robin doran - houston Partner

Robin’s career in admission actually began as an undergraduate student at Southern Methodist University, where she was a tour guide, student panelist, and intern in the Office of Admission. After graduating, she became a professional member of the office as an admission counselor. After one year in the office, Robin married one of those crazy actor types, so they packed up and moved to Los Angeles for her husband Justin to pursue his MFA in acting at UCLA, and Robin began her time in the Office of Admission at the University of Southern California. During the five years Robin was at USC, she moved from Assistant Director to Senior Associate Director of Admission in charge of recruitment. Robin loved her time at USC and remains an avid Trojan fan to this day.

After the birth of her second child, life on the road of an admission officer was very difficult for her family, so Robin decided to make a change to the “other side of the desk” at Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village, California. When Robin was hired at Oaks, the school had not yet opened. She was appointed the inaugural Director of Admission and College Counselor since they wouldn’t have seniors for a couple of years. Robin was hired in March of 2000, and there were no students enrolled at the school. That August, the school opened with 200 students in grades 6, 9, and 10, and today, Oaks is a thriving school with 1400 students and excellent academic, athletic, and arts programs.

In 2003, Robin and her family decided to move to Houston to help her mother-in-law as she neared the end of her long battle with cancer. They planned to be in Houston for a couple of years and then return to Los Angeles. As those things typically go, more than 20 years later, the Dorans are still proud Houstonians.

After one year helping out at The John Cooper School as a part-time college counselor, Robin became the Associate Director of College Counseling at The Kinkaid School. She helped to bring the dean system to Kinkaid in the fall of 2008, which created a much more student-centered, relationship-based approach to college counseling that serves as the model for our approach to private counseling at doran+scalora college consulting.

In 2010, Robin became the Lead Upper School Dean, and she served on the Administrative team of the school. In addition to all her responsibilities as dean, Robin started the Habitat service program, served on the Admission Committee, was an adviser to the Peer Mentor program, served on numerous search committees, and started the Big Sister/Little Sister program.

In order to help more students understand the college admission process, Robin joined the Board of Directors at One Goal Houston in 2019. One Goal works to solve the degree divide in our lifetime so that all students have the opportunity to graduate from college.

Personally, Robin’s husband, Justin, is an actor, director, and the incoming Associate Head of School at St. Francis Episcopal School. They have three children, Ty, Kinkaid ’16 and Northwestern ’20, Caleigh, Kinkaid ’18, Vanderbilt ’22, and Harvard Law ‘25, Jackson, Kinkaid ’22 and USC '26.

Jennifer Scalora - austin partner

Jennifer Scalora is a uniquely experienced counselor and admissions professional with more than three decades of experience advising students and leading admissions efforts at the University of Texas.  
Jennifer attended the University of Texas, completing a BA in Spanish and Portuguese and a Master's in Latin American Studies. She commenced her advising career while in graduate school managing graduate student advising and admissions and undergraduate advising in American Studies. After completing her Master's, she moved to New York City and completed an intensive restaurant management and culinary arts program at the New York Restaurant School. However, Jennifer realized that her passion was working with students and she returned to the University of Texas.
Jennifer spent five very busy years at the Population Research Center before moving to her UT Austin dream job at the Plan II Honors program. The first three years at Plan II, Jennifer was an academic adviser. She was the Director of Plan II Admissions for the next fourteen years.

Jennifer received two particularly meaningful awards while at UT Austin:  Outstanding Service by a Staff Member from the College of Liberal Arts, and a University Staff Excellence Award. Staff Excellence Awards honor and recognize the contributions of non-teaching employees who have had a significant impact on the University.

After participating on the Executive Committee for four years, Jennifer served as the president of the University of Texas Chapter of the Honors Society of Phi Kappa Phi from 2010 to 2014. She maintains her PKP membership and stays active within the association. She established and directed the UT Honors Admissions Group (HAGs), connecting representatives from all UT Austin honors programs and from the University's Office of Admissions to collaborate on the University’s honors application processes, and was also a member of the UT Austin Honors Advisers Group. 

Jennifer served two terms on the UT Austin Provost's Council on Academic Advising; helped to establish and served on the Provost’s Council for Student Advocacy; served as an Executive Officer of the University's Academic Counselor's Association (ACA); and completed one term on the ACA Advisory Committee. Jennifer also served as a district representative to the University of Texas Staff Council.  In June 2014, Jennifer retired from Plan II Honors and the University of Texas at Austin. Jennifer is married to Will Rice. They have two sons, one currently lives and teaches abroad and the other currently teaches in Dallas.

Jennifer is currently a member of the Texas Association for College Admission Counseling (TACAC), the Higher Education Consultants Association (HECA), and the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). She is a former member of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA).

Robert Street Clark

A native of Portland, Oregon, Robert went to a large public high school and experienced the challenges of navigating the college process with little guidance. Invigorated by the world of college admissions early in high school, Robert ultimately decided to attend Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA—a highly selective liberal arts college. Whitman was a perfect fit. Following Whitman, Robert joined the Teach For America Corps in Houston, Texas. After two years in TFA, Robert received his M.Ed at Harvard University focusing on education policy and management. During his graduate school tenure, he advised Harvard undergraduate students and volunteered with the Breakthrough Collaborative helping guide students through the college process.

Following graduate school, Robert returned to Whitman College and served as assistant director of admission. His recruitment territories included Texas, the Midwest, and Portland. In this role, Robert recruited students and worked with them through the application process and ultimately served on the admission committee reading and selecting highly qualified students for competitive admission. In addition, he served as the athletic liaison for the admission office helping with the NCAA and recruitment process of talented athletes. The experience at Whitman provided Robert with the inside view of highly selective college admission and sparked his passion for working with students in finding their perfect college fit.

Robert joined The Kinkaid School as a dean in the upper school in 2013. In this role, Robert worked with 9th- through12th-grade students on academic and extra-curricular advising, social and emotional counseling and the entirety of the college process. In addition, he served on the admission committee and advised several clubs and organizations. He is a member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. In his free time, he volunteers with Memorial Park Conservancy’s Urban Wild program, with Child Advocates of Houston, and serves on the Houston Rodeo and Livestock committee. An active athlete, he is usually training for a triathlon or running with his chocolate labrador, Katy. 

Trish Houser

Trish Houser is excited to join the doran+scalora team at the culmination of over a decade-long career as Associate Director of College Counseling at Episcopal High School.

As the fourth and final child in her family, Trish wanted a college experience that was entirely different from her older siblings who all attended the same large state university. Knowing herself, her strengths, preferences, and desires for her college experience, she turned her focus to small and midsize schools in Texas. She decided on a college in November of her senior year (with little to no guidance), but intuition told her she’d made the wrong choice a few months later when deadlines had mostly passed. A serendipitous letter arrived in the mail from Texas Lutheran University—a school she had never even heard of—inviting her to an on-campus scholarship day… and the rest is history! Trish fell in love with the campus culture, professors, student body, and community during her visit, walked away with a generous scholarship to offset her parents' heavily-hit college fund, and began the trend of charting her own course. As a student at Texas Lutheran, Trish served as an Ambassador for the Office of Admission, an Orientation Leader, and a three-year Resident Assistant, while developing lifelong relationships with peers and professors alike. Trish has some particularly extraordinary college memories that perfectly illustrate the intimate aspects of a liberal arts education—for example, taking custom-made essay tests in a professor’s office while the rest of the class bubbled in scantrons, and joining a trusted professor on a day-long drive through the Texas Hill Country when the stress of collegiate over-commitment and academic perfectionism felt insurmountable. She truly came to appreciate the transformative nature of higher ed, but wouldn’t realize the profound impact it would have on her career path for several more years.

In 2006, Trish’s fiancé, Rich, began seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, where Trish also acquired a job in the Office of Admission with recruiting territories in Alabama, Florida and Texas; little did she know, her work at Sewanee would forever change her career trajectory. Rich and Trish married just days after Trish’s first-ever admission travel season and they went on to spend three wonderful years on “The Mountain,” (Sewanee’s vast campus Domain). It was here that Trish established her fondness for the field of education, growing both personally and professionally with each new challenge that presented itself in her work, and it’s also where Trish realized she had found her calling. As Assistant Director of Admission, Trish executed and oversaw Sewanee’s Merit Scholarship program, the Counselor Fly-In program, the Arcadian program (Sewanee’s student tour guides) and the Senior Interviewer program—the breadth and depth of her work added invaluable tools to her professional arsenal. Upon Rich’s graduation in 2009, the two returned to Houston, Texas where Trish secured a new role in the College Counseling Department at Episcopal High School (EHS), which allowed her to utilize so many of her work experiences from Sewanee. Eleven years and two children later, Trish is excited to begin this new chapter and tackle all of the fresh challenges that this new opportunity will provide!

Trish is passionate about the introspective nature of the college search and application process. As students discern college fit and brainstorm potential essay and supplement topics, they learn a great deal about themselves. Trish whole-heartedly believes that every student has a story to tell—inspiring students to cultivate those pertinent and interesting details of their lives and weave them into thoughtful and cohesive college applications brings her great joy. Trish loves offering students the guidance she never had in her large public high school! At EHS, she is the office wordsmith and masterful barber of wordy essays.

Trish’s husband, Rich, serves as Rector of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Spring Branch and they live in the Heights with daughters Ella Rae, a kindergartener at Sinclair Elementary, and Emmaline, who is almost one! As a family, they love the urban lifestyle of living in the Heights. On weekends, you’ll find them walking to check out restaurants, farmer’s markets, and parks. Admittedly, both daughters have already become “foodies” and they wouldn’t have it any other way! Trish is an avid writer and loves to take memoir-writing classes at the Jung Center when her schedule allows it. She further satisfies her creative spirit by cooking, baking, repurposing vintage finds, and crafting with Ella Rae. She is also a big college football fan and a longtime, all-weather Houston Astros enthusiast.

SteFanie Esposito

Stefanie Esposito began working at doran+scalora in the Summer of 2023 as a college consultant. In her 16 years in college counseling, she has guided 700+ students and their families through the college admissions process. Prior to joining doran + scalora, she helped institute the dean system—a four-year, holistic approach to college counseling—at the Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas. As an independent counselor, she assists students from coast to coast in their college search and application process. Stefanie earned her bachelors and masters degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and began her career in education as a Teach For America corps member, teaching English and journalism in Houston. She brings a rich knowledge of colleges and universities to the doran + scalora team and has a thorough understanding of the complexities of the admissions process, and a knack for helping students and their parents thrive through the stresses of junior and senior year. As a writer, educator and seasoned counselor, she loves helping students tell their story to colleges in a way that is authentic, meaningful and successful in helping them realize their college goals.