Jacob Wilmer

I was born and raised in the wonderful fog of San Francisco. College then swept me away to the searing heat of UC Merced, where I majored in chemistry and played on the baseball team. It was there where I discovered computational chemistry, and I immediately dove right in. My junior year, I started as an intern with a research group on campus, where I busied myself learning to write code and calculating the properties of small organic molecules. This opened the door to graduate school, during which I published a few papers and worked towards my PhD thesis. However, I quickly discovered a passion for education and teaching, and it quickly eclipsed everything else.

One of my skills as a researcher was distilling all the information at our fingertips down to the nugget of key information that we needed to grapple with and understand, then trying to view that information from as many perspectives as possible to get a complete picture. When tutoring, I find this to be immensely useful. My goal and strategy is to assess the key pieces of information that a student is missing, then try to give depth and nuance to that information by drawing connections to other areas and contexts the student is familiar with. I believe in deep understanding over rote memorization, as I feel this not only allows students to perform better academically, but also makes the process of learning fun and engaging. I immensely enjoy building and developing this understanding, and I seek to pass that joy on.

Outside of academics and education, I love writing code to solve interesting math questions or to make computer games, and it’s hard to pry me away from watching science documentaries or consuming any and all science fiction. You can also find me rock climbing, playing basketball, skiing, or doing parkour.