Faculty & STAFF
Leaders in Learning
and Character
FACULTY & STAFF
Carol Hagar
Founder and Head of School
Carol Hagar
Founder and Head of School
As the Founding Head of ATA College Prep, Carol strives to develop a well-rounded student-athlete by inspiring a love of learning and encouraging individual thought, self-awareness, and personal responsibility. She individualizes each student’s program to balance personal goals with academic strengths and learning style, and then instills citizenship by adding community service activities and cultural experiences. Her goal is to help each student select the best college to match their unique profile of academics, athletics, and culture, and she is an expert counselor throughout the admissions and NCAA processes.
Before ATA, Carol served for 15 years as the Founding Director of the Austin Area Home School Cooperative, where she brought together hundreds of students and their families to form a community that shared resources and organized classes. She holds degrees in Architecture and Environmental Design from Texas A&M University and Mind-Brain-Education from Johns Hopkins University.
Carol is an avid tennis player and has previously served as a USTA committee member. She also plays pickleball, holds a black belt in karate, and loves to travel… she recently biked across Portugal! She has two children, Josh and Hannah, who mave also been involved in the ATA community. Josh was part of the inaugural graduating class of ATA College Prep and went on to be Captain of the Notre Dame tennis team; he is currently the SVP of Strategic Operations for GeoWealth. Hannah formerly served as a teacher at ATA College prep, and is currently a Senior Brand Manager at IHG.
You can reach Carol at [email protected]
Tommy Collins
Academy Coach/Humanities Lead
Tommy Collins
Academy Coach/Humanities Lead
Tommy joined ATA as a part-time Academy coach while he was in college, then transitioned to full-time staff after graduation. He has now been with ATA for over 15 years and has taught in the College Prep program for over 10 of them. Tommy now serves as the Humanities Lead, teaching middle school and high school English, Intro to Philosophy, Intro to Journalism, and World Religions. He also serves as a writing tutor, works as the Digital Marketing Manager, and coaches in the summer Academy program.
Outside of ATA, Tommy works with a local Austin tech company, MyTennisLessons.com, to grow their services pairing clients nationwide with private tennis coaches in their area. The company also recently launched FitnessTrainer.com, a similar concept for personal training.
Tommy graduated from St. Edward’s University in 2009 with a degree in Philosophy and a minor in Journalism. While at St. Edward’s, he worked as an Intern, Sports Editor, and Editor-in-Chief of Hilltop Views, the St. Edward’s student newspaper. Tommy was also a four-year varsity letter winner as a college tennis player, compiling a career singles record of 46-22 and doubles record of 36-19. In high school, he played for Highland Park in Dallas, earning two team state championships and serving as team captain his senior year.
You can learn more about Tommy in the video below, “A Conversation with Tommy.”
Bryan Rutherford
Math and Science Lead
Bryan Rutherford
Academy Coach/Humanities Lead
Bryan is the Math and Science Lead Teacher for ATA College Prep, but he is interested in everything and occasionally teaches just about anything! He has been teaching professionally since joining Teach for America in 2008, and he has taught at ATA since 2011.
Bryan holds a B.S. in Chemical Physics and a B.A. in English from Rice University. He believes in the value of making interdisciplinary connections among ideas and strives to use discussions in one subject to teach ideas from another. In his spare time, he enjoys writing encyclopedia articles for Wikipedia, playing board games with friends, and helping his wife to homeschool his two daughters.
You can learn more in the video below, “A Conversation with Bryan.”
Daniel Wasserman
Instructor
Daniel Wasserman
Instructor
Dan is a graduate of Brown University and has a PhD from Princeton University. He is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and has taught graduate and undergraduate classes in Physics and Electrical Engineering for over 15 years. He is teaching Intro to Programming at ATA College Prep.
Dr. Wasserman has taught graduate and undergraduate classes in Physics and Electrical Engineering for over [20] years. He currently teaches Intro to Programming in the ATA College Prep program. He received his Sc.B. in 1998 from Brown University in Engineering/Physics and History, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, Sigma Xi, and with Honors. He was a Francis Upton Fellow and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow at Princeton University, where he received his PhD from the Department of Electrical Engineering.
Dr. Wasserman joined the Physics faculty at UMass Lowell in 2007 and then moved to the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in 2011, where was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2015. He joined the University of Texas Electrical and Computer Engineering department in the Fall of 2016 and holds the Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professorship in Engineering #3. He is also the recipient of the NSF CAREER award, an AFOSR Young Investigator Award, the 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award from the UMass Lowell Physics Department, and the 2015 Distinguished Promotion Award from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
Dr. Wasserman and his wife have three children who attend ATA – two in the College Prep Program and one in Academy.
Jennifer McEwan
Instructor
Jennifer McEwan
Instructor
Jennifer graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. Before founding Grace & McEwan Consulting, Jennifer served as Senior Policy Director at Greenberg Traurig in the firm’s Austin office’s Government Law & Policy practice.
Jennifer has served as an upper-level Humanities teacher at ATA College Prep for over 10 years, and she currently teaches U.S. Government. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from Texas A&M University and a PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2016, she co-founded Grace & McEwan Consulting, a government relations consulting firm that provides services in the lobbying, public policy, procurement, and regulatory arenas. Prior to that, Jennifer served as Senior Policy Director for Greenberg Traurig in the firm’s Government Law & Policy practice. Jennifer and her husband have two sons that attend ATA College Prep.
Linda Dobbs
Instructor
Linda Dobbs
Instructor
Linda should have been born in Texas, but the USAF decided she would be born in Arizona. She did eventually make her way to Texas, attending high school in San Antonio and then receiving B.A. degrees in English, Computer Science, and Mathematical Sciences from Rice University.
After a stint with IBM in Austin, Linda began pursuing her greatest passion – offspring. She and her husband (Bill) created three amazing human beings. These three amazing human beings then created Linda’s passion for teaching, and Linda and Bill decided to homeschool their offspring. Homeschooling led to teaching at the Austin Area Homeschool Cooperative which led, over time, to teaching here at ATA College Prep. Linda enjoys teaching mathematics, literature, grammar, theater, and history. She believes in the Oxford comma.
Although Linda has little innate athletic talent, she does enjoy lifting weights and punching bags with her little, red boxing gloves. Her offspring obviously inherited some recessive genes, and all became college varsity athletes – the girls both in crew and the boy in tennis (after some time here at ATA) – giving Linda some solid second-hand understanding of the athletic mind.
Linda also enjoys reading (my first love), cooking (and the corollary eating), and drama (both in and out of the theater). She is currently on the board of the Lakeway Players and directs a show about once a year.
Linda is not prone to philosophizing, believing that Coach Tommy has that sewn up, but if she did have a philosophy of teaching it would be:
1) The most valuable thing you can learn is how to teach yourself.
2) The most valuable thing you can teach is how to work.
Simple, but not easy.
Yang Wang
Instructor
Yang Wang
Instructor
Yang joined ATA College Prep in 2016 and teaches Geometry, PreCalculus, and Chinese. She was born and raised in China and has been living in Austin for over 18 years. Yang has a Master’s degree in Geophysics from The University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor’s degree in Science from the University of Science and Technology of China.
Yang is the director and owner of Westlake Chinese Academy, a fully accredited language school which she established in 2014. She is a certified Chinese teacher recognized by the International Profession Certification Association and has over 15 years of experience teaching Chinese in the Austin area. During the summer, Yang’s school takes American teachers and students to China to teach English and to learn the Chinese language in a fully immersive environment. Her school also brings Chinese students to the U.S. for cultural and language exchange camps.
Yang believes in being well-structured and goal-oriented, and she is known for setting high expectations for students in both her math and Chinese classes. When she is not teaching, she enjoys reading and jigsaw puzzles.
Sarah Schoenmakers
Instructor
Sarah Schoenmakers
Instructor
From early on Sarah loved children and knew she wanted to be a teacher. Language always interested her, so she attended Texas State University where she earned a degree in English and a degree in Spanish with teaching certification. It was there she also met her husband, John. Her first teaching job was in Houston teaching Spanish, but she soon wanted to live abroad to truly learn and understand the Spanish culture. Living in Madrid, she became certified to teach English as a foreign language and worked at a language academy for a year.
After becoming engaged, she returned home to Austin, where she was born and raised, to get married and begin a new chapter. She worked in Leander Independent School District as an ELA teacher and was department chair of English, Pre-AP chair, and on the AVID committee.
Sarah loves working with children and teaching language in creative ways. She is passionate about helping kids understand how to use their own voices by listening to others’ through literature, music, art, and poetry. After working in public schools for 11 years, Sarah decided to stay home with her babies. The fulfillment of teaching soon called to Sarah, and she returned to the classroom at ATACP in the fall of 2017.
Sarah is married to John Schoenmakers, who has been a tennis coach at ATA for the past 12 years. They have 3 children: Jacob, Adam, and Catherine. ATA has been like a second home, and you can often find any of the Schoenmakers clan at ATA running around, playing tennis, and enjoying life. Sarah loves to cook, sew, and spend time with her family doing anything outside.
Ana Cecilia Bosada
Instructor
Ana Cecilia Bosada
Instructor
Ana was born and raised in Mexico City and started teaching Spanish at ATA College Prep in 2018. She is proud to share her language and culture with students, and she has always been very passionate about health and fitness. Ana played college tennis at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, where she earned degrees in International Relations Foreign Trade and International Business. She taught tennis at Carmel Valley Tennis Camp in California, where she was also in charge of Marketing and the Administration of the Wilson sponsorship. She still enjoys playing tennis as a hobby.
After college, Ana worked at Banco Santander Mexicano in the International Corporate Banking department. She was selected for the “Formation for Future Directors” program and was transferred to Spain for special training in Global Business. She then moved to Chile and Venezuela and worked as a Cash Management Executive.
Ana returned to Mexico City to work with Citibank International Corporate Finance until 2007 when she and her family decided to move to Austin. She worked at SureScore Educational Consulting and The Circle C Child Development Center.
Ana and her husband currently own Discount Body Shop/Lusso Carrozzeria (auto collision repair) and Veritas Translators, a small firm providing Spanish/English translation services.
She has competed in several triathlons and marathons and completed a full Ironman distance triathlon in 2017.
Genevieve Serrano
Instructor
Genevieve Serrano
Director of Student Culture, Registrar, and Instructor
Genevieve started teaching at ATA College Prep in 2018 after graduating from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.S in Corporate Communication. She is passionate about providing children with the proper tools to communicate effectively in their personal, educational, and business relationships. She was born and raised in Georgetown, TX, but now lives downtown with her husband Jay, golden retriever, Hutch and cat, Zoey. When she’s not at College Prep you can find her in running her photography business, creating at the pottery studio, or in her kitchen, testing a new recipe.
Heather Treuil
Instructor
Heather Treuil
Instructor
Heather joined ATA College Prep in 2018 and currently teaches Life Science and Biology. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a B.S. in Secondary Science Education.
After college, Heather taught Biology and Anatomy & Physiology in the Arlington Independent School District. She then worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 12 years before finding her way back to the classroom in 2017, when she began tutoring at ATA.
Heather currently lives in Lakeway with her husband and daughter. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, spending time with family, traveling, spending time outdoors, and occasionally a good round of karaoke.
April Erickson
Instructor
April Erickson
Instructor
April has taught middle school sciences, middle school robotics (LEGO Mindstorms), Algebra 1, Geometry, Math Topics, Algebra 2, and Precalculus in the College Prep Program since 2019. Prior to joining ATA, she taught a variety of math classes in Katy ISD (outside of Houston) for 24 years. She has a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science Information Systems from Friends University and a M.Ed. in Educational Administration from Texas A&M Prairie View.
April enjoys tutoring math, playing with her dog (Stormi) and visiting her daughter, Kenna, who recently graduated from ATA College Prep and is currently playing tennis for LSU.
Dr. Jessica Ashley
Instructor
Dr. Jessica Ashley
Instructor
Dr. Jessica Ashley has worked in the field of brain injury since 2008. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and Bachelors of Arts degree in Human Development from the University of California, San Diego and attended Southern Illinois University, Carbondale where she received her Master’s and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees in Experimental Psychology with a specialization in Brain and Cognitive Science. Upon completion of her degrees, Dr. Ashley worked as a staff Neuroscientist for the Centre for Neuro Skills (CNS) for several years.
Dr. Ashley has experience in the field of structural and functional neuroimaging, studying changes following acquired and traumatic brain injury. She has been involved the development of neuroimaging studies utilizing imaging techniques such as resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, arterial spin labelling and high resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effects of brain injury and the changes that occur following rehabilitation. She has past collaborations with University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, University of Texas, Medical Branch, and University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Ashley has contributed to the field of brain injury with various publications and presentations regarding brain injury.
Wayne Ostrout
Instructor
Wayne Ostrout
Instructor
Wayne is a highly experienced science and robotics educator with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Syracuse University and over 30 years at The Dow Chemical Company. With multiple trade publications in semiconductor applications, he brings deep industry knowledge into the classroom.
Now teaching physics, chemistry, and robotics, Wayne integrates real-world STEM applications into every lesson. As a coach of world championship robotics teams, he has led students to excel on the global stage—mentoring them in engineering, coding, teamwork, and innovation. Passionate about preparing students for future careers in science and technology, Wayne is committed to hands-on, challenge-based learning that inspires curiosity, confidence, and creativity.
Jon Watson
Instructor
Jon Watson
Instructor
Jon joined the ATA College Prep team in the fall of 2023 and has enjoyed teaching Math & Logic 1 and 2, Creative Thinking, Debate, Physical Science, and Shakespeare Thru Performance (his favorite!!). After receiving his BS in Communications from the University of Texas in the early 1990’s, he earned an English Teaching certification from UT four years later.
Jon began combining his passion for theatre and his love of language arts in 2001, when he began working with homeschooled students via Zachary Scott Theatre’s Performing Arts School. Hearing young people share their own creative ideas while staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream or encouraging them as they wrote their own original music for an adaptation of the classic Greek comedy Lysistrata brought him immense joy. After six years as the Assistant Director of the school, Jon wanted a change — and he got it, teaching English abroad in Taiwan for over a year and enjoying travels to Thailand and the Philippines as well.
After returning to the US, Jon taught both Speech and sophomore English at Westlake High School, sponsoring both the Debate team and the Model United Nations club in their travels to Chicago, Kansas City, Duke University, and elsewhere. Six years later, Jon left Westlake to become the elementary and middle school Theatre teacher at Austin Discovery School in east Austin, where he remained for seven years.
Jon is the proud bio dad of three super-creative kiddos — as well as the loving cat dad of rescue kitty Lily. He enjoys solving the New York Times crossword, writing music for the songs of Shakespeare, visiting with his twelve nieces and nephews, playing Scrabble, and making homemade ice cream (you should try his miso salted caramel). When it comes to his teaching philosophy, he borrows from Walt Whitman, encouraging students to “rivet and publish” their own personalities through hard work, dedication, and risk-taking. He looks forward to lotsa learning and playing in the year ahead!
Dr. Matthew Ashley
Instructor
Dr. Matthew Ashley, MD, JD
Chief Medical Officer
Instructor
Dr. Ashley is a neurologist with subspecialty training in neurological rehabilitation. He studied Cognitive Science with a specialization in neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, received both medical and juris doctor degrees from Southern Illinois University, and completed neurology residency and neurological rehabilitation fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He practiced as a clinical neurologist at both UCLA and Centre for Neuro Skills, a provider for rehabilitation for patients with brain injuries. He now serves as the Chief Medical Officer for Centre for Neuro Skills, where he is responsible for executive oversight of medical programs and development for all clinics in California and Texas.
His teaching experience includes faculty level teaching as a clinical instructor at UCLA. There, he taught first year medical students in the problem based learning curriculum. He also provided clinical training for neurology residents in the adult and pediatric UCLA neurology programs.
Kallie Nichols
Instructor
Kallie Nichols
Instructor
I believe science isn’t just facts to memorize — it’s a way to ask questions, solve problems, and understand the world.
I spent 13 years in public education teaching Biology and AP Biology, including creating Lake Travis High School’s Research and Design course, where students tackled authentic research through creativity and hands-on learning. I later became a Secondary Curriculum and Instruction Coach, supporting students and teachers in grades 6–12 across science and technology — designing lessons, modeling instruction, writing curriculum, and leading professional development.
For the past four years, I’ve stayed home with my youngest son while volunteering extensively in my daughters’ classrooms — giving me a unique view into how strong school-family partnerships shape children.
I hold a B.S. in Organismal Biology and played four years of collegiate basketball (plus a little tennis!). Being a multi-sport athlete taught me lessons about teamwork, perseverance, leadership, and resilience that have shaped the way I teach, coach, and mentor others.
Whether I’m teaching in a classroom, developing curriculum, supporting educators, or volunteering in schools, my mission remains the same: to inspire curiosity, build confidence, and help every student realize what they’re capable of achieving.
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