Nilay: Rensselaer County tutor

Certified Tutor

I am a Masters in Biochemistry and PhD in related discipline and at present working as an Instructor in the Department of Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA. I had an extensive research and teaching experience of more than 15 years in the field of cell and developmental biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, genetics and molecular biology. I have tremendously enjoyed my journey as an educator and hope to continue with my teaching endeavors in future. Although, my first exposure to classroom teaching was when I served as a Guest Lecturer in NIPER, Hajipur, India (2007-2010) during my PhD, but my voyage as a teacher stems way back into my Undergraduate days where I used to tutor high school students for Biology and Chemistry. In NIPER I taught courses on Molecular Biology, Macromolecules, Separation Techniques and Genomics and Proteomics to students enrolled in Masters of Pharmacy. In 2010 after submitting my PhD thesis I was hired as a Lecturer in the same institute till I moved to USA in 2011 and joined as postdoctoral fellow in UT Southwestern Medical Center. To fulfil my never-ending passion for teaching I got myself involved in teaching and mentoring STARS and SURF students who are visiting UT Southwestern Medical Center in summer. Most recently, I got engaged in teaching advanced level undergraduate courses as an Adjunct Faculty in Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA: Bio of the Brain in Fall 2021 and Metabolism in Spring 2022.

My teaching interests lie particularly in introductory and advanced level biology courses and introductory level Chemistry courses for undergraduate and high school students. My academic background [Post Doc in Cell and Neurobiology using cutting edge Drosophila Genetics, PhD in Pharmacy (Molecular Parasitology), Masters in Biochemistry and Bachelors in Chemistry] and teaching and research experience makes me a perfect fit to teach related courses.

Teaching is an interactive experience that I enjoy for many reasons. I feel immense excitement and satisfaction in explaining scientific concepts to students and make them understand why it is important. My primary goal as an educator always is to encourage students to think critically and creatively, develop problem solving ability and nurture them to gain competency in the course, which can provide them ability to apply the knowledge to grow as successful scientists and scholars. Students come to my classes with different learning approaches and from a variety of backgrounds. I understand no single way works well for all and I try to aid students in identifying their best possible learning style to ensure that every student learns the material. Moreover, I found students could have completely different starting points regarding their prior knowledge about the subject. Therefore, I realized that I should be patient when teaching things that may look quite obvious to myself. I also make sure that I go over the difficult concepts more than once so that students are able grasp the knowledge. My ultimate goal always is to create an environment where each student can equally excel.