About Dr. Sahota
Dr. Navneet Sahota holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University Bloomington and has taught chemistry at university level for the better part of a decade. She tutors AP, Honors and regular high school chemistry, college general chemistry and pre-med sequences, plus biology and earth science — one-on-one, in person around Fremont, California, online across the United States, and in small semester group classes in Fremont.
Credentials
- Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, Indiana University Bloomington
- M.S. in Organic Chemistry, Illinois State University
- Taught university chemistry for the better part of a decade, in the U.S. and in India
- Published chemistry researcher — work has appeared in Chemical Science (Royal Society of Chemistry) and the Journal of Organic Chemistry (American Chemical Society)
- Robert & Marjorie Mann Fellowship, Indiana University
- Background checked (verified through Thumbtack)
- 5.0-star rating from 20 client reviews
She has taught the course your student is heading toward
This is the part that matters most and is easiest to overlook. Dr. Sahota did not only study chemistry — she spent years teaching it at university level. As an Associate Instructor at Indiana University she taught undergraduate chemistry for nearly four years. Before that, at Illinois State University, she taught General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Physical Chemistry as a graduate teaching assistant. Earlier still she taught undergraduate chemistry as an assistant professor at BBK DAV College for Women in Amritsar, India — general and organic chemistry, electrochemistry, spectroscopy and biochemistry. In 2023 she returned to Guru Nanak Dev University as a visiting lecturer.
The practical consequence for a high school student: she has stood at the front of the college course that AP Chemistry is a rehearsal for, and has graded the exams that expose which high-school foundations were never solid. When she says a student's stoichiometry will not survive next year, that is a pattern she has watched play out across hundreds of undergraduates — not a guess.
Why she tutors
Teaching was never the part of the job she tolerated in order to get to the research. It was the part she wanted. Throughout the Ph.D. she taught and mentored constantly — undergraduates, incoming teaching assistants, and community outreach programmes aimed at getting young people interested in science.
Tutoring is that same work without the lecture hall. A room of two hundred students does not let you find out why one of them keeps setting the ratio up backwards. A single student across a table does. It is also why the semester group classes are capped where they are: past about eight students you stop being able to see the individual mistake, and seeing the individual mistake is the entire job.
The research, briefly
Her doctoral work was in analytical chemistry — using mass spectrometry to watch chemical reactions happen inside microscopic droplets, in real time. She also spent part of 2019 at Northwestern University as a visiting research scientist. Parents do not need to care about any of this. It matters for one reason: someone who has spent years measuring what reactions actually do, rather than reading what textbooks say they do, tends to explain chemistry differently — fewer rules to memorise, more reasons things behave the way they do.
How she teaches
The approach is diagnostic rather than remedial. Re-explaining a chapter more slowly rarely helps a struggling chemistry student, because the misunderstanding is usually further back than the chapter they are failing. Sessions start by finding which foundation is missing — almost always mole reasoning, unit tracking, or problem interpretation — and rebuild that while keeping pace with the current course.
Every student gets a plan tied to their own syllabus and assessment calendar, so tutoring is preventative rather than reactive. Parents get honest reporting, including the unwelcome version: if a student does not need weekly tutoring any more, they will be told.
Who she works with
- High school students in AP Chemistry
- Students in Honors and regular chemistry
- College and pre-med general chemistry students
- Students who need biology or earth science support
Where
In person across Fremont and the surrounding Tri-City area — Union City, Newark, Milpitas, Hayward and nearby — and online anywhere in the United States.