About Us
Beacon Street Lab was founded by a writer and scholar and an entrepreneur and economist, brought together by a shared conviction: that to write well is to think well. Allison and Arian have been close friends since their first year at Brown University, and as mothers, they founded Beacon to give every student access to the kind of rigorous, thoughtful education they believe all young people deserve.
Allison Adair, Co-Founder
Allison Adair is an award-winning writer and educator, and the co-founder of Beacon Street Lab. Educated at Brown University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Allison has taught writing for over two decades. She has worked with writers and thinkers at all stages or, in her words, with "deans and felons, seminarians, executives, poets, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and undergraduate wanderers of all kinds, including at least one professional poker player."
Concurrent with her university teaching, Allison has worked for several top-tier middle-grade and high-school enrichment programs, including the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY), Boston University's Summer Challenge, and the Boston College Experience. Allison's fluency with various composition models and pedagogical approaches combines with her own unique ability to break down ambitious writing goals into concrete, manageable steps. This method led Allison to become the youngest recipient of the Metcalf Cup and Prize, an award for superlative teaching selected from among 4,000 university faculty.
A distinguished writer herself, Allison is known primarily for her creative work, which has been lauded in the New York Times and honored with the Pushcart Prize, the Florida Review Editors’ Award, the Orlando Prize, and inclusion in Best American Poetry. Her most recent collection, The Clearing, was awarded the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, and she has enjoyed collaborations with visual artists, musicians, historians, scientists, and writers working across the digital humanities.
Arian Hassani, Co-Founder
Arian Hassani is an economist and writer, and the co-founder of Beacon Street Lab. With over twenty years of experience at the intersection of education, economic opportunity, and the future of work, she has worked across the public and private sectors, from J.P. Morgan and the United Nations to think tanks in Hong Kong and Washington DC, contributing to innovations in education, workforce development, and financial inclusion across Asia, Europe, and the United States.
Arian writes about education and human potential in her newsletter Notes from the Lab, read by 4,000+ subscribers worldwide. She holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development from Harvard Kennedy School and a BA in Economics from Brown University, where she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship.
Born in Iran, raised in Germany, and educated in the United States, Arian lived in Paris for eight years before making Hong Kong home in 2013.