This fall, Sylvia Center programs are getting underway in kitchens, classrooms, and community spaces across New York City, the Hudson Valley, and the Capital Region. At the center of each one is a Chef Educator.
Our classes give young people the skills and confidence to make nourishing food for themselves and their families. Along the way, they learn where food comes from and what it does in their bodies, explore food traditions through our Heritage Diets curriculum, and discover that cooking isn’t simply about following instructions. It’s about tasting, experimenting, making decisions, and learning to trust yourself in the kitchen.
Bringing all of that to life takes more than knowing how to cook.
There is no single path to becoming a Sylvia Center Educator—and we think that’s one of our strengths. Our team includes professional cooks, nutritionists, photographers, community food advocates, TSC alumni, artists, athletes, and people whose work crosses several of those lines at once. Each brings something different to the classroom, giving students new ways to connect with food and with learning.
That expertise also makes The Sylvia Center stronger. Our Educators don’t simply deliver our programs: they help shape them, developing recipes and activities, sharing what works in their classrooms, mentoring colleagues, and helping our curriculum continue to grow.
As a new program year begins, meet five of the Educators bringing that work to life.
Will Nadan
Teaching teens to think like chefs
Will doesn’t want his students to need a recipe. Before becoming a Chef Educator specializing in TSC’s teen programs, Will trained at Chez Panisse in California, where cooks were given ingredients and a process, then expected to taste, adjust, and figure out what a dish needed. That’s the confidence he wants his students to develop.
“My goal is not to just teach students recipes but give them the tools to create their own,” Will says. “My job has been a success if my students can go home, look at what ingredients they have, and cook something for dinner.”
In the Teen Culinary Apprenticeship, Will builds that philosophy into activities that ask students to make decisions. A Chopped-style mystery box challenges teens to create something from the ingredients in front of them; another class introduces them to shooting their own food content with an Eater videographer
He also brings both restaurant and nutrition experience to the classroom, helping students navigate the sometimes-competing demands of nutrition, flavor, technique, and the integrity of a dish.
And he isn’t afraid to show students when things don’t work. When a class attempt at homemade orecchiette came out thick and chewy, his students reassured him: not everything they made had to be perfect.
That’s the kitchen Will creates—one where young people experiment, make mistakes, adjust, and keep cooking.
Margarita Garcia
Helping students see food differently
Margarita sees food through a photographer’s eye. For more than a decade, she‘s worked in food photography and creative direction, telling stories through color, composition, texture, and ingredients. As a Sylvia Center Chef Educator, that background becomes another way to get young people curious about what’s in front of them.
“I like to remind my students that we eat with our eyes, too,” she says. “Presentation, color, texture, and creativity are all part of the experience of cooking.”
Margarita introduces an unfamiliar ingredient through an image, nutritional fact, story, or cultural connection, giving students a reason to become curious before asking them to taste it. That thinking also extends beyond Margarita’s classrooms. She’s working with our programs team to develop food photography and styling activities, providing students another creative access into food. She’s also the eye behind our monthly seasonal produce series on Instagram, photographing farmers market finds and turning them into simple recipes and ideas for our wider community.
For Margarita, it all connects.
“Food is a way to discover and understand the world,” she says. “Through cooking, we learn about different cultures, traditions, ingredients, and the people behind them.”
And sometimes she gets evidence that her students have caught the bug. One elementary student announced after class: “When I grow up, I’m going to cook this every day.”
Samantha Kwok
From student to shaping programs
Sam first came to The Sylvia Center as a teenager. Seven years later, she’s helping lead its programs. After joining our Teen Culinary Apprenticeship, Sam became a Chef Assistant, then a Chef Educator, and today serves as our Manhattan and Brooklyn Programs Coordinator while continuing to teach. That journey shapes the Educator she is now.
“I didn’t always see myself as a leader; speaking in front of a class terrified me,” she says. “But watching other Sylvia Center Educators taught me how to stay calm and create safe spaces. Starting as a student helps me as a teacher: I recognize when someone’s nervous, because I’ve been there too.”
Today, making students feel that same sense of belonging is central to Sam’s teaching. “It’s a priority of mine to make every student who walks into my classroom feel seen, heard, valued and, most importantly, safe.”
Her influence extends beyond her own classroom. Sam develops elementary curriculum and recipes, supports younger staff, leads programs across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and helps shape experiences including The Sylvia Center and Grand Street Settlement’s annual AAPI cook-off. Ultimately, she wants students to discover what they’re capable of in the kitchen.
“Rather than seeing cooking as a task or chore, I want them to see it as something enjoyable and empowering—a way to explore their creativity while learning how to fuel and nourish their body.”
Sarah Kabalkin
Making the whole community her classroom
Sarah calls herself a Community Chef. Spend a little time with her on Staten Island and it’s easy to understand why. Born and raised on the North Shore, Sarah studied culinary diplomacy, combining food, culture, and community. Today, she puts that idea into practice in the neighborhood where she grew up.
Sarah connects young people with community farms, community fridges, and food pantries, helping them understand the food system by taking part in it: grow it, harvest it, cook it, share it. And being from the community matters to how she does that work.
“To really be in the community, you have to be a part of the community,” she says. “They need to know that you’re not judging people, that you’re there to share what you’ve learned.”
That philosophy follows Sarah into the classroom. “I try to get the students to recognize their own traditions and cultures within their food,” she says, while creating opportunities to learn about others.
When students in West Brighton wanted to make empanadas, Sarah connected their interest to a lesson about the Indigenous Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash. Together, they developed a whole-wheat Three Sisters Empanada that became a staple at their community center. It’s culinary diplomacy playing out through food education: starting with what people already know, creating space to learn from one another, and using food to build connections.
Joe Vice
Making the kitchen a place to connect
Joe has an unusual ability to connect with just about anyone. He walks into very different classrooms, builds trust quickly, and figures out what the students in front of him need to participate.
Upstate, that range is enormous. Alongside Chef Educator Sarah Jampol Auerbach, Joe works with Albany High School’s Life Skills program, adapting classes for students with a wide range of learning styles, skills, and support needs. At La Salle Institute in Troy, his relaxed, approachable style helps him build strong relationships with students and create a kitchen where they want to engage.
Joe brings culinary training and a degree in nutrition to the job, but he’s just as interested in learning from the people around him. He watches other Educators, asks questions, and adapts what he learns because he’s deeply invested in doing the work well.
For Joe, food education is also an opportunity to care for others. At the South End Children’s Café, he and Sarah help students cook and serve full community dinners. At Camp Sugar Plum this summer, he reunited with students he’d taught during the school year, making breakfast together as they confidently put those skills back into action.
Cooking gives Joe something to teach. But it also gives him a way to connect: with students, colleagues, and the communities he’s become part of.
First published on The Sylvia Center’s website 9/23/2026
Photos courtesy The Sylvia Center