Master's degree in Physics with 8 years of online teaching experience as a Calculus tutor who attended the Nobel Laureates meeting in Germany. Currently working as a Quant Data Analyst. Experience the

Find out more about Shiva Rama Krishna

• Tell us more about your subject. How did you develop an interest in this field?

  I teach any field in Mathematics and advanced level of Calculus. These are in close relation to Physics and Astrophysics which involves a lot of Mathematics. I started learning more about the universe that we live in when I was about to finish my engineering. When you really understand the reason behind how everything is, and why it works, a new perspective opens up within and you start to look at the world in a very different and elegant way!

• What or who is the motivation behind you choosing to teach & why?

  I started learning Physics and got admitted into the Master's program at Savitribai Phule Pune University. I started teaching online as a means of earning some income by spending a few hours of my free time daily. I was always a good teacher according to my friends, whom I used to help prepare for during the exams. You know how college life is. Never thought I would be doing this at this scale, but here I am, teaching many students of different age, race and geographical location, helping them have a better understanding of Maths and Physics, thereby improving the number of people who 'understand' the universe we live in.

• How does your work help society?

  My teaching is always one on one, which helps me identify the student as a person, instead of a data point in a class of 60 students. My students get to know why they are doing what they are doing, and not just memorize and repeat the formulae like a computer. I focus on developing their problem-solving skills and not the database of their knowledge. If you forget a formula, you can google it, but you can't just google and get a skill.

• If you had to think of a role model for your work, who do you think of & why?

  Richard Phillips Feynman for his beautiful enthusiasm in teaching any difficult subject in Physics such that anyone can understand. He is definitely the best of all teachers ever. And my personal favourite Physicist is Albert Einstein. The way he thought and derived many astounding physics relations is just mind-blowing to this day.

• Tell us about your hobbies outside teaching.

  Outside teaching, I like to play video games a lot. My favourites are Assassin's Creed, Limbo, Rocket League, Counter-Strike, Age of Empires 2. The fun part is I also offer my students to play with me to develop a friendly relation together (if they like to play games).

• Do you have an anecdote to tell us about your student or professional life?

  When I went to the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 2019 in Germany. I had the opportunity to have a casual dinner with Bill Philips (got his Nobel for 'laser cooling'). I asked him "so you got pretty rich when you received the Nobel prize money. What did you do with it?". He replied, "I used it all to pay for the college fee and education of my daughters. Education in the USA is not cheap."