Meet our Instructors
Science Instructors
Casey Hollister :: chollister@sileducation.com
Instructional Coordinator
Instructor of Science & English
Casey Hollister is a teacher in both the science and English departments and serves as our Instructional Coordinator. She works closely with our administrators and Department Chairs to ensure a student-centered approach, and is a resource for our teachers.
She holds a Masters Degree in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where her work focused on student-oriented curriculum and generative learning. Casey is an experienced teacher with a background in education consulting and teacher professional development. She has a profound respect for the role of the learner in education, and she brings insight into how learners build understanding and how powerful instruction can stimulate best thinking.
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Jay Weiler :: jweiler@sileducation.com
Instructor of Mathematics & Science
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Jenna Mandis :: jmandis@sileducation.com
Instructor of Science
Jenna is a native of San Francisco proper, and today calls Palo Alto home. Jenna graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.S. in Plant Ecology, and is presently pursuing an M.S. in Entomology at San Jose State University. As part of her graduate research, Jenna studies agricultural pests as they affect crop yields.
Jenna speaks with incredible enthusiasm about teaching and learning science, and believes that science is best learned by doing. Toward this end, nearly every day, Jenna and her students conduct colorful laboratory and field experiments that inspire the entire school to gather in awe. In this way, she is inadvertently instrumental in our community-building efforts at SIL. On Jenna's long list of favorite science experiments: lighting butane bubbles with sparks from a Van der Graaf Generator, destroying pennies in various ways (of note: a fresnel lens, liquid nitrogen, hydrochloric acid), and fashioning rockets out of plastic bottles and dry ice.
When she's not teaching or lighting things on fire, Jenna loves to run, hike, and care for her two pet chickens, which her students named Kevin and Waffles.
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Jerry Chen :: jchen@sileducation.com
Instructor of Mathematics, Science, Health & Fitness
Jerry Chen was born in Taiwan, attended an english school in Hong Kong, and graduated from an American public high school. With a B.S. in Microbiology from UC Santa Barbara, and with graduate work in Exercise Physiology at San Francisco State University, his educational pursuits have always gravitated toward the health sciences and their applications to everyday life.
Jerry emulates the memorable teachers who have made his own scholastic experience so worthwhile. As he emphasizes the "fun" of learning science and math, Jerry strives to do more than educate: he hopes to inspire.
When he's not teaching at SIL, Jerry considers himself a dominant basketball player (when playing with opponents half his height), a skilled linguist in Mandarin and Japanese (when speaking to those who don't speak it), and a virtuoso piano player (his grandparents tell him he is).
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Michael Murphy :: mmurphy@sileducation.com
Instructor of Mathematics & Science
Michael Murphy hails from Milan, Illinois. He moved to California when he was ten years old, and has embraced life by the Bay. He holds an M.S. in Pure Mathematics from CSU East Bay, and a B.S. in Math Teaching.
He teaches with passionate enthusiasm that is motivating and contagious. When Mike’s not teaching math at SIL, he's working with gifted children on the weekends. To support his teaching, he regularly attends professional workshops on applied behavioral analysis.
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Stephanie Louris :: slouris@sileducation.com
Instructor of Science
Stephanie Louris holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University, and a B.S. in Chemistry from MIT. She began her career as a thin-films engineer in Paris, where she worked and traveled for six years. Back in the United States, Stephanie continued her work in materials engineering for several flat-panel display companies. She stayed at home to raise two boys, and then decided to embark on a new career direction: teaching science, something she had been thinking about doing for many years.
Stephanie greatly enjoys SIL's flexible and creative approach to teaching, as well as the opportunity to get to know her students by working one-on-one with them. When she isn't teaching, Stephanie enjoys movies, classical music, reading, and doing fun science activities with her boys.
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