Why I do this work

If you're a parent or student looking for help with high-school biology or chemistry, I wrote this for you. When a hard science class shakes a student's confidence, you don't have to work through it alone.

I grew up in Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas — a first-generation college student in a community where type 2 diabetes touches almost every family, including mine. No one in my house had done this before. I learned the path the hard way, by walking it without a map. That's exactly why I do this work now.

That path took me further than I once imagined. My education was fully funded at every stage — college, graduate school, and medical school, and my research carried me from UT Brownsville to Weill Cornell, a PhD at Harvard, and labs at UT Health San Antonio and UT Southwestern. I started medical school at UT Southwestern and then made the hard decision to leave after my clinical years, to focus on research and the people I most want to help. (I wrote about that here.)

I believe a student who understands why something works doesn't have to memorize it twice. My job is to find where the understanding broke and rebuild it from there. You can count on clear teaching and real preparation. I'll tell you honestly how your child is doing, though I don't promise grades.

I care most about the families doing this without an inherited roadmap — first-generation, bilingual, or simply outside the networks that make all this look easy. I was that student. I'll meet your family in English or Spanish, so everyone can follow along — not just the student.

If that's the kind of guide you're looking for, I'd be glad to help, and I'll treat your child's future with the care I'd want for my own. You can see how I tutor, or reach out directly — I read every message myself.

— Ivan

More: Research · Publications · CV. My biotech and life-science strategy work lives separately, under Valdez BioStrategy (site coming soon).