Your Chemistry Tutor - Justin McCarty

Justin McCarty received his Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, magna cum laude, from Harvard University. While at Harvard, Justin was the recipient of the Detur Book Prize, the CRC Chemistry Award, and the John Harvard Scholarship. As a member of Professor Hongkun Park’s research group, he studied the synthesis of nanoparticles and nanowires, and his research on the synthesis of semiconducting nanorod heterostructures has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Prior to his studies at Harvard, Justin was a gold medalist in the 26th International Chemistry Olympiad in Oslo, Norway, where he was one of four students representing the United States.

Justin began tutoring while still in high school, assisting a fellow student in AP Chemistry. Since then, Justin has spent many years as a private tutor and as a teaching assistant for various college-level courses. He has worked as a section teaching assistant and as a head teaching assistant for several undergraduate courses at Harvard University, as well as for courses in the Harvard Extension School and the Harvard Summer School. Justin received numerous awards for excellence in teaching from the Bok Center at Harvard University, and a video of his teaching was used for many years to train first-year chemistry graduate students at Harvard for teaching assistant positions. For several years Justin has worked as the head section and lab teaching assistant for Chemistry S-1ab (General Chemistry) at the Harvard Summer School and as head teaching assistant for Chemistry E-1a (General Chemistry I) and Chemistry E-1b (General Chemistry II) at the Harvard Extension School. During his many years as a teacher and tutor he has had the opportunity to work with an extremely varied group of students, ranging from a precocious middle school student, to high school students in AP and IB programs, to Harvard undergraduates, to post-baccalaureates at the Harvard Extension School and other area universities. This breadth of experience allows him to tutor students of all ages and abilities.

When Justin is not studying or teaching chemistry, he spends his time playing the double bass. Justin received a Performance Diploma from New England Conservatory as a student of Lawrence Wolfe, and he received a Master’s degree from Boston Conservatory as a student of Dennis Roy. He has performed the Koussevitzky Concerto with the Amherst (NY) Chamber Orchestra and the Dragonetti Concerto with orchestras in North Carolina and Florida. He has played with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, as well as with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the New World Symphony. As a chamber musician, Justin has appeared at Carnegie Hall and at numerous venues around Boston and throughout New England. Justin has also performed at the Music Academy of the West and the Bowdoin Music Festival, and for eight summers Justin was the sole bass player in residence at the International Musical Arts Institute.