Search
Nathan S.'s Photo

PhD Physicist and Summa Cum Laude Math Major, 10 Years Tutoring
Nathan S.

Your first lesson is backed by our Good Fit Guarantee
Hourly Rate: $55
Contact Nathan

About Nathan

Bio

I hold a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in Physics from the University of Texas at Dallas and a double B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics from Texas State University, where I graduated Summa Cum Laude. I have taught and tutored mathematics and physics for ten years. I began in my university's open tutoring lab and in the Mathematics Department's tutoring center, working one-on-one with students across all areas of mathematics, and I was promoted to Lead Physics Tutor, where I created content reviews and...

I hold a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in Physics from the University of Texas at Dallas and a double B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics from Texas State University, where I graduated Summa Cum Laude. I have taught and tutored mathematics and physics for ten years. I began in my university's open tutoring lab and in the Mathematics Department's tutoring center, working one-on-one with students across all areas of mathematics, and I was promoted to Lead Physics Tutor, where I created content reviews and formula sheets still in use. Since then I have taught at universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, and most recently AP Physics 1 and its laboratories at an independent high school in Houston.

I tutor geometry, algebra, precalculus, trigonometry, and calculus, along with introductory and upper-level physics. My students have ranged from high school through the doctoral level, mostly high school students and undergraduates. I taught undergraduate physics laboratories for six semesters and was a Lead Learning Assistant in mechanics, electricity and magnetism, waves and thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics, co-instructing with faculty. Alongside this I have mentored individual students one-on-one, both in person and online over Zoom.

I teach to ensure every student feels capable, supported, and intellectually challenged. I ask a student to work a problem aloud before I explain anything. Students who disengage are often stuck on one specific concept and hesitant to ask for help, and locating that concept is the first thing I do. In geometry it is usually someone who can recite a theorem but cannot see where it applies. I scaffold complex concepts and calculations, pair them with worked examples they can revisit, and use frequent low-stakes checks to catch a misunderstanding during the session rather than on the next exam. My role is to facilitate curiosity, critical thinking, and resilience, helping students develop the skills and confidence to succeed in mathematics and physics.

Read more

Policies

Schedule

Loading...

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Nathan hasn’t set a schedule.

We’re having trouble loading this schedule right now. Please try again later.

Approved Subjects

Algebra 1

Algebra 1

I hold a double B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics, awarded Summa Cum Laude, and I began tutoring algebra in my university’s open tutoring lab in 2012, where most of the students who came in were stuck somewhere in first-year algebra. Algebra 1 is the course everything afterward rests on, so a gap here follows a student for years, and many students that I have since taught in precalculus or physics who was struggling turned out to be struggling with algebra. I teach it by insisting the student says out loud what operation they are performing and why it is valid on both sides, because silent symbol-pushing is what produces errors the student cannot find afterward. I keep the arithmetic manageable while a new idea is being learned, then raise the difficulty once the student is confident with the method.
Algebra 2

Algebra 2

I tutored across all areas of mathematics in my university’s Mathematics Department tutoring center and hold a mathematics degree alongside my physics doctorate. Algebra 2 is where students first meet functions as objects, and in my experience that is common real difficulty compared to Algebra 1. Quadratics, exponentials, logarithms, and rational functions each behave in a way a student can learn to anticipate before touching algebra, so I have students brainstorm/sketch and predict first and calculate second. I use the physics I teach for worked examples where they genuinely fit, such as exponential decay and inverse-square behavior, because a function a student has seen describe something real is one they remember. I check understanding with frequent low-stakes questions so that a misconception surfaces in our session rather than on the next exam.
Geometry

Geometry

My undergraduate degree is a double major in mathematics and physics, and as an undergraduate tutor I worked with students across every area of mathematics in my university’s tutoring center, planar and coordinate geometry included. Geometry has stayed the working language of my professional life: my doctoral and postdoctoral research is in general relativity (i.e., the geometry of curved spacetime) and I reason daily in angles, vectors, rotations, and transformations. I enjoy using my understanding of geometry to break down complicated concepts into simpler concepts. When I tutor geometry I focus on the shift that makes the course hard, which is being graded on justification and the final answer. I teach proof by separating what is given from what must be shown, then working backward from the conclusion to a short list of reachable targets, in order to build student intuition, and I insist that every line carries a reason even when it is informally stated. I also spend time early on breaking the habit of reading unstated facts off the diagram, which is a common source of lost credit on an assessment.
Physics

Physics

I hold a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in physics and have taught physics for about ten years. As an undergraduate tutor I worked with students across every area of physics in my university’s tutoring center. I instructed undergraduate electricity and magnetism laboratories for six semesters, two sections of forty students each, running twelve experiments per semester and designing a new magnetic fields experiment built on inquiry-based reasoning, and I set up and taught optics and electromagnetism laboratory sessions at a university in the United Kingdom. I served as a Learning Assistant and then Lead Learning Assistant in classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, waves and thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics, co-instructing with faculty, and I taught AP Physics 1 with its laboratories at an independent high school. My approach is to identify and correct conceptual errors before attempting the algebra and to practice algebraic solving before substituting in known values, substituting known values with care for units, and I use simulations and thought experiments to let a student test their intuition.
Precalculus

Precalculus

I have a mathematics degree, a Ph.D. in physics, and ten years of tutoring and teaching, and as a Lead Physics Tutor I wrote the content reviews and formula sheets still used by the tutoring center where I began. Precalculus exists to prepare students for calculus, and I teach it with that destination in view: the behavior of functions, domain and range, composition and inverses, and the trigonometry that calculus assumes you already own. Students usually arrive able to execute procedures but unable to say what a function is doing, so I ask for a prediction or a rough sketch before any computation. I scaffold the harder topics into manageable stages with a clear checkpoint at each one, which keeps a long problem from feeling like a pass-or-fail wall.
Nathan S.'s Photo

Questions? Contact Nathan before you book.

Still have questions?

Contact Nathan
Hourly Rate: $55
Contact Nathan