Trevor Cralle
Director Of Outdoor Education

trevorc@maybeckhs.org

BA Cultural Geography
University of California, Berkeley

A graduate of Maybeck High School (‘79), Trevor Cralle has been working at Maybeck since the early 1980s. Maybeck has been at the center of his entire life and career. He is a passionate leader at Maybeck and has a deep knowledge of our school’s history, culture, and community. As Director of Outdoor Education, Trevor coordinates the Beginning-of-the-Year and End-of-the-Year Camping Trips, which bookend our school year. Trevor also coordinates Special Programs, and Maybeck Beyond—a series of optional activities and outings offered throughout the year. Trevor previously worked as Maybeck's Admissions Director for nearly twenty years and was the School Director from 2012-2014.

Trevor has a BA from UC Berkeley, where he studied cultural geography with an emphasis in tropical rainforest ecology and Pacific Islander marine resources conservation. He has taught cultural geography at Maybeck, as well as a variety of physical education classes, including swimming, volleyball, basketball, hiking, and ultimate Frisbee.

Trevor believes in experiential learning and loves to lead Maybeck Special Programs, and, in particular, to go abroad with students. With his vast experience traveling to more than 65 countries, including sailing through the South Pacific, Trevor has led and co-led international trips with Maybeck students to many places, such as Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. He has also led several surfing special programs to Hawaii and Santa Cruz.

Trevor has also been a writer and researcher for the California Coastal Commission and was the head counselor at various summer water sports camps in the Caribbean. Trevor is considered by many to be the world’s leading authority on surf slang. He is the author of The Surfin’ary: A Dictionary of Surfing Terms and Surfspeak. In his free time, Trevor loves to travel and take photographs; he also collects quotations, Hawaiian shirts, and all things pineapple.

Anya Fernandez
Math, Science

anyaf@maybeckhs.org

BS Biology and Chemistry
Point Loma University

Anya was born and raised in the Bay Area and then spent eight years in San Diego (with a brief stay in Denver thrown in for good measure). She majored in biology and chemistry at Point Loma University, graduating with a BS in 2002. After graduating college, Anya spent a year at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in a PhD program in Molecular Biology, only to discover her love for teaching and, therefore, promptly said farewell to grad school. She returned to San Diego and worked for several years in a lab focused on the immune system and arthritis until 2006, when Anya moved back to the Bay Area and began teaching high school chemistry. Joining Maybeck in 2012, Anya has since taught Chemistry, Geometry, Anatomy & Physiology, Health, Algebra I, and Environmental Science. She enjoys the classroom environment and hopes her love for math and science rubs off on those around her.

In her spare time, Anya loves to read, swim, bake, repurpose old furniture, and sew. However, most of her spare time is spent either at a volleyball tournament cheering on her son, or watching her daughter dance. Anya also loves to experience new places (culturally and gastronomically). She has been to Canada, Mexico, England, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and more. Anya’s last travel adventure took her to Greece with a group of Maybeck students.

Mario Godoy
Music, Director of Technology

mariog@maybeckhs.org

B.M. Music Performance
University of Redlands

M.M. Music Composition
San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Mario Godoy is a composer, saxophonist, sound designer, and music educator from Riverside, CA.

As a composer, he has written pieces for solo instruments, numerous chamber groups, wind ensemble, works for instruments with electronics, fixed media electronic music, as well as music for video games and media.

He performs as a saxophonist across the gamut of musical genres, including symphonic and chamber music, jazz, pop, and electroacoustic music. He is also an enthusiast of electronic music production and synthesizers and performs live using saxophones, modular synths, and live processing. His most notable performance role was as the saxophonist and electronics player for the experimental pop band, Makeunder.

He holds a Master of Music degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a Bachelor of Music Degree in Saxophone Performance from the University of Redlands.

In addition to teaching at Maybeck, Mario teaches private music lessons in saxophone, composition, audio production, and music theory.

In his free time, Mario enjoys watching movies and tv, playing video games, hiking, skateboarding, reading comic books, and, of course, playing music.

www.mariogodoy.com

Daniel Herman
Humanities

danielh@maybeckhs.org

BA English with Honors
Lafayette College

PhD Literature
Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington

Daniel Herman has been at Maybeck since 2015, teaching various Humanities classes (literature, philosophy, religion, history, etc). He received his doctorate in Literature in 2011, from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, under the supervision of Vincent O’Sullivan, former Poet Laureate of New Zealand.

Daniel is the author of Zen and the White Whale: A Buddhist Rendering of Moby-Dick, which arose from his years of residential Buddhist practice at the San Francisco Zen Center (Tassajara and Green Gulch) and overseas. He organized the first San Francisco Moby-Dick Marathon in October 2015, which has since become an annual event. Daniel is also a Faculty Associate at Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking.

 Other interests include pizza, coffee, Bob Dylan, the redwoods, and the New York Mets. Daniel lives here in Berkeley, with his wife, two young daughters, and medium-sized dog.

Ursula Radics
Spanish

ursular@maybeckhs.org

Teacher Training for Teaching Spanish
International House, Buenos Aires

M.A. Psychology with Honors
Golden Gate University, San Francisco

B.A. Business Economics
Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires

A Spanish native speaker, Uschi was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A true aficionado of cultures and languages, Uschi studied languages most of her life and lived in different parts of the world including the U.S., Argentina, Italy and England.

Uschi has been teaching in a variety of educational settings since 2005. Uschi completed a teacher training course in language and methodology for Teaching Spanish at the International House in Buenos Aires and she is also a member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). Uschi also holds a Master’s Degree from Golden Gate University, and a B.A. from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.

Uschi’s areas of interest are positive youth development (PYD), second-language learning and psycholinguistics (how we acquire and learn new languages). She believes in the importance of acquiring a new language and its relation with cognitive development, particularly when students begin learning a new language at an early age. She also believes that a successful learning environment for acquiring a new language is when students are motivated, encouraged and supported in the learning process. 

Tom Stone
History, Social Studies

toms@maybeckhs.org

MA Modern History
Oxford University UK

PGCE Secondary Education in History
London Institute of Education UK

Tom was born and raised in England before making his way to the Bay Area in 2012. This unusual maneuver was inspired by his dual citizen and teacher wife, Anna, who currently also works as a teacher in the Bay Area. Tom holds a degree from the University of Oxford in the dubiously named subject of 'Modern History' (that's 1066-present). He also holds a Secondary Teaching Qualification in History from London's Institute of Education. A lifelong obsession with the past can be traced to a combined origin of 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', the writings of the American Historian Shelby Foote, as well the much more serious and just as magnificent, ‘World at War’ documentary narrated by Laurence Olivier.

Tom feels perhaps most at home among students in a History classroom and hopes one day to inspire some young mind to benevolent world dictatorship or failing that, hopes that every Maybeck student leaves the school with wide ranging and empathetic views of the world around them. At Maybeck, Tom teaches History of every type, likes to make cameo appearances at Basketball Club, and coached the first ever Maybeck Soccer team. In his spare time he loves to hike, especially in the wilderness, and thanks to Dave K and the incredible Maybeck bike trip, is now an avowed lover of long distance road biking. He loves to watch sports as well and is a proud, if somewhat disgruntled Raiders fan, as well as a supporter of Manchester United. Tom likes to occasionally dabble in some sci-fi writing as well as arts and crafts, specifically flint knapping, polymer clay sculpture and soon, (he keeps saying to himself) wood and stone carving. 

Liz Welton (she/her)
Director of Counseling & Student Life

lizw@maybeckhs.org

BA Community Justice Studies and Anthropology
Guilford College

MA Social Work
Smith College School for Social Work

Licensed Clinical Social Worker

Liz wears many hats at Maybeck with the aim of supporting the social and emotional experience of students: she provides individual counseling, teaches Freshman Seminar, Health, and Psychology, and oversees Contact Groups, clubs, and the Peer Mentor Program. She brings a commitment to creating student responsive programming that centers’ students needs and voice, making Maybeck the tightly knit community that it is. 

Prior to Maybeck, Liz worked as a Clinical Social Worker with adolescents and young adults in various therapeutic and educational settings. She served as a Staff Therapist at Coyote Coast Youth & Family Counseling, Inc. in Orinda for three years, and was contracted as School Counselor at Orinda Academy during that time. She also served as a therapist at the counseling centers at Duke University and Humboldt State University, and worked for a wilderness therapy program and a family help center supporting at-risk teens and families.

Liz loves wearing the hat of therapist, group facilitator, mediator, community builder, educator, wilderness guide, mentor, and family support specialist, among others. She is particularly interested in leadership development, wilderness-based rites of passage work, and parenting support related to adolescent development. A native North Carolinian, Liz hails from Southern roots though always felt an uncontainable draw to the west. In her spare time, Liz aspires to go camping, swim in rivers, do ceramics, play volleyball and soccer, and enjoy the food and live music of the east bay. In reality, Liz spends most of her time wrangling her two young children and exploring the playgrounds of Berkeley.

Jordan Greenwald
French

jordang@maybeckhs.org

BA French Studies and Comparative Literature
University of Pennsylvania

Phd Comparative Literature
University of California, Berkeley

Hailing from a small town outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jordan moved to the Bay Area in 2010 to pursue a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. He earned his PhD in August 2019 after completing a dissertation on hopelessness and the poetics of nature in French and American Romanticism. At Cal, he taught over ten different classes on English literature and composition, French language, and ethnic studies, including courses on nature poetry, race and American horror, and "the real housewives of comparative literature.” As both an undergraduate and graduate student, he has spent about a year's time living and studying in France, including Paris, Tours, and Avignon. 

Jordan's academic and intellectual interests include literature of the long nineteenth century, American and European Romanticism, queer studies, ecocriticism, and lyric poetry. He has published scholarly writing in Qui Parle, Arizona Quarterly, and Women’s Studies. At present he is working on a research project about the convergences of environmentalism and abolitionism in nineteenth-century literature. In his spare time, he likes to hike, bake, read, and watch horror films (from the schlockiest of B-movies to art-house cinema). He has two cats, Rufus and Swann.

Sandra Pulido
Spanish

sandrap@maybeckhs.org

PhD, student in Latin American Literature and Culture
University of California, Davis

MA Spanish Literature with Honors
San Francisco State University

BA Spanish with Honors
University of California, Davis

AA Art and Humanities
City College of San Francisco

AA Spanish
City College of San Francisco

Certified Public Speaker

RESEARCH INTERESTS
The creation of masks, LGBTQ+, autobiography, transatlantic cultures, memory studies, trauma, violence, human rights, film studies, contemporary Latin American Literature and Culture

Sandra Pulido was born in San Francisco and raised in El Salvador; hence, Spanish is her first language. Sandra is the first one in her family attending college and universities. She comes into Maybeck with years of experience teaching Spanish as a second language to different levels and cultures. Before coming to Maybeck, she volunteered as a mentor for graphic design classes for novice students and volunteered as a Spanish tutor in each institution that she attended. Sandra was part of WritersCorps, a poetry organization where she evolved as a bilingual poet. Later on, she became an intern for Poetry Inside Out and, through this organization, she was able to impart her poetry skills at elementary and middle schools in San Francisco. Additionally, she helped organize the 7th annual Self-Healing workshop for Healing for Change, a group which focuses on helping women who have suffered some trauma, be it domestic violence or sexual abuse.

Sandra has published poems in several books, anthologies, and journals. She was chosen to exhibit her work at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, has presented her poems at Galleria de La Raza, the San Francisco Library, City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, and as part of Litquake. She hosted her first Spanish poetry contest, Versos y frases del alma, at City College of San Francisco in 2012. A book with her life story and poetry was published by Editions Bellaterra, Spain, 2020. Moreover, Sandra has worked as a Spanish tutor at CCSF, both as Spanish tutor and undergraduate reader at UCD, as a teaching assistant and a graduate teaching assistant at SFSU.

Some of her extracurricular activities include hiking, biking, playing racquetball, writing poetry, listening to music, drawing, painting, learning new languages and cultures, traveling, driving, reading, dancing, spending time with her friends and family, especially her nephew.

Some of her traveling experience include: Driving cross country from California to Connecticut (South) and two years later again from Connecticut to California (North), and visited almost all the states of the East Coast while living in CT; she has also traveled to Spain, Norway, Sweden, Puerto Rico, Austria, Canada, and counting.

Sandra is currently pursuing a PhD in Latin American Literature and Culture with a designated emphasis in Human Rights at UCD.

Sandra is thrilled to be part of the Maybeck family.

Dale Rose

President, Emeritus

drose@3dgroup.net

Maybeck Class of ’86

BA Santa Cruz

DePaul University, Ph.D.

Board Service: 2002–2023

Dale currently serves Maybeck as the Board President Emeritus, where he provides advice and support to the board and the staff, as needed, in the form of special projects and technical assistance as well as sharing historical context regarding governance. He also serves as a co-chair of the School Director Search Committee.

During his four years as a student at Maybeck High School, Dale was an active member of the Maybeck Touring Club and served one year as an elected member of the Rules Committee. After graduating Maybeck in 1986, Dale spent a year bicycling in Europe and North Africa with another Maybeck alum and then attended UC Santa Cruz. From Santa Cruz, Dale moved east for five long winters in Chicago, where he received his Doctoral degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from DePaul University. Dale and another DePaul graduate student (also, his future wife) co-founded a leadership development consulting firm in Chicago in 1994. Shortly thereafter, he moved his consulting firm, 3D Group, to Emeryville. Through his work Dale has helped dozens of nonprofit organizations and Fortune 500 companies to improve their leadership and organizational effectiveness. Dale has written many publications on talent assessment and leadership. He wrote a book titled Hire Better Teachers Now published by the Harvard Education Press in 2014 and co-edited The Handbook of Strategic 360 Feedback published by Oxford University Press in 2019. While not working, Dale enjoys catching fastpitch softballs from his daughter, painting (which he first learned at Maybeck from Sue Matthews), playing competitive backgammon, and A- level tournament racquetball.

Austin Brewin

Chair, Finance Advisory Committee

Maybeck Class of ‘83

BA University of California Berkeley

MBA University of California Davis

Elected to the board: September 2002

Austin graduated from Maybeck in 1983 with a passion for learning, cooking, and bicycling. He went on to a career as a professional bike messenger in San Francisco. Eventually, he graduated from UC Berkeley, where he focused on folklore while running the kitchen at Barrington Hall. After graduating, he wound up toiling in fellow Maybeck grad Kevin Parker's basement, where he stayed for eight years except for a brief hiatus for culinary school. Austin continued his education at UC Davis, graduating with an MBA in 2000. Currently, Austin finds gainful employment as a Controller and continues to reside in Berkeley.

Madeline (Mady) Deininger

BA Stockton State College

MA Dartmouth College

Elected to the board: June, 2017

Mady is the Founder and President of the Sonoma, California-based Kismet Wines, Inc. where she has developed a highly successful national marketing and sales program for California and European fine wines. Madeleine is a 1980 alumna of Stockton State College (the old name!), where she received her Baccalaureate in Liberal Studies. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1985 with a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies, she worked as a freelance photographer, writer and editor, and later co-founded a wine import and brokerage company based in Princeton, New Jersey. Ms. Deininger is the recipient of an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

Andrew Dhuey

Elected to the board: July, 2014 Andy is a member of the Endowment Committee

Andrew J. Dhuey is a 1989 graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison, School of Business and a 1992 graduate of the University of California – Hastings College of the Law. He began his legal practice as a patent litigator in the San Francisco office of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, now known as Pillsbury Winthrop. Andrew was a member of the firm’s Pro Bono Committee, and served as lead counsel in various civil rights trials and appeals. In 1995, Andrew started his solo practice representing biotechnology inventors in patent litigation. His clients’ inventions include treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS wasting disease and

breast cancer, and prenatal screening for Down’s Syndrome. Andrew has also consulted with Congressional subcommittees in support of patent legislation.

Since 2007, Andrew has practiced almost exclusively before appellate courts, with a particular focus on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. His appellate clients have included independent inventors, disabled veterans (pro bono cases), a nature photographer (“Monkey Selfie” case), electors in the federal Electoral College, and corporations such as Wham-O, Inc. and Acacia Research Group. Andrew regularly works on cases with his wife, Bridget Clarke, who is also an appellate attorney. They have two daughters: Katherine and Maria, and two tuxedo cats: Charlie and Nettie. Andrew previously served on the board of directors at Skytown Preschool (President), Habitot Children’s Museum, and Montessori Family School.

Amanda Cadogan

Humanities, Acting

amandac@maybeckhs.org

BA
Sarah Lawrence College

MA
University of Chicago

Amanda Cadogan teaches English, Theater, and Social Science. Born in New York City, and raised in the wilds of Massachusetts, Amanda has lived in Seattle, Oxford, London, and Chicago, and has had the pleasure of calling Oakland home since 2012. Prior to finding her true calling as a high school teacher, Amanda spent many years working in both higher and secondary admissions and financial aid. Most recently, she was an English instructor and ninth grade mentor at San Francisco University High School, where she was also a faculty sponsor of FASES, an affinity club for students participating in financial aid, and Spectra, a club that explored topics related to gender and sexuality. Amanda is committed to creating equitable, anti-racist, and joyful classroom cultures, and her intellectual interests include seventheenth-century English literature (especially John Milton); the afterlives of ancient Greek and Roman literature (especially Ovid); contemporary fiction that centers historically-marginalized voices; feminist retellings of myths and fairy tales; and theories of adaptation and imitation. In addition to being a passionate teacher, Amanda is a visual artist, a devoted godmother, and a lover of baking, hiking, and pumping iron.

Giulietta Aquino

Director of College Counseling

giuliettaa@maybeckhs.org

BA Political, Legal, and Economic Analysis
Mills College

MA Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education

Giulietta is elated to join Maybeck High School. She worked at Mills, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley Colleges and has served in multiple roles from admission counselor to dean of admission throughout her years in higher education. Giulietta has also been a Freshman Reader for UC Berkeley for several years.

Giulietta has worked at private high schools in the Bay Area and is drawn to secondary education because of the opportunities to connect with students and families as they move forward with their college plans. As a first generation college student herself, she remembers the challenges faced while navigating the admission and financial aid processes, and wants to serve as a resource for all students. Giulietta believes that attending college is a transformational experience for the individual, family, and community, and she is committed to helping students find colleges that best fit their academic and personal interests.

Giulietta grew up in American Canyon and lives in Oakland. She loves spending time with family and friends, travelling across the country and internationally, and eating scrumptious food. 

Gretchen Griswold

Board President

Elected to the board: July, 2017
Gretchen serves Maybeck as the Board President, as the Chair of the Board Nominating Committee, and as a co-chair of the School Director Search Committee.

Gretchen taught French, English, and a bit of math at Maybeck from 1973 to 1999. As a young teacher, she threw herself whole-heartedly into the school. She loved both the staff collaborations that were at the core of the many camping trips and the opportunity to connect deeply with her students. Not until her own daughters—Emily (’94) and Julia (’97)—attended the school, however, did she truly appreciate the value of a Maybeck education. It was a great place to work but an ideal environment for a student. Emily is now the director of horticulture at the UC Davis Arboretum, following up on a passion that was nurtured at Maybeck through camping trips and volunteering at Blake Gardens. Julia is a research engineer at UC Berkeley’s Safe Trek, advising CalTrans on ways to make bicycle riding safer, a passion she discovered at Maybeck. Both have strong ties to volunteer organizations in their local communities, serving on the boards of Davis Central Park Gardens and the feline rescue group ICRA. Following their model, Gretchen has returned as a volunteer tutor at Maybeck as well as a board member. Outside of Maybeck she enjoys quilting, playing bridge, and doting on her nieces’ children.

Johára Tucker

Johára Tucker is the Director of Equity and Inclusion Head-Royce School in Oakland, CA. She received her B.A from Wesleyan University  and a J.D from New York Law School. Johára has conducted research on retention levels for faculty of color in Independent School and has presented nationally on this subject. She was a former Board Member of POCIS-NE, the People of Color in Independent Schools- New England region and is a NAIS Aspiring Head Fellow. She spends any spare time traveling and trying to figure out "self-care".

Justine Clifford, MBA (Justine Lewis) Maybeck class of 2000
Elected to the board: June, 2016

Vice President

Justine chairs the Endowment Fund Committee and co-chairs the Strategic Planning Committee.

Justine is an experienced and dedicated education administrator with a deep and abiding love of Maybeck High School. Justine is currently the Director of Marketing and Communications at Marin Academy in San Rafael, where she also advises Mixed, an identity and equity group that explores the intersection of different identity markers, specifically race, and ethnicity. She previously served as the Director of Admissions and Marketing at The Academy School in Berkeley and the Director of Marketing and Communications at Marin Horizon School in Mill Valley. In other roles, she worked at a leadership and management consulting firm, 3D Group. Justine also spent six years working at Redwood Day School in Oakland, where she grew from a Development Associate to Athletic Director to finally serving as the Project Manager of an extensive feasibility study of a multi-million dollar school expansion project.

Justine has an MBA from Mills College, where she taught graduate business statistics and was employed as Mills College's Microeconomic Theory Tutor. While earning her BA from Occidental College in Los Angeles, Justine received the Community Action Award, garnering commendation from the California State Legislature, the County of Los Angeles, and the City of Los Angeles for her leadership, activism, and commitment to education and community service. Justine also previously served on the board of The Girls Leadership Institute and was a co-founder of the Bay Area literary arts organization Lip Service West. Justine enjoys traveling, dancing, performing, costuming, and hiking. Justine resides in El Cerrito with her very artsy little family.

Karen Dreyfus. Elected to the board: June, 2019

Karen is a member of the board’s WASC subcommittee and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee.

Karen joined the Maybeck community in 2015, when her son Rory (Class of 2018) transferred to Maybeck as a sophomore. As a Maybeck parent, Karen was active in the Maybeck Parents Association and played a lead role in a number of Maybeck’s cherished traditions, including the annual fundraising gala for parents and faculty and the post-graduation potluck reception. She and Rory are still debating the exact place in their Berkeley yard to plant his graduation coast redwood seedling, another 40+ year Maybeck tradition.

In her professional life, Karen is a corporate attorney, representing millennial entrepreneurs to Fortune 100 companies in public and private offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance. Karen has advised boards of directors at hundreds of meetings over her career and has been recognized for Corporate Governance in The Best Lawyers in America. Karen has also been actively engaged with many non-profit organizations, including helping organize SafeSpace, a non-profit addressing youth mental health and wellness, serving on the Kenyon College Parent Advisory Board, and serving as a director of the Silicon Valley Campaign for Legal Services. Through her three children, Karen has experienced first hand a multitude of educational environments and philosophies: public elementary and high schools; parochial elementary schools; independent college prep high schools; and independent personalized one-on-one high school classes. In her spare time, Karen enjoys the company of her husband Michael and children Adrienne, Clare and Rory, and chasing her three chickens around the yard and a little white ball around the golf course.

 
Dennis Mulqueeney

Dennis Chairs the Board’s Risk Management Subcommittee.

Dennis joined the Maybeck community in 2015, when his son Aidan (Class of 2019) enrolled in Maybeck as a freshman. As a Maybeck parent, Dennis was active in the Maybeck Parents Association and participated in all manner of school activities.  As a parent, he recalls fondly various camping trips and other interactions with Maybeck students, parents and faculty, most notably the theatre program, where Aidan was an active participant.  In his professional life, Dennis is a commercial insurance broker focusing on the needs of governmental entities, including K-12 public schools, and institutions of higher education. This work involves structuring insurance plans for complex organizations, as well as managing their self-insurance vehicles.

Dennis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from University of California, Santa Barbara. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree from San Francisco State University. Dennis obtained the professional designation of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters (CPCU) from the American Institute for Property and Liability Underwriters when he was much younger.  In 2020, Dennis joined the Bradys Center’s Northern California Regional Leadership Council.

Outside of his work responsibilities, Dennis enjoys time with his family, and is an avid skier, sometime basketball player, and somewhat competent tennis player and golfer.

Arry Kaur 

Director of Equity and Inclusion

arryk@maybeckhs.org

BA Childhood Education
Pace University

MS Special Education
Pace University

Arry comes to the East Bay from New York City - it’s the first time she’s lived away from the East Coast and she is so excited for this new chapter. Arry attended public schools in Queens and Pace University in Manhattan for undergraduate and graduate programs, where she realized she wanted to get involved in special education and social justice. She began her teaching career working with 1st graders and 2nd graders. She misses lively read-alouds and play-centered classrooms, but she finds the most joy in working with older students. Most recently, she taught humanities to middle school students with language based learning disorders. Arry likes to challenge herself to figure out creative ways for students to access learning, and focuses on honoring students’ curiosity and compassion. She seeks to co-create classroom communities that promote a sense of belonging, feel empowering, and are full of empathy and care. In addition to teaching, Arry is eager to support Maybeck as a Director of Equity and Inclusion. She believes in the power of community and people’s ability to come together and imagine, create, and transform educational spaces to be more inclusive, equitable and anti-racist. Arry is a life-long learner and dreamer, and is passionate about facilitating conversations centered around diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Arry loves to be outside and is so happy to see the sun every day since moving to California! She likes running and has participated in two half marathons and several shorter races. She also enjoys yoga, hiking, and being in or near bodies of water (even though she can’t swim). Arry also loves horror movies and thrillers - from the cheesy and campy to the sinister and horrifying. She likes to read fiction, crochet, cook, and spend time with her pup, Aggie, who is very quickly adjusting to not being a Brooklyn pup anymore. 

Jonathan Wright

Academic Dean

jonathanw@maybeckhs.org

Jonathan is thrilled to join Maybeck as the Academic Dean. Jonathan is a lifelong Californian, and has loved calling the Bay Area home since he moved here to attend UC Berkeley in 2002. Jonathan has always been a science and nature lover, majoring in Environmental Sciences and Forestry as a undergraduate, and finding any excuse he could to hike, camp, or backpack somewhere new. As much he has loved science and the outdoors, he found he loved teaching even more. After many years in the classroom, mostly teaching high school chemistry, Jonathan found he also enjoyed mentoring fellow teachers and became a full time Instructional Coach in 2018. Jonathan loves thinking about the craft of teaching, supporting fellow educators in being the best teacher they can be, and ensuring students are getting a rich, supportive, and equitable educational experience every single day. Outside of Maybeck, Jonathan is pursuing a master's degree at the Wright Institute in Berkeley in counseling. Jonathan looks forward to integrating new skills into his work as an educator.

Marisa Kelly (she/her)

Registrar and Office Manager
Health and PE

marisak@maybeckhs.org

MA Integrative Health
California Institute of Integral Studies

Certified Integrative Wellness Manager

Marisa is a graduate of Maybeck and adored being a student here. She is delighted to hold space for the students, parents, and staff at Maybeck as the hub of the wheel of activity in our front office. She manages all things related to attendance, transcripts, and schedules.

Marisa chose to study Integrative Health at CIIS because she was seeking a graduate program to study human flourishing instead of disease. Now, Marisa brings this wellness-oriented framing to the instruction of PE classes like Health, Yoga, and Pilates here at Maybeck. 

Outside Maybeck, Marisa instructs Pilates teacher training programs, working ongoingly with a cohort of apprentices. She also teaches yoga and Pilates at the College of San Mateo. Earlier in her career, she served as a Director of Group Exercise for the San Francisco YMCA Association. Marisa is passionate about movement, and an endlessly enthusiastic student of health and wellness. When she is not at Maybeck, you will find her at any and every Pilates class she can attend, soaking up the wisdom of the teacher and enjoying learning new things.

Liz Earley

Science

lize@maybeckhs.org

BS Human Biology and Society
University of California, Los Angeles

MA Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley

Liz Earley has been at Maybeck since 2021 where she teaches Physics and Computer Science. A native to San Francisco, Liz has always suffered from too many interests, not enough time. Initially pursuing a degree in History and a minor in Japanese at UCLA, Liz switched gears and graduated with a bachelors in Genetics and a minor in Theatre. Her senior-year capstone project was to design and teach an undergraduate course on Genetic Disorder and Identity. After graduating, she worked as a laboratory technician at UCSF investigating the molecular basis of familial Parkinson’s. Her master’s work at Cal involved the biophysical properties of DNA compaction, and she also taught undergraduate genetics and CRISPR lab classes through Berkeley Extension.

Liz loves teaching science, not just for the rich material but the complex feelings it inspires in students; to place our tiny lives in context of the Universe, to know our chemical makeup was forged in the heart of a star, to trace an unbroken line from ourselves to the origin of life on Earth, and to appreciate that the few fundamental ideas that explain almost everything somehow always leave us more curious than we started.

When she’s not nerding out at school, Liz can be found picnicking, at concerts, taking classes at the Y, or relaxing at home in Oakland with her two silly cats.

Jazmine Contreras

Social Studies

jazminec@maybeckhs.org

BA History and Political Science
California State University, Long Beach

PhD History
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Jazmine was born and raised in southern California and attended California State University, Long Beach for college. She traded in the sun and palm trees for lakes and snow when she attended the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities for her PhD. At UMN, she specialized in Holocaust and genocide studies, memory studies, and gender and sexuality in Modern Europe. She finished her dissertation, “We were all in the resistance: Historical Memory of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Netherlands,” in 2020. After graduating, she worked as an Assistant Professor of History at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. At Goucher, she taught courses on genocide, the far right, the Weimar Republic, modern Europe, and the global 20th century.

In her spare time, she continues to write and publish on Holocaust memory and the far right in the Netherlands. She also enjoys traveling, entertaining her cat, binging TV shows, and going to concerts.

Stephanie Scholer

Learning Specialist

stephanies@maybeckhs.org

BA in Music
San Francisco State University

Masters in Education
Holy Names University

Stephanie has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for much of her teaching career, providing her with numerous opportunities to work within a rich tapestry of cultures and diverse school communities. She completed her Certificate in Educational Therapy at Holy Names University in Oakland, along with certificates in Assistive Technology, College Counseling and Advising, and English as a Second Language. Stephanie has held various roles in both public and private schools and agencies, including Learning and/or Assistive Technology Specialist, Educational Therapist, and Education Liaison.

In all of these environments, Stephanie has collaborated with teachers to support students' access to the curriculum, interpreted psychoeducational and neuropsychological evaluations, and helped students and families navigate state and federal education and disability laws. Her approach emphasizes holistic, team-based strategies to support students, and her mission as a Learning Specialist is to evaluate students' academic strengths and weaknesses, nurture their self-advocacy skills, and empower them to approach school assignments with confidence and creativity.

A devoted year-round swimmer, Stephanie is a member of the Manatees Aquatic US Masters Team. She also enjoys hiking and practicing yoga. Although she sang classical art song and opera for over a decade, she is, at heart, very eclectic about art, theater, music, and literature. She loves reading both fiction and non-fiction, discovering new music, and chatting with students about stage productions, singing in foreign languages, costuming, and fashion trends.

Ada Naiman

Math

adan@maybeckhs.org

Bex Wyke

Visual Arts

bexw@maybeckhs.org

Ranjana Zunino

Director of Finance and Operations

ranjanaz@maybeckhs.org

Beth Pillsbury

School Director

bethp@maybeckhs.org

Beth is a historian, teacher, and ceramic artist. Prior to coming to Maybeck, Beth was the Director of Experiential Education and Summer Programs and History Teacher at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, NY. At Riverdale, Beth oversaw experiential education initiatives and was dedicated to connecting the academic core to rigorous immersive experiences in grades 6-12. In her position as the director of Summer Programs, Beth helped create systems to support and expand Riverdale’s summer and interdisciplinary programs to include research programs in the humanities and applied sciences.

Beth is committed to helping build educational experiences that offer meaningful and inclusive approaches to learning and attend to all students’ diverse backgrounds and needs. Beth serves as the Chair of the Inclusion Committee on the Independent School Experiential Education Network (ISEEN) board and co-facilitates the ISEEN School Change Professional Affinity Group. She serves on the board of Living City Project, a small non-profit organization that engages students in urban-planning internships and summer and gap year programs. Beth believes the best schools are ones like Maybeck, which not only reflect the diversity of the community, both in their staff and in the student body, but also honor different cultures, traditions, identities, and learning styles. Maybeck’s history and commitment to championing diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential to teaching the whole student. 

Beth has a deep love of the outdoors, which has driven her environmental activism, her historical research, and her art. She spends her free time hiking with friends, discussing the contemporary political landscape with her father, layering sand and iron-laden soil into clay, and practicing yoga and Pilates. 

Vanessa Ortega

Director of Admissions

vanessao@maybeckhs.org

BA Sociology
Mills College

Vanessa was born in El Salvador and came to the U.S. in the early 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. After graduating with a B.A. in Sociology from Mills College, she began her independent school career at Live Oak School in San Francisco. She has specialized in enrollment management for over two decades at various schools in the Bay Area.

Vanessa's primary focus in admissions has been making an independent school education accessible to underrepresented communities and family choice. Most recently, Vanessa was the Director of Enrollment Management and Strategy at an independent elementary school on the Peninsula. Vanessa firmly believes that admissions is not merely a job but a calling. Meaningful connections with the community—those that can make a difference in the lives of families—drive her work. She has been involved in designing social justice standards, strategic planning, and parent/guardian/student affinity group work.

In her free time, you will find Vanessa building a Lego set, perusing children's books at a local independent bookstore, and adding funky socks to her ever-growing sock collection.