"Hi, I’m Gerri. I have a B.S. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and a M.S. in Chemistry from Northwestern University. At Caltech, I was active in both chemistry education and research. As an undergraduate, I was a teaching assistant for an advanced, graduate-level course on NMR spectroscopy. I also organized and led science outreach activities for students of all ages, designing chemistry demonstrations and hands-on experiments. At Caltech, my research focus was in the field of inorganic synthesis and I also spent one summer abroad as a visiting researcher at Oxford University in England.

After graduating, I spent a year in Munich, Germany as a Fulbright fellow synthesizing gold complexes and testing their toxicity on certain cancer cell lines. Upon returning to the United States, I started at Northwestern University as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. At Northwestern, I investigated a newly discovered species of methane-consuming bacteria.

As head teaching assistant at Northwestern, I worked closely with the General Chemistry instructors to improve the learning experience for our students. In my first year, I advocated for and led the transition away from multiple-choice questions on exams toward free-response questions. I met often with students and conducted extra office hours to strengthen their conceptual understanding of complex chemical topics and build confidence in their step-by-step, problem-solving skills. I bring this same approach as a tutor: emphasizing real understanding of complicated material over memorization of facts and formulas.

As a tutor, my focus is high school and college chemistry, but I also tutor students in math, physics, and related lab courses. I offer a free, 30-minute consultation to discuss your goals for our tutoring sessions and how we can achieve them. I ask that students send me the topics they would like to cover a day or two before our session so that I can make a plan and utilize our time together most effectively." less...