Naomi, Founder
Naomi Zell is a nationally recognized test prep expert who has mentored hundreds of tutors and helped thousands of students reach their goals on five different versions of the SAT (including the latest digital version), ACT, and other tests, succeed in school, gain entrance to top choice colleges, and build long-term skills. She started Swell Education in 2010 to meet the need for personalized, flexible tutoring for high-achieving students in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout the United States. She is an active member member of the National Test Prep Association, where she serves as Orientation Captain. Naomi lives in Marin and is an avid reader, pickleballer, and pizza enthusiast.
Associate Tutors
Amanda G
A math and writing lover, Amanda attended Hampshire College, in Amherst, MA, for film and communication. After graduation, she drove to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting, eventually selling scripts to MGM and Screen Gems. Despite her creative enthusiasm, she sought a more rewarding career path that incorporated her love of math, and discovered her passion for teaching. Since 2017, she’s been tutoring all sections of the SAT and ACT. Her teaching style includes humor, patience, and enthusiastic efficiency – pairing student strengths with optimum point opportunities. She loves empowering students to play a key role in their own score improvements. In addition to test prep, Amanda teaches writing (fiction, screenwriting, essays) and math (1st grade through algebra 2 and geometry). When she’s not teaching, she dabbles in digital painting, non-expert-level sports, and contemplating the nature of reality. She teaches exclusively on zoom because she can be everywhere (and nowhere) at once.
Amanda P
Born and raised on the peninsula, Amanda has been a career tutor since 2013. She attended Reed College in Portland Oregon, but she missed the sunshine and moved back to the bay area shortly thereafter. She has helped more than 300 students improve their scores on the ACT, SAT, and SSAT, and has become highly requested among bay area parents. Her calm demeanor and indefatigable positivity make her a wonderful resource for students, especially those with anxiety. Amanda is an expert on all areas of the SAT, ACT, and also tutors Psychology, Literature, Biology, Spanish, writing, and admissions essays. Informed by her Psychology background, she has a holistic approach to education, and thoughtfully tailors her style to benefit each student. Amanda enjoys creative writing, bouldering, and spending time with her cat. Amanda tutors in San Francisco, Marin, and the East Bay, and remotely.
Ben
Over the past decade Ben has gained international recognition as a standardized test prep expert specializing in the SAT, ACT, GRE, SSAT, and ISEE. Ben spent the first few years of his career traveling throughout the United States as a "premier" tutor for one of the largest test prep companies in the world. During this time Ben's services were requested for a number of years to teach at the acclaimed international high school summer program at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. While there, Ben began to develop a reputation overseas and soon relocated to Istanbul, Turkey. While based out of Turkey, Ben traveled extensively working with students from all over the world. To date Ben has helped over 1000 students from more than 35 countries achieve their dreams of pursuing higher education. Given the diverse range of students with whom he has worked, Ben has a unique ability to quickly identify a student's individual needs and customize personalized plans to ensure maximum improvement. In his spare time Ben enjoys anything related to being out on the water, which stems from the time he won a bronze medal in the Junior Olympics for sailing when he was just a kid.
Chase
Chase began his tutoring career with a boutique test prep firm in 2010, where he taught individual students and group classes the ins and outs of the PSAT, SSAT, SAT, and ACT. After graduating from Yale in 2013 with a BA in Philosophy, he joined the Swell Education team and expanded his practice to include academic tutoring in subjects ranging from English literature to economics to calculus. He has since added the HSPT, SHSAT, GRE, TOEFL, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology, Microbiology, and Statistics to his repertoire and works with students from the Bay Area to NYC to Brazil. Chase is pursuing a Master of Physician Assistant Studies while remaining fully invested in his tutoring practice. Outside of tutoring and school, he enjoys reading, writing literary fiction, running, hiking, meditating, volunteering, skiing, and rock climbing. While Chase has a passion for a wide range of disciplines and a knack for test taking, his greatest strength as an instructor lies in his ability to authentically connect with his students, putting them at their ease and helping them grow toward their highest potential personally and intellectually.
Douglas
Doug is a career test prep teacher who has a BS in Chemistry from Central Michigan University and worked towards a Ph.D. and an M.Ed. from Colorado State University. Doug developed his flair for communication through a lifetime of involvement in music and performance, taught underclassmen throughout his graduate study, and earned the Master Teacher Award from Front Range Community College as well as the Mentor of the Year award from Colorado State University. Doug has years of experience as a master teacher and tutor at a national test prep company, teaching ACT, SAT, GRE, MCAT (Biology, CARS, General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics), GMAT, AP and SAT Science and Math Subject Tests. In his many years of teaching and his own experience in higher education, he has seen almost everything that his students will face and enjoys helping them navigate the process. Doug maintains a high level of energy in his classroom and tutoring sessions and uses both humor and Socratic questioning to keep his students engaged. He has a reputation as a curmudgeon with a heart of gold, helping his students build self-reliance and a motivation to succeed. When he’s not teaching, Doug still plays music. He has a passion for collecting things as well, with his LEGO collection being his most prized collection.
Jackson
Jackson graduated from Stanford University with distinction in general scholarship and departmental awards in his two majors, Art History and Classics. Growing up in central Pennsylvania, he developed an early interest in learning languages. While working for Stanford’s Hume Center for Speaking and Writing as an Oral Communication Tutor, he solidified his passion for teaching and set his sights on a career in education. Since high school he has tutored everything from science to SAT prep and finds joy in helping students cultivate confidence through competence. In his free time Jackson enjoys writing, hiking, birdwatching, and facetiming his two dogs, Siegfried (a miniature schnauzer) and Luna (a ball of fluff). His teaching is informed by experience in improv, following the philosophy that we perform best when we are comfortable, confident, and open-minded. Jackson tutors in San Francisco, where he also maintains an art practice in lithography.
Jacob
With 20 years of experience, Jacob has crafted a tutoring style that adjusts to individual learners and their best-suited learning styles, while also connecting with the students to meet them where they are in their educational journey. He earned a BS in Physics from Colorado Mesa University and an MSc in Analytics from Georgia Institute of Technology. He covers various STEM topics, such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics/Statistics, and Coding/Machine Learning, as well as test preparation in the SAT/PSAT, ACT, SSAT, ISEE, and HSPT. He has helped students bring their grades up in very short order for upcoming tests, implemented long-term learning plans and tutoring programs to maintain performance, and helped students reengage with learning to inspire their desire to remain curious and rekindle a sense of awe surrounding the learning process. In his free time, he enjoys staying current with new advancements in technology and medical breakthroughs. He also enjoys singing like Elvis, playing guitar and drums, and exploring new cuisine around his home and while traveling. Most recently, he has taken an interest in AI, such as ChatGPT and other Large Language Models, and is currently developing similar software for various purposes.
Jeff
Jeff hails from ten acres of pine forest in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. With keen interests in both linguistic and quantitative thinking, Jeff earned his bachelor’s in English literature from UC Berkeley and then worked for several years calculating financial projections and investment analyses in the wealth management industry. Jeff fell in love with education work while teaching high school communicative English in Seoul, South Korea in 2009. Since earning his teaching credential and master of arts in teaching degree from UC Irvine, he has worked toward improving instruction in multiple education systems. Most recently, he helped to design, found, and lead the first California diploma-granting high school in China. Jeff has privately tutored students throughout his time as a teacher, independently and with elite tutoring companies. He especially loves working 1-on-1 with students and designing customized learning experiences that fit their individual ability levels, motivations, and goals. In his free time, Jeff travels the world, writes poetry, reads about societal things, and meditates. He specializes in all sections of the SAT, ACT, and SSAT, as well as English Language and Literature, Math through Precalculus, US and World History, and college essays.
Joohyun
Joohyun has been an educator for the past fifteen years, teaching students across grade school and graduate levels. Joohyun's extensive experience tutoring students of all ages and backgrounds has afforded her great versatility in teaching, as well as skill in engaging students according to their given abilities. She attended New College of Florida as a National Merit Scholar, and received her degree in philosophy and music. She has a Master's degree in English Composition and Rhetoric from Temple University, where she taught courses in Composition and Poetry. She is a knowledgeable about pedagogical theories, principles, and practices and is a proponent of evidence-based teaching. A test prep tutor for the past ten years, she is an expert in the SAT and ACT tests who has tutored more than 500 test prep students and also developed curriculum and practice materials. Joohyun tutors in the following subjects: ACT, PSAT, SAT, ISEE, SSAT, Basic Math, Algebra I and II, Geometry, Essay Editing, Study Skills, and Literature. Joohyun is passionate about local plants and ecology, hiking, and poems and meets students remotely.
Joyce
Joyce graduated from MIT with a S.B. in Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Biology and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at UCSF. She was raised in the sweltering deserts of Phoenix until age 17, when she traded in the sun for snow and uprooted to Boston. During her freshman year, she joined a prominent college prep start-up aimed at closing guidance gaps through personalized counseling and academic assistance. There, she began as a comprehensive applications consultant and tutor and rapidly rose through the ranks to lead multiple divisions, including SAT curriculum development. Each cycle, Joyce tutored dozens of students preparing for the SAT and personally created an immense database of SAT preparatory materials from scratch. She also accumulated extensive tutoring experience for the GRE, essay writing, and college applications. On the academic side, Joyce is an expert in Biology, Neuroscience, and Biochemistry, and has taught courses both in the U.S. and internationally. Her patience, attentiveness, flexibility, and personal involvement have led to highly successful mentoring relationships with her students. She strongly believes in adaptive tutoring styles and strives to set her mentees up for success through becoming better learners. When she isn’t in the lab, Joyce loves exploring new coffee shops, playing piano and violin, and bothering her two kittens.
Katie
Katie grew up in Beverly Farms, an idyllic New England town in Massachusetts. She has tutored more than three hundred students and is a seasoned test expert who can adapt to any situation. She began tutoring high school students in 2003 while she pursued a BA in both Political Science and Journalism at the University of Arizona. After graduation, she joined forces with an elite tutoring company in Connecticut, and after nearly ten years of tutoring and roles as lead tutor, tutor trainer, and curriculum developer in Fairfield County – one of the most academically competitive areas of the country – she relocated to San Francisco. Katie prides herself on inspiring students and improving their test scores and grades by tapping into their individual needs. She specializes in prep for the verbal portions of the SAT and ACT, as well as U.S. History, U.S. Government & Politics, English Literature and Language, and college essays. Katie is an avid reader who enjoys traveling, hiking around the Bay Area, horseback riding, and showing off her pet bunny, FDR. Katie tutors in San Francisco and Marin.
Kyle
A San Francisco native, Kyle attended Cathedral School for Boys and was the valedictorian of Stuart Hall High School’s founding class. He discovered his passion for tutoring – and for education in general – during his junior year of high school, which led him to seek other tutoring opportunities during high school and college. Since 2003, Kyle has helped hundreds of students do their very best on the SAT, ACT, SSAT, and a wide variety of academic subjects. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from UC Berkeley, a Master’s in History and Philosophy of Science from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from UC San Diego. Kyle believes that the best tutoring involves meeting students where they are and tutors students as whole people, particularly enjoying watching them grow into themselves. Kyle specializes in all areas of the SAT and ACT, most SAT subject tests, math through calculus, all high school sciences, English, Latin, writing, and history. He has extensive experience working with students with learning differences and is also able to tutor more obscure subjects not often found in high school curricula, such as formal and informal logic and higher-level sciences such as organic chemistry.
Lucas
Raised in Inland Empire/Los Angeles, Lucas grew up with a fascination for trains and nature that ultimately shaped his trajectory as a student, explorer, and educator of all things related to the engineered environment. After high school he followed his multi-generational family roots back to the Bay Area (his union painter great-great-grandfather helped to paint the very first coat on the Golden Gate Bridge). He graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering and worked six years in construction management to help build healthcare and biotech projects in San Francisco and Seattle. Lucas’ love for applying equations and problem-solving techniques to real-life applications is the foundation for his passion for tutoring students of any age and ability in math, physics, and the SAT and ACT. Forever interested in current events, history, and having dabbled in a creative non-fiction writing course in college, he also enjoys tutoring humanities subjects and teaching “show vs. tell” and “they say, I say” techniques in essay-writing. While tutoring, Lucas is studying and working to become a licensed civil engineer.
Mary
Originally from the Bay Area, Mary is passionate about teaching math and physics. While an electrical engineering graduate student at MIT, she had the opportunity to serve as a teaching assistant in an introductory engineering course and discovered that she loved to help other students master challenging concepts. Then, while working as an engineer in Silicon Valley, she had fun tutoring a technician in calculus. This passion to focus on helping students learn led Mary to pursue a Master’s Degree in Education from Stanford University. Since then, she has enjoyed teaching upper-level math (pre-calculus, calculus, differential equations, multivariable calculus) and physics courses. In particular, Mary loves to prepare students to take the AP Calculus AB/BC and AP Physics C (both Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism) exams each May. Mary has enjoyed working with students remotely using Zoom over the last two years. When not tutoring, she enjoys spending time with her family playing ping pong, gardening, and watching shows together.
Maryam
Maryam graduated with honors from Stanford University with a double major in Biology and African Studies, then earned her Master's in Education from Harvard University. Over the past 14 years, Maryam has honed her teaching and tutoring expertise - aiding over 500 students globally in achieving their academic goals. Starting in early 2023, Maryam also gained an early advantage in tutoring Canadian and other international students for the digital SAT. Specializing in SAT and ACT remote tutoring, Maryam believes in empowering students of all abilities to reach their full potential. Maryam employs a personalized yet differentiated approach to tutoring, earning appreciation from both parents and students for her patient and nurturing demeanor. Her emphasis goes beyond academic instruction, as she actively assists students in refining their study skills and building confidence in themselves. One of Maryam's most notable strengths is her enduring international mindset. She is perfectly fluent in 4 languages - English, French, Hausa and Kagome.
Michael
Michael is a test prep and academic tutor who has taught several hundred students in his career. His specialties include the SAT, ACT, AP tests, math through pre-calculus, writing coaching, executive functioning skill building, and more. He is currently completing graduate studies at UC Irvine in Independent Educational Consulting. Michael views tutoring as an opportunity to support both a student's academic and personal development, and he believes true success involves a student feeling met where they are at in their learning journey. A graduate of Bowdoin College, Michael previously worked for a large national test prep company where he was a tutor, curriculum writer, tutor trainer, and part of the hiring team for new tutors. Michael also owned a skills training business for young adults with developmental differences, and was a development specialist. He enjoys modern dance and hiking.
Nicole
Nicole is an ACT, SAT, and SSAT expert, hailing from Illinois, which leads the nation in sheer quantity of ACT test takers. She holds a bachelors degree in philosophy from DePaul University with high honors. Nicole was one of the most requested tutors at one of Chicago’s leading private tutoring firms, which described her as “the perfect amalgam of tutor, mentor, and coach.” She has tutored several hundred students for the ACT, SAT, and SSAT, and she has a range of experience developing curriculum, training test prep teachers, and mentoring students. After several years tutoring for Swell in the Bay Area while managing an organic blueberry farm, Nicole now spends her time volunteering with the Salmon River Restoration Council surveying nearby salmon nests and exploring the wilderness of the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County where she resides with her family and flock of laying hens.
Rich
Rich was born and raised in New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University and has a BA. Since 1999 Rich has helped thousands of students achieve their academic goals on the SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, SSAT, and ISEE. Having earned 99th percentile math, verbal and writing scores on multiple standardized tests, including the GRE, Rich is an expert in all areas of these exams. He also offers academic help in writing, math, biology, English and history. Rich has taught in New Jersey, Manhattan and overseas and is currently based in Colorado. Throughout his teaching career Rich has also maintained a career as a writer not only in education but also the travel, finance and energy industries. Rich's work creating education materials and curriculum informs his teaching by helping students learn the mindset of the test maker to easily boil down questions and recognize both traps and opportunities. When not teaching, Rich enjoys cooking, playing guitar and aerial photography.
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