AlphaStar Academy

Home of the A-Star Program

Ali Gurel

    • AlphaStar Co-founder and Math Director (since 2017)
    • Ph.D., Mathematics, Caltech (2008)
    • International Mathematical Olympiad (1996: Silver Medal)
    • American Mathematics Competitions Advisory Panel Member (2008-2012)
    • USA Math Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP) Instructor (2007-2012)
    • Scott Russell Johnson Prize for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, Caltech (2007)

    • Courses

    What they say about him?

    Even though I already got Honor Roll in the AMC 8, Dr. Ali still made the course fun and I learned more concepts.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Advanced Student

    Ali taught in a very enthusiastic and fun way. I like how the lectures were fun and tricky.

    Channie, Pre-MathCounts Advanced Student

    Solutions were explained clearly and the instructor made it fun to learn.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Basic Student

    I loved the 'good-good' system!

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Basic Student

    Ali teaches well and in a fun way, awesome teacher, lectures not too hard not too easy.

    Pre-MathCounts Basic Student

    Ali is a great instructor!

    Pre-MathCounts Advanced Student

    The instructor was nice and made the questions fun.

    Pre-MathCounts Advanced Student

    The instructor explains in a way where we can understand clearly.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Basic Student

    The teacher was very funny and taught us well.

    Pre-MathCounts Basic Student

    Course has a good instructor. He explains things clearly. It is challenging.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Advanced Student

    The instructor is funny. He plays good games that require thinking.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Advanced Student

    I think the instructor did a good job teaching us all the techniques to do the problem. The course was very interesting.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Advanced Student

    I liked the teaching style.

    AMC 8 / MathCounts Advanced Student

    Dr. Gurel is amazing! He is super enthusiastic about the material he is teaching and he knows a lot about it. He is really good at explaining new theory and making extremely difficult problems seem simple with his variables like "apple" and "smiley-face" :)

    Neil Shah

    Perfect! This kind of class is something that I wish our schools could do. Everyone is muted (although the camera-off thing wouldn't apply to school, but is good here for privacy), and you can ask all the questions you want via Chat without everyone trying to talk at the same time. Excellent.

    Karen Huang