Alex Semerjian completed his B.A. in International Relations from Mount Allison University in 1999 and went on to complete an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (S.A.I.S) in 2001. After having studied international relations for 6 years, he left North America with the goal of gaining some international experience, which quickly evolved into a career as a teacher. He has spent most of the last 20 years teaching internationally in a variety of countries working with second language learners and students who struggle with math. To better understand students and how they learn, he returned to school in 2010-11 and obtained a M.Ed. in Mind, Brain and Education from Harvard University. After some additional years teaching abroad, he has returned to Canada on a couple of occasions, once to work with the government as a pedagogical counsellor for mathematics and twice to take openings at RLA, which is close to his hometown of St. Catharines, Ontario. At RLA, he started his career as a staff sergeant in 2013-14 before working as a teacher focused on numeracy and literacy skills. After leaving the school for 4 years, he returned in 2019-20 and has since been teaching Grade 9 and Grade 10 English.