Brains at Work was founded with a mission to increase accessibility to STEM education by providing tailored, one-on-one, online tutoring sessions in biology, neuroscience, physics, mathematics, and computer science. With two neurodivergent individuals at the helm, our teaching approach is informed by lived experience.

Purpose and Goals

Our purpose is to empower students to excel in their academic pursuits by offering personalised tutoring that fits their individual learning needs. We aim to make learning engaging, accessible, and effective for all kinds of brains.

Our Logo

Our logo comprises the uppercase and lowercase Greek letter gamma, both of which are coloured with a rainbow gradient based on Paul Tol’s muted qualitative colour scheme that is designed to be colourblind-friendly. The Greek letter gamma was chosen as a nod to our respective academic backgrounds. Gamma represents gamma rhythms in the brain, which are correlates of neural activation. It also represents the affine connection in General Relativity, and is the symbol for light, as well as the Lorentz factor.

Our Team

Our team consists of two experienced educators who are neurodivergent themselves and are passionate about improving accessibility in academic spaces. With a diverse background in STEM fields, we are dedicated to helping students hone their academic and research skills in a rigorous manner that is conducive to how they learn and experience the world around them.

Sushi (they/them)

Sushi is a neuroscience student and researcher with a specific interest in pain perception and chronic illnesses. They received a bachelors degree in Biology from Ashoka University with a thesis exploring how long term and unpredictable early life stress affects an organism’s behavioral responses to pain. They love talking about anything biology, and are always eager to learn more. Their approach to education is a dynamic one, integrating various methods of active and passive learning.

From my personal experience with them, they’re an extremely curious and resourceful person, and an exceptional researcher who doesn’t shy away from what they don’t understand and works hard to learn whatever is needed to answer a question posed to them. Interacting with them has given me many opportunities to understand the messy complexities of biological systems, and has expanded my view of science from the simple and tractable systems one encounters in physics, to one where we see endless complexity across various scales in living systems.

~ Cocoa

Outside of biology, they love to bake delicious cakes and are a skilled and expressive artist. You can find some of their wonderful art on their Instagram art dump @poorlyshapedcroissants.

Cocoa (she/her)

Cocoa is a student of physics and an educator with extensive experience in teaching often intimidating topics in mathematics, physics and computer science in an intuitive and approachable fashion. Her niche fields are nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics. She graduated with a bachelors degree in Physics from Ashoka University with a thesis exploring dynamical quantum phase transitions using Monte Carlo methods. Cocoa is passionate about free and open source software, digital privacy and users rights, as well as talking anything math and physics. As an educator, she draws inspiration from STEM education stars such as Grant Sanderson behind 3Blue1Brown, Ben Eater and Professor Philip Moriarty of Sixty Symbols fame, incorporating interdisciplinary and interactive methods to build strong foundational knowledge.

From my time knowing her, Cocoa is a brilliant, empathetic and extremely patient teacher who always goes the extra mile for her students to ensure that concepts they might struggle with, really sink in. Apart from teaching, she is a highly curious and thorough physics researcher, who isn’t afraid of trying again after making mistakes, which is the true mark of a scientist. In my experience interacting with her, I have gleaned new perspectives and insights on topics ranging from fetch, decode and execute cycles, to topics within my own field, such as enzyme processivity. Put simply, she is mathematical!

~ Sushi

Outside academic settings, Cocoa spends her time playing indie video games, watching sci-fi TV and obsessing over cartoons.

Our Services

1. Tailored one-on-one, online tutoring sessions in biology, neuroscience, physics, mathematics, and computer science designed to fit individual learning needs.
2. Test prep services for SAT Subject Tests, GRE Subject Tests, and Advanced Placement exams in all the aforementioned areas.

Experience the difference personalised tutoring can make in your academic journey. Join us today and start learning in a way that works for your brain!