Biology PhD with teaching/tutoring experience up to and including KS4. Relaxed and fun teaching style.

Find out more about Liam

• When did you develop an interest in your chosen field and in private tutoring?

  I developed an interest in biology at a very early age - I have very early memories of reading encyclopedias and science books my mum had bought me trying to learn as much as I could about the world around me. I chose to study Biology at degree level and I've been in love with the subject ever since.

• Tell us more about the subject you teach, the topics you like to discuss with students (and possibly those you like a little less).

  Biology is our way of understanding life on our planet. We use biology to study all life on earth and answer big questions about the origin of life and whether we're alone in the Universe. But we can also use it to understand smaller things that gradually build our catalogue of knowledge, whether we're studying tiny single cell organisms, a single protein or molecule in a cell or something much more complex like the human brain. This is the beauty of biology - it's such a diverse subject and you're bound to find something that fascinates you and you want to know more about!

• Did you have any role models; a teacher that inspired you?

  I was originally inspired to love biology - as many people are - by Sir David Attenborough and the wonderful documentaries the BBC produce, programs like Life and Blue Planet capture the essence of biology. At University I met researchers for the first time and some of their passion for the subjects they studied was very infectious and they are responsible for me building a career in biology research.

• What do you think are the qualities required to be a good tutor?

  The 3 key attributes for a good tutor are: Patience, Empathy and Enthusiasm. It's important to be patient with your students - everybody is at a different stage in their learning journey and people learn in different ways. Building a rapport and understanding with your students isn't an easy task and requires some trial and error until you find a system that works well for the student and you. Empathy is required to understand why your student might be struggling to grasp a concept or is struggling with an idea. Once you've spent a long time studying a subject it's very easy to forget what it was like when you were first learning the basics - a good degree of empathy allows you to put yourself in the student's shoes and produce better lessons and tutoring sessions. Finally - enthusiasm is so important especially for my personal teaching style. I want my students to be excited about the subject and carry that passion throughout their lives, not just learn enough to get the marks on an exam.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your subject or your days at school.

  I really like non-conventional ways of teaching biology. Because it's a science we can quite often hold in our hands or see in our eyes hands-on approaches often stay with you. Dissections in school, visits to the zoo, looking down a microscope - all these real-life sensory experiences are part of biology. The one that always comes to my mind was looking down a microscope at live bacteria for the first time and fully appreciating that there's an entire world that we can't see. That day I decided I wanted to spend my whole life learning and studying this invisible world.

• What were the difficulties or challenges you faced or still facing in your subject?

  Being a research scientist means I'm faced with challenges every day! Biology is notorious for being fiddly in the lab. Sometimes things just don't work and I don't understand why, I then have to use the skills and expertise I've built over the last 12 years to get to the bottom of a problem and understand what I'm doing wrong or why it isn't working.

• Do you have a particular passion? Is it teaching in general or an element of the subject or something completely different?

  My particular passion in Biology is Microbiology/Infection. I love studying how bacteria, fungi and viruses infect their hosts and the evolutionary mechanisms that developed this kind of relationship between 2 organisms that are very different.

• What makes you a Superprof (besides answering this interview questions :-P) ?

  I want to share the joy that knowledge of Biology can bring to your life! Understanding our own bodies and life on this planet is fantastic and amplifies the beauty of walking through a forest or observing an organism.