Our Team Members

Senior Management

Scott G. Farber (Founder and President)

Mr. Farber earned a degree in International Relations from Harvard University in 2001. After graduation he took a position as the CFO for an environmental program in Ecuador coordinated through the British Embassy. Upon his return, Mr. Farber served for three years as a Director for a Long Island based SAT preparation company before founding A-List in September 2005. Since its inception, he has overseen all aspects of the company's growth while continuing his commitment to his students. As President, he has expanded A-List's programs into New Jersey and Pennsylvania and forged a number of successful partnerships with non-profit education organizations and schools. Mr. Farber also serves as Vice President for another educational company, CEO, which specializes in providing college essay services.

Robert K. Hay (Co-Founder and Managing Director)

Robert has been working in the SAT preparation industry since the age of 18. During his first year at Columbia University in the spring of 1997, he was hired by a Long Island based company that runs premium courses for the SAT. After teaching for all four years of college, he graduated in 2000 with a B.A. in Philosophy, training that has honed his reasoning skills and enabled him to more fully understand the logic of the test.

After graduating, he began to work full-time at a leading test preparation company and has since performed virtually every role to be played in the company at one time or another. He has recruited, hired and trained new teachers. He has also personally taught hundreds of students.

His primary concern for the past few years has been developing materials at all levels, from training documents and manuals for staff to drills, lectures, and practice tests for students. Most notably, he had a pivotal role in updating the curriculum for the new version SAT, by doing research, writing problems and lectures, and examining pedagogical strategies for the new test.

It is this expertise that he now brings to A-List. He is the principal author and editor of all A-List's tutoring materials, most notably the Book of Knowledge. His extensive research has ensured that the materials are accurate reflections of the nature, style, and content of the test. His personal experience in the classroom has ensured that the materials are fun, easy to understand, and geared toward the material kids need the most. He is continually revising existing materials and developing new ones in order to perfect the A-List experience.

Edward G. Smallwood (Executive Vice President)

Mr. Smallwood was born in London and moved to the U.S. to attend Harvard University from which he graduated cum laude in Romance Languages. He subsequently served as Project Director for an innovative environmental development project in Ecuador funded by the British Government, working to rebuild communities devastated by El Nino. After moving to New York City, he worked as an Account Executive at a global advertising agency managing integrated campaigns for several Fortune 500 accounts. Mr. Smallwood has extensive marketing and strategic planning experience and holds an MS in Integrated Marketing from NYU.

Mr. Smallwood serves as Executive Vice President at A-List and is responsible for strategic planning, business development, and marketing. He is currently enrolled in a Global MBA program at Columbia Business School and London Business School.

Management

Arthur E. Crumlish Jr. (Director of Client Relations)

Arthur Crumlish, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, is a highly experienced tutor who has worked with young men and women of a wide-ranging variety from third-graders at a private school in Manhattan to college-level students seeking assistance in writing skills and text analysis. In addition, he has worked with students having special needs such as children for whom English is a second language and ones with learning disabilities.

Arthur has prepared students for the SAT, SAT II, GRE, the Hunter High School Admissions Test, and offered his skills as a homework tutor, a peer counselor, art instructor, and business English coach while living in Europe.

In addition to pursuing a professional career as a visual artist, dividing his time between teaching and painting, making exhibitions and attending workshops in New York and various cities abroad, Arthur remains a dedicated mentor whose reputation for "going the extra mile" with his students is well deserved.

Sherwyn A. Fullington (Director of Operations)

Raised in New York City, Sherwyn has spent his whole life in the pursuit of excellent education. He was accepted into the prestigious Collegiate School in the 7th grade and graduated in 1997 after spending six invigorating years there. He went on to attend Harvard College, from which he graduated in 2001 with a degree in Psychology.

After finishing college Sherwyn paired his interest in working with kids with his interest in non-profits by working for a city run technology training program in the Roxbury section of Boston. The program, Technology Goes Home, focused on training low income families in computing basics, and the use of computers to advance educational and professional careers. At the end of the program, each family was given a free computer. Sherwyn left Technology Goes Home in 2002 to attend the Graduate School of Education at Harvard. He finished in 2003 after receiving his Master's in Administration, Planning and Social Policy.

After graduating, Sherwyn strove to find a means to continue his interest in working with kids while also learning about how educational systems function. He decided to return to his alma mater, Collegiate School, to work in the admissions office. To keep more in touch with his love for teaching, Sherwyn also joined a successful SAT preparation company and taught for two years. These two jobs have given Sherwyn a keen insight into the minds and needs of young teens and high school students. He enthusiastically hopes to take this knowledge and experience with him to A-List to refine one of a kind services for young teenagers.

J. Chapman Knott (Director)

Chapman's parents--his father is a scientist and his mother is an artist--raised him in the balmy subtropics of Charleston, South Carolina. He went to a private school there that was academically rigorous but culturally homogeneous. So when it came time to choose a university, he felt that he needed a change of pace. He decided to come and study at Princeton, which, even class work aside, was an education unlike anything he had experienced before. He graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy in the spring of 2005.

For most of his college career, Chapman had never had any intention of moving to New York City as he knew so many of my classmates would. But during senior year, he began to feel the groove and pull of the city, and he knew that he wanted to spend some time there. Happily, that was precisely when Scott Farber, whom he had met through his job at a leading SAT prep company, proposed that he help him create A-List. Chapman had been preparing students for the SAT since his freshman year at college, and was thrilled at the thought of developing a new, better curriculum to suit the pedagogical philosophy that he shared with Scott.

John J. Oh (Director of Athletic Programs)

John resides in Queens, where he has lived for almost his entire life. He first began tutoring the SAT as a part-time job while he was studying for his MFA at Columbia University's Film School. He has written two feature-length screenplays.

John has taught over 2,000 students (in a one-on-one setting and in classes as large as 30) from all five boroughs of NYC, Long Island, Westchester, and New Jersey. He has researched the SAT, written SAT teaching materials, and has also trained other young, aspiring SAT teachers.

Jamie L. Reich (Co-Director of College Advising Services)

Jamie, a native of Long Island, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Sociology and Education from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., a Master of Science in Education with a specialization in Counselor Education from Hofstra University in Uniondale, New York as well as New York State Public School Teacher Permanent Certification in School Counseling. In addition, Jamie holds a Professional Diploma in Marriage and Family Therapy from Hofstra University.

Jamie was the co-founder and ten-year President of Cancer Cured Kids, a not-for-profit national charity that has provided school personnel with the means to address the emotional, psychological and educational issues surrounding childhood cancer as it pertains to the school reintegration process. Through a multi-faceted psycho-educational intervention model, this program has gained national recognition and has been distributed within school systems, hospitals and cancer related organizations. She was named to the "Women's Roll of Honor" in the Town of North Hempstead and awarded the "Blue Ribbon Education Award" by Cancer Care, Inc. of Long Island. Over the years, she has successfully guided many students though the college application process.

Allen Springer (Director)

Allen Springer grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from Emory University.

He spent a year traveling after college, and upon his return, Allen was accepted to the MA/PhD program in American Literature at New York University; however, with the change in atmosphere of academics at the time, he left after two plus years of study. While in graduate school, he taught SAT, GRE, and LSAT courses for the nation's two largest test-preparation companies.

After graduate school, he was briefly an editor for the leading qualitative marketing research company.

Allen then found his niche, blending his business acumen and fondness of education, working for a successful Long Island test-preparation company, where he spent eight years teaching literally thousands of students and directing the company.

While looking for a new experience, Allen was presented with an interesting opportunity to work for the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). As the Acting Director of a non-profit initiative and research center at UCSD, he was tasked to improve the education and training opportunities of information and storage management professionals. The program was a nexus for industry, end users, and academia.

Allen now finds himself happily back in New York, working for A-List as one of its Directors.

Lisa C. Stella (Director of Nonprofit Programs)

Lisa grew up in Southern California and never had any real plans of venturing farther than Los Angeles, where she expected to fulfill her adolescent aspirations of movie stardom. Then one day a visit to Boston and the big brick buildings of Harvard awakened the latent Northeasterner lying within, and she spent four years there studying history and Italian. At some point during her sophomore year she remembered how much fun she had forcing her indulgent grandparents to complete the scores of worksheets she created for them as their "teacher," and decided to enroll in the teacher education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

After graduation in 2002, she taught middle school History, Geography, and Social Studies outside of London for a year and then moved to Rome, where she paid for her 85-centesimi cappuccinos by teaching English as a foreign language. Lisa came to New York in 2005 to study education policy at Teachers College, Columbia University, and completed her MA in Politics and Education in 2006. She is now back in the classroom where she belongs, teaching ninth-grade English and Humanities at a charter school in the Bronx.

Dina Altshuler (Client Services Coordinator)

Dina was born in St. Petersburg, Russia but grew up primarily in New Jersey. She graduated with honors from Princeton University with a BA in Psychology. After graduation she moved to Los Angeles to work with mentally disabled adults with psychological problems but realized that her heart lay in New York.

Since returning to the East Coast she has worked as a Workshop Facilitator and Retention Specialist at a large New York non-profit serving the homeless, ex-substance abuser, and ex-convict populations. She has brought her knowledge and experience of providing excellent customer service with her to A-List as a Client Services Coordinator.

Educational Consultants

Jocelyn Christensen

Mathematician, actress, yogi. Jocelyn has spent her life pursuing simultaneously the serenity of logical thought and the contradictions of creative inspiration. While apparently in opposition, Jocelyn's passions for acting and for the sciences have the same source: a vibrant curiosity about the way the world works.

Jocelyn began tutoring in high school at the urging of her AP Calculus teacher. Ever an excellent student, Jocelyn received significant recognition for her scientific endeavors. Her Junior year in high school, she was selected to take an advanced college level chemistry course, and later that year received a special award for outstanding scientific achievement. She continued to hone her tutoring skills while earning her BA in Mathematics from Carleton College, in MN, where she tutored other undergrads, took piano lessons, played Ultimate Frisbee, wrote computer programs, published a physics paper ("An Adventure in Tenpin: the Physics of Bowling" Undergraduate Research in Physics, 1999), studied art, and acted in many plays. She graduated from Carleton Magna Cum Laude, with honors in independent study for her work in physics.

Happy but not fully satisfied with the analytical purity of mathematics, after graduating Jocelyn began to seriously pursue acting. Though her mathematics degree and science background were quite useful as a tutor in New York City and Seattle, they surprisingly did not open as many doors for her in the acting world, so when, several years later, the opportunity arose to attend the very selective MFA program in Acting at NYU, Jocelyn was thrilled. For three years, she put the calculator in her brain on hold and focused instead on her instincts, her voice, and her stage presence.

Now Jocelyn has the best of both worlds, enjoying the work of engaging students' critical thinking skills while participating in the vibrant theatrical world of New York City. Born in Alaska, raised in Seattle, with summers spent on the family cattle ranch in Montana, she is a western girl at heart, but the artistic and intellectual opportunities of the east have proven irresistible, and it is here that she will continue to be an artist, an explorer and an educator.

Rachel Fass

Rachel is a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, with a degree in the Biological Basis of Behavior. She has worked in the client services industry for the past thirteen years. As the chairperson of the Secondary School Committee for the University of Pennsylvania for the past eleven years, she has interviewed hundreds of prospective applicants and has worked closely with admissions personnel. As an educational consultant, Ms. Fass has successfully guided students into realizing their college aspirations. Her expertise includes school selection, essay assistance, application navigation and overall admissions strategy. She has served as a board member of the Dysautonomia Foundation from 1996-2006 and has served as a board member for the Alpine Learning Group. Prior to working with students in an advising capacity, Ms. Fass was a healthcare management strategic planning consultant for a big four accounting and consulting firm.

Clay Glad

Clay Glad grew up in New York but went to school largely on the west coast, where he studied philosophy, mathematics, and linguistics. He did his graduate work in mathematical logic at Stanford, where he taught classes in logic, philosophy of mind, and ethics, and was certified as a writing instructor. Not wanting to end up living in Des Moines, Clay opted to become an editor rather than a professor. He has edited textbooks and scholarly works in philosophy, logic and mathematics, religion, and music. His experience as an editor in designing multimedia instructional materials led him subsequently to work in developing courseware for a variety of subjects and to teaching in a wide variety of settings.

Donna Lazar

Donna grew up in Los Angeles, California. She is an honors graduate from New York University with a double major in Philosophy and Theater and has been tutoring students of all grade levels for eight years. She has been performing in theatrical works in New York and Los Angeles, including the Obie Award winning West Village Fragments by the Peculiar Works Project. Donna believes her experience in the theater makes her a dynamic and engaging tutor. She enjoys making even the most daunting academic subjects manageable and fun.

Geralyn Loprieno

Biography coming soon.

James Patton

James attended Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. Though he played both basketball and soccer through middle school, he joined MBA's high school debate team, that year's national champions. James began his study of Latin at MBA and showed an early aptitude for it, receiving several gold medals and a perfect score on the National Latin Exam.

At Vanderbilt University, James developed his passion for the classics and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Classical Studies and a minor in Philosophy. Extracurricularly, he helped found the Vanderbilt Australian Football Club and went on to become to team's president and captain in addition to playing in the USAFL for the Nashville Kangaroos. During his time at Vanderbilt, James also began tutoring for Nashville's premier tutoring company. As a tutor, James found that his classical education gave him a firm foundation in a surprisingly wide variety of subjects including: political science, art history, philosophy, history, social sciences, English, and of course Latin. James' knack for standardized testing, one that enabled him to find an error on the ACT, now helped him tutor students with the SSAT, ISEE, PSAT, SATs I and II, ACT, GRE, and AP tests. James continued tutoring after he graduated, and has worked with a wide variety of students, including international students, students with learning disabilities, and some for whom English is a second or even third language.

Desiree Burch

Desiree Burch is New York City-based actor, comedian, writer, performance and teaching artist. A graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in Theater, Desiree has committed herself to avant-garde performance on the Downtown art scene since 2001. She has been a NY Neo-Futurist, resident artist and curator with Galapagos Art Space, stand-up comedian, emcee and touring solo performance artist. In addition to being a contributor for the Huffington Post and VH1, her live work has been seen at Carolines, Comix, Gotham, Joe's Pub, Ars Nova, P.S. 122, Bowery Ballroom, The New Museum, The Ohio Theater, Columbia University, NYU, The Atlantic Theater, in the New York International Fringe Festival and at comedy clubs across the country. She is also the Executive Director of the Hysterical Festival for women in comedy, which debuted in New York in 2008.

Desiree's professional background of arts advocacy, arts education, activism and literacy reflects her progressive aesthetic in both on and offstage endeavors. Since 2003 she has worked in the New York City Public School system teaching reading, writing, performing and communication arts. She has toured all over the country working in K-12, collegiate and community forums to cultivate connections between theater, literature, awareness and involvement. Desiree has always brought a personal voice and passion to her educational work, and is pleased to add her talents to A-List Education's brilliant staff in their progressive and proactive approach to learning.

Gary Surman

Gary grew up in a small town in upstate New York and graduated as valedictorian from Cobleskill-Richmondville High School. He first discovered a passion for tutoring while studying mathematics and physics at SUNY Geneseo. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and pursued his graduate studies in math at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he taught calculus, precalculus, and basic math skills. After earning his MA, he moved to Long Island and pursued a career as an SAT tutor. He enjoys the tutor-student interaction, which is always interesting, intellectually challenging, and immensely rewarding.

Lindsay Tanner

Lindsay Tanner hails from Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia, and Australia. Her nomadic childhood fostered curiosity about people and an appreciation for experiences beyond her own, which would eventually lead to a double major in Theatre and Anthropology at New York University. Always a passionate student, and a voracious reader, Lindsay had devoured most of the complete works of Shakespeare by the time she was in high school. She received perfect Verbal scores on the SAT and SAT II, and had articles published in several Washington DC newspapers, including The Washington Post. She trained as an actor and a flutist, and decided to put her affinity for language to use on the stage and screen at NYU.

Having graduated with honors, she is now very active in New York's theatre community, but her abiding love of learning has always led her towards teaching and working with young people. She has worked as a drama coach and flute teacher, in addition to tutoring kids from very low-income areas in Manhattan. Lindsay enjoys teaching students who are below grade-level, have special needs, or are English language learners; her experience in the arts provides her with the ingenuity to help them reach their full potential. The right approach can make the most difficult subjects easy, and Lindsay is committed to discovering the right method for each individual student.

Sam Perwin

Sam Perwin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2004 with a B.A. in Literature. There, in addition to performing in over 30 operas, plays and musicals at school and in the greater Boston area, he taught at the Harvard Writing Center where he specialized in working with ESL Students. After graduating, he spent a brief stint in Spain writing for the Let's Go travel guide series before moving to New York.

After entertaining the notion of a "real job" in the world of Publishing and a degree in Vocal Performance at Manhattan School of Music, Sam quickly realized the office and opera lives were not for him, and continued to pursue theater, both musical and otherwise, and tutoring. Over the years, he has worked for many various educational companies in the New York Metropolitan area teaching the SAT I, and various SAT II and AP subject tests as well as tutoring everything from English and Spanish to Latin and Music Theory.

In his theatrical career he has been seen in a World Premiere Off-Broadway Musical, doing Shakespeare in a municipal parking lot on the Lower East Side, dying gloriously on the barricades of freedom in Les Misérables in upstate New York, and most recently in a 10-Minute modern opera at Ars Nova.

David Schreiner

A Los Angeles native and fan of the west coast, David came east to attend Amherst College where he ran cross country and track and field, and majored in Spanish and International Relations. After graduating in 2006, he spent a year teaching English, the TOEFL, and the SAT in Bangkok, Thailand. He is currently pursuing a career in International Relations.