Matilde Ortiz-Luis was born in Manila, Philippines. She has always enjoyed doing math at an early age. At her school, Maryknoll College, she was always glad to help her classmates struggling in math from elementary to high school. During her high schoolyears, her math teachers would request her to tutor the students failing their math classes. In her heart, she always knew she would want to be a teacher.

In her first year of college, tutoring became a job for her. Her high school math teachers would recommend her to families and word spread around so after classes, she was a private math tutor to elementary and high school students from various private schools. She enjoyed this because she was also learning the different approaches to learning from each school.

Matilde graduated magna cum laude earning a BS Secondary Education, major in math and minor in English from the University of Santo Tomas, a Catholic university founded in 1611, making it older than Harvard by more than a quarter century. Both her high school and college education were completed from full scholarship. She taught high school math in the high school she graduated from and was a supervisor of student teachers of math at the University of Santo Tomas.

Before coming to the United States, Matilde was hired as a high school math teacher in Papua New Guinea, considered as the world’s third largest island country. She always claims her 6 years in Papua New Guinea as the best years of her teaching career –very challenging but extremely fulfilling. She has just retired as a high school math teacher on June, 2025.

This will be her third year with Adventures with Mr. Math after being introduced to the program by Beth Allegretti. She has found the program to be refreshing – pleasantly different and interesting. The program’s curriculum and students truly impress her.

Teaching is her PASSION!