Are you a past student? Please stop by my office hours!
Office Hours Zoom Links Fall 2025 (August 26-December 15, 2025):

Thursday 2:30-4:30pm on Zoom

(due to reassigned time on other projects, I have two office hours during the Fall 2025 semester)

Favorite Teaching Moments

One of my favorite teaching moments was when I got a picture from a student who, after class, went home and built his own conductivity apparatus and sent me a picture of himself holding it while giving the thumbs up (see pictures below). The picture was a total surprise, and I knew I had reached him through my teaching. And now that student is a professor of Immunology at UC Davis!

Another favorite moment occurred during my training to become an UndocuAlly. One of my former students was on the panel of undocumented students. As part of his presentation, he thanked me for the respect and one-on-one help he got in my class.

Research Group

With 2-10 students per semester, work on various topics. Past and current work includes a lab experiment involving nanoparticles and plants, an educational model of an AFM, and homemade antacid tablets. Here are the latest updates.

A Bit More About Me

I was born in the Albany, NY area, but my Dad relocated to western Maryland before I was 1 year old. I lived in Maryland through high school. Then I went to the University of Delaware and got my B.S. in Chemical Engineering. While I was at Delaware, I did an internship at Salem Nuclear Power Plant in Salem, NJ.

About six months before I graduated from Delaware, I met my future wife. Three days after graduating, we moved to San Francisco. We lived there for a year before I started graduate school at UC Davis. After 5 years in graduate school, I started teaching part-time and then full-time at SCC.

During the summers while in high school and college and after first moving to San Francisco, I worked as a laborer for various contractors, including masonry and plumbing contractors. I have a lot of respect for anyone who works with their hands and their body for a living.

My wife and I have been together for 32 years. We have a daughter who is in college. I am involved with my teacher's union and the American Chemical Society.

My father grew up in the Albany, NY area. He played nose tackle and center for his high school football team that won the state championship. He failed out of college before enlisting in the Marines and going to Vietnam. After the Marines, he earned a 4.0 GPA at community college and earned his AA in Construction Management. He worked for a general contracting company while I was growing up. He provided me with my work ethic and my love of reading.

My mother immigrated to the US from England and worked as a nanny. She stayed at home with my brother, sister, and me for a while before working at a women's shelter. She is still a UK citizen. I recently became a US/UK dual citizen. My Mom provided me with my work ethic and my patience.

I was the first one in my extended family (Mom, Dad, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins) to get a four-year degree and also the first one to get a PhD.