About

Dr. Karen R. Felzer has spent most of her life near the San Gabriel Mountains, in Claremont, Pasadena, and Monrovia, California.

She has always loved learning and has interests in a variety of topics. She earned her B.S. from Stanford University with a major in geophysics and a minor in American History. She was torn at the end of college between going on to study science or getting a credential to teach high school history. She ended up pursuing her studies in geophysics  (specializing in earthquake seismology), earning a PhD in Geophysics at Harvard University, and she still works as a part time researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey. Several years after she began home schooling her kids, however, she was thrilled to be given the opportunity to also be able to return to her dream of teaching high school history at Excellence in Education in Monrovia! She has been teaching history at EIE since 2023 and will also begin teaching math, with a course in precalculus in the fall of 2026.  

Karen grew up in a family that was focused on excellence in teaching - her mom was a dedicated elementary school teacher and her dad was constantly working on honing his skills as an engineering professor at Cal Poly Pomona and was so passionate about math education that he home schooled Karen in math, even though she went to public school for her other subjects. Karen began tutoring other kids in high school, was an award winning Teaching Fellow at Harvard, and taught summer school at UCLA. She pursues quality in teaching, strives to help students really understand the "why", and works to include creativity and interactive activities in every lesson. Learning should be engaging and fun!