

*FUN FACTS*
-Favorite Color: Black
-Favorite Math Topic: Logic
-Favorite Math/Logic Joke: A writer, scientist, and mathematician are on a train in the countryside.

The writer spots a black sheep in the field and says "Look all the sheep in the country side must be black."

The scientist says "No way! Only some of the sheep in the country side are likely to be black."

The mathematician pauses for a moment and says "In at least one field in the countryside, the is at least one sheep with at least one side that is black." The farmer nearby looks up and says, “Actually, that sheep is just visiting from the next farm over.” XD

The moral of the story is that assumptions, no matter how logical they seem, can still be wrong if you don’t have all the information. Just when the writer, scientist, and mathematician think they’ve carefully defined the truth, reality proves to be more complex than they expected.