Alumni Dispatch: Jessica Liou ’16

July 21, 2022

Fate – and a Cate experience – led Jessica Liou to launch MathXplorers, her passion project aimed to bring out the joy in learning math while addressing low levels of math proficiency for students in Guatemala. Jessica took a gap year after Cate in order to earn some money and then returned to Guatemala, the place she visited as a junior on a Cate service learning trip. She spent her early career in Antigua Guatemala and taught English in Zone 3 of Guatemala City. She quickly became fascinated with the country’s indigenous visibility and fell in love with the culture and students.

“Guatemala is incredibly impoverished and has gone through genocides and civil war,” she said. “Yet, the country is gorgeous from its people to its natural setting. Forming relationships with kids that were not much younger than me was just so amazing that I couldn’t leave, I had work to do there.”

In Guatemala, only 10.6% of 15-year-old students are achieving a minimum level of proficiency in mathematics, according to the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment. Recognizing the immense achievement gap and need for relevant programming, Jessica partnered with educator Gigi Carunungan to develop MathXplorers. She proudly shares that the vision for this program is to create a world that celebrates all children and that offers equitable learning opportunities so that students can achieve their full potential. The program accomplishes this through storytelling rather than the traditional method of equations or memorization that many of us grew up with. “Stories are a big part of who we are so we designed a math program which introduces diverse characters and names that students follow through different scenarios and growth experiences. Kids really connect to that.” MathXplorers is currently marketed to parents and has a growing presence in afterschool boys and girls clubs. 

Jessica currently lives in San Jose, Calif. and is a student in the Harvard Extension Program where she is pursuing a psychology degree while simultaneously developing and marketing the MathXplorers.