I am an experienced tutor from the most prestigious tutoring companies in the Bay Area, and I taught physics for years in universities. My tutoring focuses on physics, high-level math such as calculus, and test prep. Most of my students are high school juniors, seniors, and university students (mostly from Stanford). My regular students saw one to three grade points improvements; my AP test prep students saw one to three grade points improvements with just three to five sessions; and my SAT Subject test students saw 70 to 180 points improvements out of 800. My recent five students in SAT Physics and Math Subject tests received 750, 770, 800, 800, and 800 (out of 800)! (And the one who got 750 was getting 800 in his last a few practice tests.)

My very first student needed help to get a B in physics and, with my help, got an A! My very first SAT Physics Subject test student improved his score from 610 to 790 (out of 800) in his practice tests. My very first one-on-one class student learned half a semester’s material in 7 sessions, gained in-depth understandings into the true meaning of calculus, and became confident in jumping from middle-lane pre-calculus into the fastest-lane calculus. His mom added, “Thank you so much, Leon! I know you’ve definitely put his mind at ease, too!” These are just the very firsts — they say one improves with experience. A recent student who "will be very happy to get a C" (meaning was doing worse without my help) got an A-! And that was in Linear Algebra, a very abstract and difficult class at Stanford University, competing with the best of the best in the nation!

My students frequently ask me to teach/tutor them in other subjects and/or their younger brothers and sisters. After the very first session in physics, my very first student (mentioned above) asked me to also tutor him calculus. Later, his mom asked me to tutor his younger brother in AP Calculus and AP Physics. My first one-on-one class student (described above) asked me to help him with his precalculus/calculus course after I tutored him SAT Physics subject test. The mom of my very first SAT Physics Subject test student just asked me to tutor his younger sister, who just got a 96 in her test after her first session with me!

My sessions are highly effective and efficient — many of my students find they need just half to two thirds of the session time they projected, thus lowering their total costs and saving their valuable time.

My students enjoy our sessions. I put my students at ease by never lecturing them but quickly figuring out and appreciate what they know and then guiding them to learn what they don’t yet know. As I guide them to achieve new understandings, the dull equations start to make sense, and their eyes sparkle. “That was so cool!” “That’s a beautiful equation!” "That makes so much sense!" my students often say.

I have practically four degrees — a Bachelor of Science from Peking University, majoring in mechanics, the first and largest branch of physics; a Masters and practically a PhD (missing one course) with a 4.0/4.0 GPA from the University of Cincinnati, also majoring in mechanics; and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

My passion for teaching started before I was born — my father is a lifelong quantum physics professor (now retired) and my late mother taught in high school. One day when I was a child, my dad proudly said he had begun teaching my brother when he was three. I cried out, “I’m four and a half already! How come no one has begun teaching me yet?” When my sister turned three, I made sure someone began teaching her — by teaching her the first grade textbooks myself — when I was eleven years old.

Later, I taught physics (fluid mechanics) at Beijing University of Science and Technology and was a teaching assistant for college-level physics (solid mechanics) while pursuing my graduate study at the University of Cincinnati. In one of the most prestigious tutoring companies in the bay area, I professionally tutored high school students in physics, calculus, precalculus, algebra, trigonometry, AP test prep, and SAT Subject test prep, with my students routinely reporting great improvements in both their understanding and scores, as described earlier.

As my students have found out, I am friendly, have great patience, good at making difficult subjects understandable and hard-to-remember equations memorable. I can make seemingly dull math/science subjects interesting, so my sessions are always interesting to my students. I highly customize to the specific needs, learning styles, and personalities of my students. Furthermore, I keep their parents updated.

I am strong in all areas in physics and math. I not only studied, taught, and tutored physics as mentioned above but also conducted research in physics first as a PhD student, published two papers, and then as a Principal Researcher at a research institute, published a book with ground-breaking theories in physics. Since high-level physics research requires in-depth knowledge of mathematics, I took 50 credit hours of math as an undergraduate student and minored in mathematics while pursuing my PhD (a math minor for PhD is equivalent to a Master’s degree in mathematics). When I was a ninth grader, I was a winner in high school math competition first in Shenyang, a city of 8 million people, larger than the state of Massachusetts, and then in Liaoning, a province of 44 million people, larger than the country of Spain.