Teaching and Educational Advisory Staff

Jean counsels and tutors students throughout Connecticut in a variety of areas and spearheads the Student Mastery Program.

Jean has extensive experience interacting with families and students through her years as a clinical therapist and social worker. Her experience includes counseling youths with ADD, depression and other issues that affect performance. Jean received her MSW from Boston College and her B.A. from Colby College.

Blending her social work and education backgrounds, Jean has led the test prep and tutoring programs for the Learning Consultants at The Grove School in Madison, CT, as well as the student orientation and Student Mastery Program at The Williams School in New London, CT.

Jean has given presentations across Connecticut in a variety of areas including Student Mastery, test prep, and general student motivation.

Jean recently has presented at the College Fair in Madison, CT, and to the Guidance Office at Daniel Hand High School in Madison, CT.

Kathleen graduated from Middlebury College and went on to complete a Masters in Educational Administration at Columbia Teacher’s College.

She worked as an admissions director for grades K-8 at the Dwight School in New York City and during that time taught art history and grammar classes. Kathleen then moved to London, where she started tutoring at the American School in London in St. Johns Wood. Wanting to have more of a background in special education, she completed the Beve Hornsby Diploma in Learning Differences that taught the Alpha to Omega program.

During her time in London, Kathleen also co-founded School Choice International, an education consulting company that counseled families looking for schools both in the London and Tri-State area. She also taught ESL to foreign business executives and homeschooled children of actors who were abroad for stints of time.

Kathleen has continued to work with students since she returned to the United States and has completed training at The Windward School in the The Hochman Writing Method and executive functioning. With her passion for assisting students with learning challenges, such as dyslexia, auditory processing, ADD and ADHD, anxiety and OCD, Kathleen has become an expert and advocate in the areas of executive functioning. She gives workshops for both parents and students addressing practical strategies that can be used in school and at home.

After attending the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, Stephen graduated from the University of Vermont with BA degrees in economics and English. Although the bulk of his professional experience was spent in finance, education has always played a role in Stephen’s life. Throughout his career on Wall Street, Stephen volunteered his time teaching students on a variety of subjects. After closing his investment fund in 2015, Stephen decided to focus his professional energies on what had been his long-held passion: helping others through education. In addition to tutoring students in high school and college level economics, math and English, Stephen has recently been made Director of Fairfield County and as such is immersed in finding and developing tutors and expanding TLC’s reach to families within Fairfield County.

When Jesse applied to our company, several trusted advisors called and said things like “he was the smartest guy who ever went through The Country School during my time there” and “there is no one I know who relates to teens as well as Jesse”. Jesse joined The Learning Consultants full time six years ago and has received similar accolades throughout his tenure. His excellence was recently awarded with his appointment to Director of Middlesex County. Jesse has successfully run Lyme-Old Lyme’s SAT program and Old Saybrook High School’s SAT program. Jesse resides in East Lyme, Connecticut.

Lisa earned her B.S. in Communications from Northwestern University and her M.A. in Communications Management from the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California. She also earned her J.D. from Delaware Law School.

After exploring careers in public relations for Walt Disney and McDonald’s Corporations and as a trial attorney in criminal and civil litigation, she found a more satisfying career path as an assistant professor in the English departments of two Chicago area universities. In that capacity, she designed a Writing Across the Curriculum program and taught writing, business, and public speaking classes. She was voted Most Outstanding Teacher and served as academic advisor for over 50 students. She also worked for the Educational Testing Service grading GMAT essays and editing standardized test guides.

Since moving back to her home state of Connecticut eight years ago, Lisa regularly teaches a public speaking class at Middlesex Community College. Working with college students for over 15 years and helping local high-schoolers with their financial aid applications, personal Since moving back to her home state of Connecticut eight years ago, Lisa regularly teaches a public speaking class at Middlesex Community College. Working with college students for over 15 years and helping local high-schoolers with their financial aid applications, personal statements, and college applications led her to a newfound mission: guiding high-school students to engage in self-discovery to instill a sense of purpose as they pursue academic excellence and promote themselves to achieve college acceptance. With this mission in mind, Lisa is dedicated to helping students maximize their potential and perfect their self-promotion to increase their options of admission into right-fit colleges that meet their financial needs and academic expectations. Her dream of becoming a consultant was recently realized when she received certification in College Counseling from UCLA. Lisa lives in Madison, CT with her husband, and two of their four children. Her two eldest sons are currently attending college.

Paul brings an international background to his work as the chief designer for educational programming at The Learning Consultants.

Paul attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated magna cum laude in both finance (The Wharton School) and English.

He also holds master’s degrees from Cambridge University in England, where he was a British Marshall Scholar, the University of Pennsylvania Fels School, and the New York University Business School. He has lectured and written books, articles and white papers on a wide range of educational topics.

Kristina joined The Learning Consultants in 2007, shortly after completing her PhD in English atthe University of Connecticut. There, she got her sea legs as a teacher, coaxing undergraduates to think and write critically.

In 2008, Kristina also began doing consulting work for Scholastic, inspired by the company’s mission helping raise literacy rates in urban schools. Over the next decade, she coached hundreds of teachers throughout the Northeast. Kristina quickly became a valued member of her Scholastic team and earned a reputation in school districts for her teaching and coaching expertise. As one teacher wrote, Kristina’s “experience, suggestions, feedback, and leading through examples were second to none.”

In 2015, after Scholastic sold its educational division to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kristina continued with HMH, but began contemplating a career change that would free up more time for writing and the teaching of writing.

In 2018-2019, Kristina successfully led a large-scale HMH project in Middletown Public Schools, part of the Superintendent’s plan to raise students’ math and reading achievement. HMH’s work included 250+ days of coaching for teachers and principals. As Project Manager, Kristina provided both high-level oversight and on-the-ground coaching. She wore other hats too—relationship builder, coordinator, liaison, data analyst, problem solver, and facilitator. Although this was only the first year of a three-year plan, the district exceeded its goals by the end of the year, with unprecedented student growth in both math and reading.

In July 2019, Kristina left HMH and now devotes herself full time to all things writing.