Hello! My name's Lily, and I'm a second-year physics PhD student at Yale University studying experimental quantum materials. I graduated cum laude and with high honors from Smith College in physics, with a minor in French, and I spent my junior year in Paris, completing university coursework in literature and the sciences, taught in French, and earning the Ruth Alpern Leipziger Prize for outstanding work in Smith's Paris program. Literature has been a constant thread throughout, from seminars...
Hello! My name's Lily, and I'm a second-year physics PhD student at Yale University studying experimental quantum materials. I graduated cum laude and with high honors from Smith College in physics, with a minor in French, and I spent my junior year in Paris, completing university coursework in literature and the sciences, taught in French, and earning the Ruth Alpern Leipziger Prize for outstanding work in Smith's Paris program. Literature has been a constant thread throughout, from seminars on Faulkner and Dostoevsky to courses on translation, French cinema, and the women writers of eighteenth-century France.
At Yale I have served as a graduate teaching fellow for an undergraduate electricity and magnetism course and for an advanced laboratory courses. In these roles I lead sections, hold weekly office hours, and do much of my teaching one on one, which is where I think the best learning happens.
My favorite part of teaching is meeting a student exactly where they are. In physics, I build intuition first and then reinforce it with careful problem-solving practice, whether for high school and AP Physics, introductory college mechanics and E&M, or upper-level coursework. I bring the same approach to French, from grammar fundamentals to conversation and literature, and to reading and writing about literature in English. I also have a particular love for the history of physics: I wrote a self-directed thesis on the origins of quantum mechanics with research at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and I find the human story behind the equations is often what makes them click. If you are looking for a physics tutor with humanities sympathies, or simply someone who believes intuition comes before memorization, I would love to work with you.
