Meet The Team
Sam Benkelman
Sam Benkelman is a Linguistics concentrator from Harvard with a secondary in Computer Science. He is particularly interested in the cross-linguistic structure of language, and he recently won the Fulbright Fellowship to teach English grammar abroad in the Czech Republic. Sam currently serves as an Undergraduate Fellow at the Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning, and he has previously served as a research assistant for Harvard’s Linguistics Department and Graduate School of Education.
Bridget Chemberlin
Bridget Chemberlin is a Harvard College student studying social science and visual arts. She has years of teaching experience as both a registered peer tutor and as a teaching assistant for the Indianapolis Art Center. She has previously worked as a research assistant for renowned poet Joan Naviyuk Kane. Before college, Bridget graduated from an International Baccalaureate high school program in Indiana. As a First Nations Mohawk person, she currently serves as secretary for Natives At Harvard College, an indigenous student group at Harvard.
Taia Cheng
Taia Cheng is a Comparative Literature & Classics concentrator at Harvard University. She has worked with K-12 students, tutoring them in English, Latin, Chinese, history, math, biology, and chemistry. Given her background in the Classics and love of literature, her favorite subjects to teach are English writing and grammar. She is also the founder of Operation CORE to offer education resources and community outreach support during COVID. She previously graduated magna cum laude from Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles.
Meet The Founders
Jane Chen
Jane Chen is Co-Founder of Eyre Writing Center. Originally from New York City, Jane worked with students on their writing on a pro bono basis for nearly a decade. Prior to EWC, she worked as a Senior Investment Analyst for various asset management firms in New York and Europe. Jane graduated from Harvard University cum laude as a History concentrator (with a focus in financial history and secondary in Economics) and a Blankfein Family Scholar in 2012. She previously attended the Trinity School in Manhattan.
Prateek Kumar
Prateek Kumar is co-Founder of Eyre Writing Center. Prateek has spent a decade in a number of hedge fund investing roles on Wall Street. He graduated from Harvard University in 2011 with a B.A. Magna cum laude in Economics (with a minor in Government) and as a John Harvard Scholar. He previously attended Phillips Academy Andover, where he graduated as a President George H.W. Bush Scholar. He was also one of 75 students selected to attend the Research Science Institute (RSI) at MIT and was awarded the Gold Congressional Award by the US Congress. Prateek is an Eagle Scout as part of the Boy Scouts of America and a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation College Scholar.
Segan Helle
Segan Helle is a Harvard Social Studies concentrator with an academic focus on inequality in legal systems. In Spring 2019, she studied at Jesus College in Cambridge University as part of Harvard’s Social Studies program. Segan’s research has been published in the Journal of Public Health, and she was previously a News Editor for The Harvard Independent. Prior to joining EWC, Segan taught journalism, debate, and ELA. She has also mentored students in poetry and public speaking as part of the Mission Hill After School, a program offered through Harvard’s non-profit.
Emerson Monks
Emerson Monks is a History & Literature concentrator from Harvard College. Emerson is a writer for the Arts Board of The Harvard Crimson and has worked on creating communities for the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture as well as the Richi Chidhood Cancer Foundation. In 2017, she won the Congress-Bundestag U.S. State Dept. scholarship for an exchange program in Germany. Emerson loves to read and write (Wuthering Heights, with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as an honorable mention) and previously double-majored in creative writing and classical piano.
Idabelle Paterson
Idabelle Paterson is a joint concentrator studying Archaeology and Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard College. She has worked on archaeological digs in New Hampshire, the Brazilian Amazon, and most recently along the northern Peruvian coast. Idabelle has designed and instructed courses as part of Harvard's 2019 SPLASH Program, and one week-long course at her high school. Idabelle is a rower on the Radcliffe Varsity Heavyweight Crew team, a concentration peer advisor in the Anthropology department, a FOP leader, and a tutor for the Harvard Summer School. She previously graduated from The Ethel Walker School with high honors and as a member of the Cum Laude Society.
Will Rhatigan
Will Rhatigan is a 2020 graduate of Harvard College, where he was captain of the Nordic ski team and received a Magna Cum Laude degree in Social Studies. Reading and writing have taken him all over the world-- to Paris as a travel writer, to rural areas of the U.S. and Canada as a sociology researcher, and to Switzerland on a research fellowship. Even more than his own writing, Will loves sharing his passion with others; for three years he tutored at the Harvard Writing Center, where he worked with undergraduate and extension school students to refine essays at all stages of the writing process. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and is currently based in San Diego.