The Lotus Project
Meet the Team
Leadership
Neena Tarafdar
Founder, Director, Tutor
Neena is a senior at Newton South High School who is passionate about languages and cultural expression, global health, and teaching. She speaks English, Chinese, French, and Spanish, and recently started learning Arabic. Her mom's side of the family is from Tibet and her experience tutoring her cousin inspired her to found the Lotus Project. Neena has been teaching and tutoring English for five years and is excited to work with both new students and tutors!
Linda Xue
Head of Outreach Team, Social Media Manager, Tutor
Linda is a senior at Newton North High School who enjoys reading, writing, gaming, and coding. She loves to bake and play chinese instruments as well. She has already had tutoring experience with math, English and reading, and coding.
Sophia Wu
Head of Curriculum Committee, Tutor
Sophia is currently a senior at Newton South High School, and loves to read, draw, and listen to music during her passtime. Over the course of the pandemic, she has developed a small passion for baking as well. Sophia has had previous tutoring experience in the arts and reading, and is also well-versed in math and writing.
Meet Some of our Tutors!
Susan Hong
Tutor
Susan is a senior at Newton South High School. Her favorite subjects in school are math and history. In her free time, she enjoys reading webtoons and watching hour-long YouTube videos.
Grace Lu
Tutor
Hanning Lu (Grace) is a junior at Newton South High School who aspires to be a lawyer or a cat lady (or both). She has a deep interest in studying languages, as well as chemistry and social sciences. She is fluent in Mandarin and English, while studying Spanish and Latin. She has tutored English to Chinese students since freshman year.
Jeffrey Lam
Tutor
Jeffrey is a senior at Newton North High School. He has been studying coding since 5th grade, and is part of the joint Newton North and Newton South FRC robotics team known as the Ligerbots. He also has attended and won several hackathons in the recent past. During his free time, Jeffrey enjoys playing cello and electric guitar.
Angelina Tang
Tutor
Angelina is a senior at Newton South High School who paints, plays video games, bakes, and more. She enjoys making music, playing instruments, and hanging out with friends. She’s had English tutoring experience.
Sophie Song
Tutor
Sophie is a senior at Newton South High School who enjoys painting, cooking, and dancing. In her free time, she likes traveling and taking pictures of random things. She already has tutoring experience with English and art.
Katie Hu
Tutor
Katie is a senior at Newton North High School. She enjoys art, running, and spending time with her cat named Oreo. She has tutoring experience in English and is a TA in art and Chinese.
Emma Xiao
Tutor
Emma is a junior at Newton North High School. She enjoys dancing, gymnastics, photography, and writing. She enjoys learning about English and chemistry in school. She coaches children in gymnastics and has experience tutoring math.
Winnie Louie
Tutor
Winnie is a senior at Newton North High School. She enjoys reading, drawing, baking, and playing the piano. She liked teaching and looks forward to tutoring!
Meet the Curriculum Committee Lead Builders
Alessandra Nagarajan
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Alessandra is a senior at Newton South High School who enjoys dance, music, and reading. She is currently co-president of French Club and Collage Club and teaches dance at Mass Ballet. Studio.
Henry Kinderman
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Henry is a senior at Newton South High School who enjoys coding, art, baking, and math. They also love to swim and bike in their free time. Henry is excited to work on supporting tutors by helping to build an ELL curriculum!
Waka Miyashita
Curriculum Committee - Lead Builder
Waka is a senior at Newton North High School who enjoys baking, watching Netflix, and playing the clarinet. She also plays karuta, a traditional Japanese game/sport, and spends her free time learning new languages. She has prior experience with tutoring Japanese.