Biostatistics PhD student with expertise in mathematics

Marisa B.

Hello! I am a third year PhD student in Biostatistics at Vanderbilt University, and before that I completed a Bachelors of Arts in 2019 from The College of New Jersey's Honors Program majoring in music and minoring in mathematics. Between earning my BA and starting my PhD, I completed a Postbaccalaureate Certificate in Mathematics from Smith College where I took classes in data science, mathematical statistics, and real analysis.

At The College of New Jersey, I worked as a peer tutor through my college's tutoring center for writing, music, and philosophy. These experiences taught me that I love helping students in refining their skills and how rewarding it is to help turn a student's negative mindset into a positive one. As a peer tutor I took a course called Techniques of Tutoring where I became a certified tutor and learned about tutoring different learning styles, asking questions to lead students towards an answer, and using the scaffolding approach which builds on a student's current knowledge. At Smith College, I tutored all levels of calculus as well as linear algebra. During this, I learned that many of the techniques I used to tutor writing transferred seamlessly to mathematics. I love tutoring math because of how satisfying it is to work hard on a problem with a student and give them the tools to solve the same type of problem in the future. Additionally, I have experience TAing graduate level probability and statistics courses.

I am passionate about mathematics and statistics and love teaching it. I scored highly on the ACT Math and GRE quantitative sections and have many test taking tips to share. In college, I received A's and A-'s in the following courses: Calculus 2, Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Intro Stats, Regression Analysis, Probability, Mathematical Statistics, Intro to Data Sciences, and Machine Learning.

I have lots of availability and am excited for new students to tutor. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. :)