"Hi there! I'm Niral - I'm a chemist who just loves to teach. And tough as it can be to find someone who writes out organic mechanisms for fun...you've found him!

I've taught and tutored at the University of Southern California and Wake Forest over the last 8 years, including being a TA for both General and Organic Chemistry. I started tutoring students in in the athletic department at USC as well as working as a supplemental instruction (SI) leader for fellow undergrads. In my time in graduate school, I got to tutor nearly 200 students privately and spent a lot of time with my lecture students outside of class, throwing them pizza parties for their lab sections, late night study sessions, and impromptu lectures in the hallway outside of my research lab. I just love to teach, and nothing beats seeing the "click" moment for one of my students, when everything just falls into place.

By training, my expertise is in synthetic organic chemistry, specializing in photochemistry of organic molecules, both for the absorptive properties and intramolecular charge transfer. I've been lucky enough to publish 9 papers on the topic, and been awarded 2 patents as well. If you were looking for another way to put it...I'm a complete nerd. Right now I work as a synthetic organic chemist at Virginia Commonwealth University doing research on protein cross-linking in Alzheimer's patients!

My goal in life has always to be a teacher -- having learned from fantastic AP Biology and AP Chemistry teachers in high school, and exceptional professors at USC and Wake Forest. My teachers taught me to take great pride in the success of my students, which is why I like to take time to not only teach, but get to know them on a personal level as well.

If I'm not in the lab or dancing around the kitchen with chemistry books all over the floor -- Top Chef playing in the background -- chances are I'm looking for a student to work with. Just give me a buzz! :)" less...