Dr Nyein Chan is a mathematical physicist (cosmologist). When he was in Myanmar, he attended Practicing High School, Yangon Institute of Education, better known as TTC. When his father was transferred abroad on official duty, he attended a local school in Tokyo. He moved to England just before the age of 16. He studied for General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE A-Level) exams at Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College in Leeds. Upon completion of his A-Levels, he went on to read his undergraduate degree at University College London (UCL) in 2004. He continued to read his master’s degree and the eventually doctorate degree (PhD) at the same place. He earned his PhD in Mathematical Cosmology from the same university in 2012. Chan also is a former scientist who conducted research in mathematical cosmology used various tools and techniques of mathematics and computation to study the past, current state and future fate of the universe at University College London (UCL) and Swinburne University of Technology (Sarawak Campus). These techniques have applications in other areas of science such as modeling the dynamics of cancer tumor dynamics as it responds to chemotherapy, neuroscience, and finance and so on. He has published a monograph chapter and research papers in internationally renowned and prestigious peer-reviewed journalls such as American Physical Society, European Physics Journal etc.
Currently, he is a teacher contractor at a top international school in Yangon.
He also runs his own private tutorial centre, ITC Yangon, which is one of the distinguished tutorial centres in Yangon to offer top quality classes including Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry for international examinations as well as modern foreign languages such as English, French and German. It is organized by Dr Nyein Chan himself and classes from ITC are taught by highly experienced teachers. As a teacher, his day-to-day duties are with regards to student assessment, curriculum development, carrying out lessons and planning etc. As for running the tutorial center, he is responsible for every aspect of the business from budgeting to running classes, planning new classes, staffing including recruitment of new teachers, dealing with companies for corporate classes, implementing long term strategies etc.
He is a hardworking teacher contractor teaching physics to Grade 10, 11 and 12 students and general science to Grade 9 students. Grade 11 and 12 are twoyear university preparatory program and students take an internationally recognized exam, International Baccalaureate (IB). He is mainly responsible for preparing Grade 11 and 12 students to be successful in physics in the said IB exam. Grade 9 and Grade 10 students follow US science curriculum called Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Aside
academic responsibilities, he is involved with students’ golf team along with the Director of the school and another colleague. At ITC, he is both the owner and lead teacher. He also teaches IGCSE physics, chemistry and additional mathematics himself. Not only is he fluent in Myanmar, Japanese and English but also has basic knowledge of German and French.
From Failure to Success Road
Being able to study in the UK is a real privilege but is not full of luxuries and comfort. He went through ups and downs. When he was doing his Master’s degree, he failed four out of six subjects. He had to take one year out to retake the exams as an external candidate the following year. During that one year time, he worked in a coffee shop to financially maintain himself and to earn a living. He also took up other jobs to help support his income. As well as working and studying in preparations of the retake exams, he also did research in preparation of the anticipated PhD programme. The year proved extremely challenging. He had to pass the exam or he would be out of academia for good. In the end, he made it through. The experience of that year was absolutely invaluable as he found out more about himself and other people. Because he was able to stand up from failure, went through the struggles, he is not afraid in face of any challenges ahead. He also acknowledges that he could not have done it without the support of his parents and teachers.
