09/01/2026
🎓What does it take to become a theoretical physicist? A curious mind, a love of difficult problems, and the imagination to see what others might miss.
Meet Sergey Syritsyn, the teacher of SchoolNova’s Advanced Physics Club and a physics professor at Stony Brook University.
Sergey's lifelong passion for mathematics and physics began during his school days, when he was inspired by his exceptional teachers. He went on to study at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, earning Bachelor's and Master's degrees in General and Applied Physics, before coming to the U.S. for his PhD.
His career has taken him to some of the leading research institutions in the country, including Berkeley Lab, Brookhaven Lab, and Jefferson Lab, before he joined the Stony Brook University faculty in 2016.
Today, he teaches theoretical physics and uses supercomputers to study one of the most fundamental questions in physics: how quarks and gluons organize themselves into protons and neutrons— the building blocks of nearly all the matter around us.
But for Sergey, physics and mathematics are not only about cutting-edge research. It's about learning how to think.
“I remember the exhilarating feeling of solving a difficult problem, which may have taken hours or even days to think through and find the right approach.”
That feeling is at the heart of his teaching.
For students in the Advanced Physics Club, this means learning physics from someone who doesn't just teach the subject — he lives it, researches it, and still gets excited about solving a really hard problem.
🚀 Want your child to experience physics at a whole different level?
Discover the SchoolNova Advanced Physics Club - a place where students don’t simply learn what works. They learn why it works, how to approach unfamiliar problems, and how to explain their thinking.
To learn more and to enroll, please visit https://schoolnova.org/physics_club.
