Meet the Team at Mathnasium of Palatine

Zahra Soniwalla

Hi everyone! My name is Zahra and I’ve been an instructor at Mathnasium for five years! I like math because it makes me think outside of the box to come up with solutions to problems. One of my favorite things about working at Mathnasium is watching kids have an ‘a-ha’ moment when they’re working on challenging math problems. As an old Mathnasium student myself, I know how amazing the feeling is. My favorite number is 24 because there are 24 hours in a day, and that’s always enough time to accomplish at least one great thing. It’s also my lucky number! Some fun facts about me are that I was born and raised in Texas (yee-haw), and that I’ve traveled to over 13 different countries!

Diane Henderson

My name is Diane Henderson. I love how math has always challenged me to think logically and critically. I like instructing at Mathnasium because I am passionate about math and really enjoy teaching! It's so awesome to see a student gain confidence as they strengthen their current math skills while learning new and more challenging ones. My favorite number is π because it's so sweet! Fun Fact: My husband and I have coached girls basketball together for 20 years.

Adelind Hon

I am Adelind Hon, a senior at Fremd. To me, math has always been my favorite subject because of its logic. I find it interesting that there is usually always one right answer but numerous ways to solve them. Teaching at Mathnasium has allowed me to gain a greater understanding of how to help students create a solid mathematical foundation while furthering their skills. My favorite number is 28, the day of my birthday. Fun Fact: I enjoy baking in my free time and have even started my own bakery called LinLin's Bakery.

Vidhi Patel

My name is Vidhi Patel. I love how math can be applied to anything in the world. Numbers help us understand the world and math helps us understand those numbers. Along with that, I love the objectivity of math. Unlike other subjects, there is almost always one right answer. There is no grey area that you can get lost in. I love instructing at Mathnasium because I can really see the students starting to understand something that I myself am very passionate about. It’s really cool to see the concepts and ideas click in the students’ minds. Plus the kids can be really funny and their excitement to learn is really refreshing! My favorite number is 0. Zero is neither a positive or a negative number. It’s just in the middle. I think it’s pretty cool because it is such a powerful number. It jumps values to infinity if you divide by it, or makes them disappear if you multiply them by it.

Rohan Namboothiri

I am Rohan Namboothiri. I like math primarily because it involves using more logic and problem solving skills to get an answer. It also is very varied and includes numerous interesting topics. I really like instructing at Mathnasium because I get to interact with students of all different ages and help them understand their math topics in a way that I have never learned before. My favorite number is 3.14 because I like pie!

Mary Debellina

Hamza Usman

I am Hamza Usman. I love math because it’s logical and methodical, and there’s specific ways to reach an answer. It’s also both objective and clear, where the steps to reach an answer make sense. I like teaching at Mathnasium since I love math, and I get to meet students at different levels and help them wherever they need it with something I love. My favorite number is e, because it has interesting properties and tends to pop up in unexpected places, from compound interest to growing populations!

Kishan Teeka

My name is Kishan Teeka and I am a senior at Fremd High School. I really love math since it gives me the opportunity to problem solve and find answers. I enjoy challenges because the results are always worth, and math is a perfect example of that. Whenever I solve a hard equation or problem, the satisfaction I get from finding the answer is truly great. Mathnasium has a wonderful environment because as instructors we are not only helping individual students but we are able to help multiple students at the same time. We are able to build great relationships with these students to help them with math even more than normal as well as help them grow other skills as well. My favorite number is the number 6 since my favorite shape is a hexagon which in my opinion is one of the best shapes. It's a shape that can fill an entire plane by itself due to it having six sides, which is really fascinating to me how one specific characteristic of something can mean a lot.

Michelle Malysa

Collin Smith

Anirudh Moholkar

My name is Anirudh Moholkar. Math is special to me because of its presence in all even the most unexpected parts of life, we can see math all around us even throughout nature, and that always fascinates me! I like teaching at Mathnasium because of their bottom up approach to teaching. When I was learning math at a younger age, schools often taught a generalized method with limited flexibility whereas at Mathnasium, students are encouraged to look at problems through new perspectives. I got a perfect score on the math section of the SAT, and it is one of my favorite math assessments I ever took, however bizzare that may sound! My favorite number is “e” to the power of “I” times “Pi”. This is a part of the Euler's identity and it simplifies down to just -1. It goes to show that even the most complex and arbitrary numbers have humble roots.

Eric Zhang

I am Eric Zhang. I like math because although it can be a challenging subject, I feel very accomplished after solving a complex math problem. I find it enjoyable to go through the process of figuring out different problem solutions, and finding the most efficient method. Teaching at Mathnasium allows me to help students of different grade levels and guide them to improve their weaknesses and master their strengths until they are able to get the hang of solving complex concepts by themselves. My favorite number is the feigenbaum constant, which is used to understand chaos theory and for physics and engineering, which are areas that I look forward to studying more in the future. A fun fact about me is that I build mechanical keyboards in my free time.