Our Team at Mathnasium of Bay Ridge

Desiree Bernstein

Desiree's career has been dedicated to serving our country and the children of New York. Desiree is a U.S. Navy veteran. She attended ministry school at Living Waters Institute in Pasadena CA. In 2000, she was sworn in as a NYC Chaplain with the United Chaplains for the State of New York. Chaplain Desiree worked for the NYC housing authority and created 23 programs to help strengthen traditional family values. One of her many successes was the creation of "The Super Gang?" kids program in Coney Island. This was a major children?s program to help children learn about the constitution and pray for government leaders which received mayoral recognition from former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Through the use of performing arts, Desiree has been able to reach young people through positive motivational assemblies where she spoke and performed in many of NYC's public schools. She has taught Christian American history to many young people, instilling pride in our nation. Desiree has now teamed up with her husband to help turn the general decline in U.S. children's math abilities and have fun in the process. She brings extraordinary energy and commitment to her new endeavor.

Ricky S

My name is Ricky Solomon. I graduated with a B.A in Mathematics from SUNY Binghamton in 1977 and received my MBA in Management from Baruch College in 1981. I began my working career at New York Life Insurance Company in 1977 and worked there for 42 years until my retirement in 2019. I’ve always loved Mathematics and decided to study all facets of math during my four years at SUNY Binghamton. My love for Math led me to a career at New York Life that entailed setting, monitoring and implementing the premium rates for our small group product. This actuarial type work was very rewarding and I was glad that I was able to use my mathematical skills in my job. My love for Math, combined with my intent to teach younger children, led me to become a Stanly Kaplan tutor, a SYLVAN tutor and a Huntington Learning Center tutor. Although these tutoring centers allowed me to tutor both Math and ELA, it was the Mathematics tutoring that I loved the best. It is for this reason that I decided to work for Mathnasium at this time.

Dmitriy K

Dmitriy is currently an undergraduate of computer science at Kingsborough Community College with plans to transfer to John Jay with a major in applied mathematics and cryptography. Dmitriy became fascinated with math when, at 8 years old, he calculated how much money he could earn from his elementary school bake sale. Since then counting numbers and solving problems has always brought joy to Dmitriy. Dmitriy wants to make others fall in love with math the same way he did in the past. For almost two years Dmitriy has been an instructor for Mathnasium and during that his goal has always been to create an environment in which math is a fun, interesting and rewarding experience. By using his knowledge and deep passion for the subject, Dmitriy wishes to demonstrate to all of his students that mathematics is the most beautiful of them all.

Richard G

Richard is an aspiring Pediatric Dentist with a passion for helping students. He continues to take the most challenging math classes available to him because of his fondness for the subject. Richard's love for helping students drives most of his efforts—like founding, managing, and acting as the primary instructor at the Grammar Club. Because of Richard's fondness for math and passion for teaching, he joined Mathnasium in our mission to help students reach mastery in mathematics.

Bao Bao C

Bao Bao is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in dental hygiene at NYC College of Technology. As a young child, she has always enjoyed doing math as it was one of her strongest subjects. Throughout most of her academic career, she pushed herself to take the most challenging math courses to learn and expand upon her mathematical knowledge. She first began tutoring when studying trigonometry with her fellow classmates during lunch and realized the importance of building a strong math foundation. She took it upon herself to find different ways to explain concepts so that each individual learner can properly learn. After taking a semester with only science and liberal arts courses, she realized that she missed solving math problems. Combined with fond experiences of tutoring students at a different center, Bao Bao decided she wanted to return to Mathnasium to continue helping kids understand and enjoy math. Her goal is to help kids realize that math is not as difficult as they may think. It is just a puzzle, waiting to be solved!

Eddy F

Edward “Eddy” Fishman graduated from Kingsborough Community College with an Associate Degree in Mathematics and is currently majoring in Accounting at Brooklyn College. He was intrigued by math from a young age, but truly fell in love with the subject after discovering its applications in physics. Seeing how math can be used to predict the future, he decided to dive into the world of applied mathematics.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Eddy began to informally tutor some students in his calculus class. This experience lit a spark within him to provide his expertise to those struggling in his favorite subject. Since then, he has gained experience preparing students for the SAT and SHSAT tests in group and individual settings. He has a passion for knowledge and wants nothing more than to share that passion with others.     

Sarah C

     Sarah graduated from Stuyvesant High School, and subsequently, on the basis of her PSAT score (1510/1520), she was awarded the (full) National Merit Scholarship for college. She also took the math and chemistry SAT II exams, and received a 780/800 and 730/800, respectively.

 At Florida State University, she graduated summa cum laude from the honor’s program with a Bachelor of Science in communication science and disorders (speech pathology) . She also completed a minor in biology and an inter-developmental disabilities certificate. During her time as an undergraduate, she tutored K-12 children and college freshmen in English and math. She also prepared high school students for the SAT.

          Sarah chose to become a pediatric speech-language pathologist and tutor on the side because she genuinely loves engaging with children. This is why she also worked as a gymnastics assistant coach at FSU Gymnastics. Helping kids progress, especially in subjects like math, has always been rewarding to her. Breaking concepts down clearly and seeing when a student finally understands something they once found difficult is the most gratifying part of being a tutor, for Sarah.

Yarisbel R

Yarisbel is an experienced senior tutor at Mathnasium. A doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center, Yarisbel has a Master's degree in American History. Yarisbel is also a History instructor at Brooklyn College. She credits her broad interests and her love of learning to the amazing scholars she had the privilege of working under as a student. After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School with a Regents Honors degree in Biochemistry, Yarisbel attended the City College of New York and received fellowships and scholarships for her academic work andpublic policy research. While there, Yarisbel was also the co-founder of Women Lead Now, an on-campus humanitarian group. She graduated from City College with a Magna Cum Laude Honors degree in Latin American History. As a doctoral student, she has received fellowships for her research and academic record, and her experiences teaching in college-level classrooms serve as an excellent parallel to her responsibilities with students at Mathnasium. She is excited about the opportunity to help students of all ages with the innovative Mathnasium method.