Sunday, June 3, 2007

About Me

rev. 1/25/09

This page is for personal background information. For professional information, see here.

General Background

Born Steven Daniel Morgan, September of '81, I have always been Daniel to family and friends...probably to reduce confusion, since my dad’s name is Steve. I was born and raised in Richlands, VA. (Go RHS Blue Tornadoes, 2006 state football champions!)

I married Amber Dawn Elliott after the spring semester of my junior year at VT. Amber and I were married May 31st 2003 at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Richlands, VA. We went on an awesome 7-day southern Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Destiny, which I have posted a few pics of here. (More pics in the left-hand sidebar here) You can watch a short clip of our wedding and see wedding photos here.

We lived in Blacksburg as I finished my last year at VT, and Amber worked at Blacksburg Christian School, where she taught first grade, from the fall of 2003 to spring 2004.

We then moved to Gainesville in June 2004 so I could get a graduate degree in Chemistry. At UF, I completed the M.S. graduate program within the Chemistry Dept. at UF. [Go Gators! 4 national championships in 36 months!!! (Basketball, ’06, ’07; Football ’06, '08) For more on UF, see here and here.] When we moved to Gainesville, Amber got a few jobs as a nanny before she could get a job teaching again. In November 2004, Amber started teaching kindergarten at Interlachen Elementary in neighboring Putnam County. In 2005, she moved to St. Patrick’s Interparish (Catholic) School, working in a “Learning Lab” as a reading specialist, and she worked there through the 2006-2007 school year as well. We were in Gainesville until 8/11/07, when I graduated and we moved to South Carolina.

We are now in Columbia, SC, where I work at Hammond School as a chemistry teacher. Amber was able to get on as a teacher there as well in November, replacing an outgoing director of the Middle School Academic Center, doing some of what she did at St. Pat's in working with student with learning differences. We found out she was pregnant in February 2008, and decided she'd stay home the next year and finish her M.Ed. in Educational Administration at USC.

We had our first child, Seth Elliott Morgan, on 9/21/08. See some pics of him here and movies of him here. He was 6 lb., 12.4 oz. at birth and was 19.75" long. He has since grown to 14 lb (as I write this, 1/25/09) and is in fantastic health. He can play in a jumper and is able to sit up with a little help on balance. He babbles and "coos" and "goos" at you.

We have two Saint Bernards: Autumn−born September 12th, 2004, and Caesar−born December 27th, 2005. We got them in Gainesville. You can see some of their pictures here.


Undergraduate Education:

Here is a summary of our educational accomplishments and pictures of our diplomas.


My first higher education experience was at a local community college, SVCC, where I received my A.A.S. (Science) after 3 semesters. I then decided to transfer in to Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA, in August of 2002 to pursue a B.S. in Chemistry. After a few semesters in the B.S. program in Chemistry, I decided to double major with a B.S. in Biochemistry.

Since remaining in the B.S. Chem would require an additional year at VT just to take 9 credits of courses [CHEM 4114: Instrumental Analysis; CHEM 4414: Inorganic Lab; CHEM 3625: Physical Chemistry Lab II; CHEM 4404: Physical Inorganic] I decided to just finish the B.S.-track physics, maths [Calc 1,2,3 + Diff Eq], physical chemistry courses, and drop to the B.A. Chemistry, which would allow me to graduate after four semesters at VT with both majors. I’m glad I stuck with the more rigorous calculus sequences (four semesters) and calculus-based physics and physical chemistry: if you’re going to graduate school, it is imperative that you do so.

My advice from experience is to not try to be a hero with respect to course load -- I was taking 17 credits of hard-core stuff in the spring of 2003, when I was getting married on 5/31, doing undergraduate research that resulted in two presentations that spring and also working 20 hours a week at Luna Innovations. It costed me. At the end of the semester, I had little time for studying, so I decided to cut out studying math, since I figured I could go in and use my "mad skillz" on the multivariable calculus final without preparation better than organic chem II or organic biochemistry or physics II. Virginia Tech's math department used (at that time, I'm not sure about now) standardized, multiple-choice tests for all sections of each high-level calculus class. That really hurt me, since there is no partial credit. Long story short...don't kill yourself trying to finish early.

I am a spring 2004 graduate of Virginia Tech. My majors at VT were biochem / chem (BS/BA, respectively) and I then moved to Gainesville to attend the University of Florida to complete the chemistry program beginning fall 2004.

Amber’s degree is a B.S. from ODU in "Interdisciplinary Studies" with an emphasis in Education--i.e., she took all the education classes and basically this way she can teach anything in the preK-6 arena rather than specializing in Language Arts or Math or whatever. She utilized the "distance learning" program at our local community college (SVCC, above). Here is a link outlining the requirements of her degree from ODU.


Graduate Education:

I am a summer '07 graduate of the University of Florida with an M.S. Chemistry.

For the first year I had to TA undergraduate courses, and had to take 5 graduate courses of my own. The second year I was left with one class left to take, in addition to seminar and Journal Club, and I presented research results twice in the fall of 2005, and had to TA during the fall and spring. Starting my first summer, I was able to do a research assistantship (RA) full-time.

Learn more about my research right here. My first two years’ work centered around DNA oxidation with various metal-catalytic systems. Next my thesis focused upon the oxidation of biologically-relevant species with chlorine dioxide, especially aqueous sulfides and allylic carbons.

I initially planned to complete the Ph.D., which takes, on average from this department, 5.1 years; of course I aimed at finishing early (like everyone else does). I had hoped to finish in 2009. I then aimed to either get an industry or government job or to procure a postdoctoral fellowship at Scripps Florida, Berkeley, or at any other high-caliber institution with great weather. If the latter scenario, I then planned to follow that up with a tenure-track position at a well-reputed university…albeit I would’ve likely settle for Hawaii. (We both love warm weather and beaches). The graduate school catalog outlines the requirements for graduation – which include 90 credits. Given that full-time status for a grad student is 9 credits in the spring and fall and 6 credits in the summer, this means that at best you could start in the fall of year X and graduate after the spring of year X + 4. I began working with Dr. Richardson's group at UF during the summer of 2004.


However, I had a change of plans (and heart) along the way. Although I stayed long enough to defend and could've moved on to candidacy, I realized I really don't want to do research for the rest of my life. I defended my research proposal (dept. guidelines) on April 6th, 2007, and was given a “conditional pass” to be admitted to Ph.D. candidacy at the end of the spring ’07 semester. I was asked to fill in experimental details in a short paper and turn it in to my committee, at which time I should be admitted to candidacy. This would not have been a problem. Yet I decided shortly thereafter that I had gone as far as I wanted to go, and am now planning to graduate with an M.S. in August. The decision had been a long time in coming, but I think I knew by the end of my first year that I didn't want to do lab work the rest of my life.

Now I want to work as a teacher (for at least a few years), preferably teaching chemistry and/or biology to AP and/or baccalaureate students. I also have ideas for developing multimedia content for science courses impinging on abiogenesis and evolution. Specifically I want to develop animations in Macromedia that show the principles of self-organization in protocells and the ways that early replicating molecules could have evolved into a cell. I plan to work on those and market them to educational (materials distribution) companies, or sell them directly to educators. I also plan to take the patent bar at some point in the future to qualify as a patent agent (more). I've even thought of applying to the FBI or CIA as an analyst as I have a little knowledge of G-type chemical warfare agent chemistry.

You can visit UF’s chemistry dept. website here. The webpage to the Biochem division (I specialized in Biochemistry) is useful, although I worked within the Inorganic division, under my advisor David Richardson, who served as the chair of our department for six years (until Aug ’06). Our group has this webpage, and here is the current weather in Gainesville, FL.

See this page for more information on undergraduate chemistry at UF.



Graduate Courses: (see here for descriptions)

These were the courses I took at UF:
  • Fall 04
    1. Chem 6304 – Biochemistry of the Cell (Tom Lyons)
    2. Chem 6620 – Advanced Inorganic Chemistry I (Adam Viege)
    3. Chem 6670 – Bioinorganic Chemistry (George Christou)
  • Spring 05
    1. CHM 6626 – Applications of Physical Methods in Inorganic Chemistry (Dan Talham)
    2. CHM 6301 – Enzyme Mechanisms (Nicole Horenstein)
  • Fall 05
    1. CHM 6302 – Chemistry and Biology of Nucelic Acids (Jon Stewart)



Teaching at UF:

For my teaching experience at UF, see here: teaching experience (.pdf, 201 KB)

For my teaching philosophy, see here: teaching philosophy (.pdf, 241 KB)

I taught weekly "discussion sections" for both semesters of the first-year chemistry courses, which are basically a sort of study hall wherein the students come to ask me questions, take their quizzes, and watch me work out problems and explain how to solve them. They also got to listen to me razzle-dazzle them with chemicus maximus mini-lectures. I had to hold office hours in addition to the class time. In fall 04, I had 4 sections, with 3 every semester thereafter until the last summer, when I was lucky and had only one section. The parenthetical name is the professor in charge of the course.
My teaching experience at Hammond will occupy a post of its own later on.



Philosophy:

I love quotes, and I think they are worth collecting. To humorously use a quote to explain (tongue-in-cheek) why I think so:


I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
One quote that I used as my senior yearbook statement was:


The tragedy of man is not that man dies, but what dies within man while he is alive. Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)

I like to keep my religious and political views private, although they are not state secrets by any means.
That said, I maintain a philosophical outlook best described by physicalism with respect to the contingent world, and Platonic realism with respect to the existence of necessary metaphysical entities which are not well understood by physicalism – abstracta, ie logic, properties, relations, propositions, mathematical truths and moral facts. Notions of theism accord God the status of being metaphysically necessary (rather than contingent), and so my own verison of physicalism does not say anything about theistic realism a priori. In theory, it could go either way, although it would require the nonexistence of supernaturalism in the contingent world. My beliefs on which way it really does go (i.e., whether I believe or not that God does exist) are my own, and as a teacher I prefer to keep them that way. Not that I'm not interested in intelligent conversations with those interested likewise.
I am struggling with the concept of moral realism after reading a tiny bit of Quine, Wittgenstein and anti-realism towards universals. I still subscribe to the cognitivist position with respect to morality, though, whether or not the objective properties of morality are ultimately mythical, due to facts about language and sematic issues. Armstrong’s ideas on the causal efficacy of particulars to “create” universals is of great interest to me.

I wish that I had the time and resources to get a Ph.D. in philosophy as well as chemistry – I would focus on metaphysics. Generally, I am fairly skeptical and slow to claim knowledge in such areas of philosophical inquiry, which is basically my own way of saying that I recognize the difficulty with thinking that our perception and conception of reality is reality. Labels mean little to me, and I have respect for other philosophical positions (especially nominalism and conceptualism) towards universals and abstracta.

Long story short, talk to me if you want to know more on my philosophical views.

Trivia:

I have a metal screw in my wrist due to a non-union scaphoid fracture. To this day, it hurts and has not healed correctly. You can read about these procedures, and the injuries that lead to them, in medical detail here (pdf).

I love racquetball. Whenever I'm in decent physical shape, I’m somewhere around intermediate in skill level.

I am a self-proclaimed "Master Minesweeper"...click here for my best scores on record (picture evidence): Beginner - 6s, Intermediate - 42s, Expert - 114s. If you have better scores (and some proof!) email me with a challenge to my title. Otherwise, just suck it up and admit that I rule you at a geeky computer game. **UPDATE 4-9-07: Two tip of the hats for Asha B and Max D for blowing my scores out of the water…Asha got 94s on expert and Max got 3s beginner and 34s intermediate, both provided picture evidence. One would have to go get hooked on meth to be twitchy enough to beat these minesweeping masters.**

If you want to know more, email me.

at 4:54 PM

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