David Derbes, Teacher as Science Scholar
David Derbes: 2007 Golden Apple Fellow
This month’s Best Practice has two downloads. In the first PDF download, 2007 Golden Apple Fellow David Derbes explains the “quiet revolution in how scientists publish their work.” The second PDF is an excerpt from David's textbook, Blue Physics, currently in progress, which is “designed primarily for independent study by adults who'd missed out on physics at school or who want to refresh their memories.” This excerpt, pulled directly from a draft of the book, focuses on: "The Newton-Hooke correspondence of 1679."
Download PDF: The Web and Publishing in Science: The ArXiv and LaTeX
Download PDF: An Excerpt from David’s book: Blue Physics
David’s journey as a student, scientist, scholar, and teacher is described by him below:
“I graduated from Isidore Newman (high school) in New Orleans in 1970. In 1974, I graduated from Princeton, majoring in physics, but also taking a lot of math, Russian, Greek and Latin. I spent one year (1974-75) at Cambridge University doing a thing called Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in theoretical physics. From October 1975 to April 1979, I did a Ph.D. at Edinburgh University in theoretical physics, on supergravity, a forerunner of string theory. I studied under Peter W. Higgs (the guy who postulated the particle for which a lot of people are now looking). I returned to Newman to teach physics from 1979 to 1984, and then taught at Tulane University for two years. I came to Chicago in 1986, to teach math and physics at the University of Chicago Laboratory School.
“I’ve been married since 1981, to Clairan Ferrono, a fiber artist. We have one child, a daughter, Catherine, who graduated Lab in 2005, Johns Hopkins in 2009, and is now finishing a second year in Teach for America, teaching math at Andrew Jackson Middle School in Chalmette, New Orleans.”
David presently is a College Mentor and the Science Department Chair at Lab, where he teaches AP physics.