Award-Winning Organic Chemistry Tutors
serving San Francisco, CA

Zhenrui's premed and electrical engineering coursework at Columbia means he's tackled organic chemistry from both the biological and physical sciences side — thermodynamic versus kinetic control, molecular orbital theory, and the quantitative reasoning behind reaction energetics that pure pre-med students often find unfamiliar. That dual perspective lets him explain why a carbonyl addition proceeds the way it does, not just diagram the arrows.

Reaction mechanisms are the language of organic chemistry, and most students struggle because they try to memorize hundreds of reactions instead of learning the handful of electron-pushing patterns that explain nearly all of them. Nicholas teaches students to read nucleophilicity, leaving group ability, and steric effects as clues that predict outcomes — turning synthesis problems from guesswork into logical puzzles.

Studying cancer cells at the molecular level means Siavash lives inside organic chemistry — reaction mechanisms, functional group transformations, and stereochemistry aren't abstract concepts for him but daily tools. He walks through arrow-pushing and electron movement with the kind of fluency that comes from applying orgo in an active research lab at Cal State Northridge.

Most students dread organic chemistry's reaction mechanisms, but Sarah approaches them as logic puzzles with predictable patterns. Her physics and math training sharpens the way she teaches electron movement, stereochemistry, and retrosynthetic analysis — treating each mechanism as a problem to reason through rather than a sequence to memorize.

I am a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles. I received my Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. I also completed a minor in Public Health during my undergraduate career. Upon my graduation from UCLA in June 2013, I received both Latin Honors (cum laude) and a nomination to the Phi Beta Kappa (P.B.K.) National Society. I have recently been accepted to medical school and plan to attend in August 2014. I have experience teaching in middle school and high school settings abroad in both the Philippines and Honduras. I have also tutored family and friends in the sciences throughout my college career. I am intelligent, articulate, patient, and motivating, which I believe allows me to be a successful tutor. I have extensive experience working with children and am determined to make sure my students not only excel in their classes, but also learn the material well and develop an aptitude for academia. I believe education is the gateway to success and feel committed to help prepare my students for their future. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, traveling, running, and hiking with my dog.

I am a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelors degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology. During my four years of college, I guided K-12 students of the Oakland area in Language Arts and Mathematics and served as a mentor for many high school students. I have also been an undergraduate student instructor for the General Biology lab course offered at U.C. Berkeley, a prerequisite for students wishing to pursue Biology as a major. Since I have a wide range of teaching experiences in both academic subjects and test preparation, I am highly adaptable to different learning styles and cater my teaching methods to meet student needs. Apart from being flexible, I am also very accessible for additional questions or help that is needed. In my spare time, I enjoy baking, exploring my city and watching movies.

Reaction mechanisms are the language of organic chemistry, and Jhonatan treats them that way — teaching students to read electron flow through arrow-pushing until substitution, elimination, and addition reactions feel like variations on a theme rather than isolated procedures to memorize. His biochemistry expertise is especially useful when carbonyl chemistry and amino acid reactivity come into play. He holds a 5.0 client rating.

Reaction mechanisms are the backbone of organic chemistry, and spotting nucleophilic attacks or predicting stereochemical outcomes requires genuine pattern recognition, not rote memorization. Lauren's chemistry minor at Duke and her hands-on lab research give her a practical fluency with functional group reactivity that she translates into clear, step-by-step reasoning for each mechanism type.

Reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry demand the same kind of pattern recognition Seong uses in her neuroscience coursework at Northwestern — tracking electron movement, predicting intermediates, and understanding why one pathway dominates over another. She unpacks arrow-pushing notation by tying each step to underlying principles of nucleophilicity and sterics, so students can reason through unfamiliar reactions on exams instead of relying on rote memorization.

Reaction mechanisms are the language of organic chemistry, and Troy spent two semesters teaching that language as an organic chemistry TA. He walks students through arrow-pushing, stereochemical outcomes, and retrosynthetic analysis by emphasizing the handful of recurring electronic patterns that make hundreds of reactions predictable rather than random.

Four years of tutoring organic chemistry at Yale — while simultaneously doing pre-med coursework — gave Marcus a sharp sense of where students get stuck, particularly with carbonyl reactivity and multi-step synthesis planning. His current research at the Hospital for Special Surgery keeps him actively applying these concepts, so he teaches functional group transformations as interconnected tools rather than an isolated reaction catalog.

Chemical engineering at Cornell meant Rahul didn't just pass organic chemistry — he applied it daily in reactor design, synthesis planning, and thermodynamic analysis of reaction pathways. That engineering lens gives him a distinctive angle on topics like carbonyl chemistry and stereoselectivity, where he ties mechanism logic back to energy landscapes and kinetic versus thermodynamic control. Rated 4.9 by students.

Reaction mechanisms become far less intimidating when you can see the electron movement as a story rather than a set of arrows to memorize. Monika's biochemistry degree required deep fluency in organic chemistry — from nucleophilic substitutions through multi-step synthesis — and she teaches students to predict products by understanding why electrons move, not just where.

Biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins means Nicholas encounters organic chemistry where it intersects with real applications — polymer biomaterials, drug delivery systems, and the functional group chemistry that governs how molecules interact with biological tissue. He teaches reaction types by grounding them in that engineering context, turning abstract arrow-pushing into something students can visualize and reason through. Rated 4.8 by students.

Most students dread organic chemistry because it feels like a new language, but the logic underneath reaction mechanisms is surprisingly consistent once someone lays it out clearly. Ade approaches each reaction type — substitution, elimination, addition — by teaching students to read electron movement and predict products rather than memorize hundreds of individual reactions.

Cornell's biology curriculum threw Raphael into organic chemistry as the bridge between general chemistry and the biochemistry he needed for his pre-med track — meaning he learned reaction mechanisms through the lens of biological relevance, not just isolated transformations on an exam. He tackles arrow-pushing and functional group reactivity by zeroing in on the "why" behind electron movement, building each mechanism step from nucleophile-electrophile logic so students can reason through unfamiliar problems on their own. Holds a 5.0 rating.

Reaction mechanisms are the backbone of organic chemistry, and students who try to memorize each one individually run out of mental storage by the second exam. Bintou's chemistry training at Penn taught her to classify reactions by electron behavior — nucleophilic attack, leaving group stability, carbocation rearrangement — so patterns emerge instead of isolated steps. She teaches students to predict products by reading the mechanism, not by recognizing a specific example they've seen before.

Max spent much of high school independently pursuing organic chemistry through coursework and projects well beyond what was required — the kind of deep, self-driven study that builds real fluency with reaction types and synthesis logic. His chemistry degree from MIT and mathematical instincts mean he approaches problems like retrosynthetic analysis and multi-step mechanism design as structured puzzles, breaking each one into clear decision points. Rated 5.0 by students.