30 years in Education - and Other Adventures Along the Way.

After completing his degree in physics, Mr. Taylor spent 26 years in the classroom, teaching thousands of students. An advocate for doing science, he developed a lab structure, Teaming, with his students to teach them to function as research teams.

By 2000, he had already accompanied students to the Regional, State and International Science & Engineering Fair, as well as initiated his first cohort experience, Quarknet at Indiana University, during which students learned to build cosmic ray telescopes and incorporate the lab structure into a multi-school research program. In the next decade, the school developed an onsite solar observatory, Helios, utilizing a top floor room and roof-top space. Housing a solar projection telescope, designed and built by students, a 20+ inch image of the sun was cast in the darkened room to allow students to track sunspots and capture images of the changing solar surface. The lab also included receivers to monitor the roof top dual-dipole radio telescope, also built by students. Students listened and visually viewed activity of the sun and Jupiter!

Research was part of the curriculum, as all physics students learned to do science, and Honors students conducted independent research experiences. As an option, many participated in local and Regional fairs, occasionally moving on to the State competition.

The second decade rounded out with the addition of the mouse lab, Biogene, operating non-stress and non-invasive experimentation on a local mischief of mice. Entering the third decade, the mouse lab hosted nearly 50 mice at capacity, and many testing devices built by students and Mr. Taylor, including a centrifuge, capable of a slight and controlled elevation of gee.

On the campus of Notre Dame, following completion of his masters work in Synergistic Strand Teaming - Mr. T's lab method, he worked a couple summers with Dr. Snider's solid state research team to investigate complex lithographic deposition techniques, to make devices which could talk to quantum dots (atomic scale transistor). Following this amazing experience, he then continued with another research team in the Nuclear Physics lab, investigating the recycling of hypersonic gas jets used as a target medium for moderate energy beams. A lab which could turn lead into gold. Ironically, working with gas jet targets was his undergraduate research experience, with Dr. Sperison at the IUCF in the early 1990's.

As the third decade started, the solar lab was upgraded to SDR capabilities for the radio telescope, and work began on Ganymede, designed to be a transit radio telescope. Although not completed, this monumental task helped students learn skills in coding, 3D printing, collaboration and online documentation, among other construction and electrical skills. The mouse lab flourished with a cleaner, more refined facility and layout, and a research class was established as an official high school course.

Mr. T spent the majority of the beginning of the third decade working with Prof. "Randy" Ruchti. This time, students and other teachers joined the mix again - like the earlier Quarknet experience, although this research carried throughout the entire summer, (with ongoing touch points during the year). Testing was conducted on a new type of detector, used to detect high energy particles generated in experiments at CERN (Switzerland/France). The devices were each the size of a large candy bar, and resembled glowing shish-kabobs. In action, the devices would glow, when particles collided within the device, generating a light that would be read out to computers and allow physicists to investigate high energy particle physics.

As the decade rolled along, the Quarknet research led to a trip to CERN to implement an experiment in the beam line. A very successful mission, it coincided with an opportunity to work with another amazing researcher, Dr. Rebull at Caltech, investigating Young Stellar objects, or baby stars. This ongoing work, has led to presentations at national and international conferences, as well as training students, colleagues and adults of all ages on the acquisition and processing of raw NASA image files as data.

Prior to the start of fourth decade, Mr. T- took an interim position, over 18 months, as the CEO of the ETHOS Innovation Center. He supported the students and teachers in multiple school districts in the new 100,000 sq. ft center. Strategically moving to Director of STEM Education, led to the development, with colleague Douglas Hunnings, of The Inquiry Zone, a simple training which re-opened the door of STEM for elementary teachers in multiple school districts. Reaching 100 % of teachers in participating schools, the program grew despite COVID. The program is still going strong, with additional outstanding trainers, led by Mr. Hunnings.

Mr. Taylor is back in the classroom! Having moved from Northern Indiana to Charlotte, North Carolina, he looks forward to developing new materials to enhance the student experience, from his experiences gained while training educators these last few years. While his time was primarily in the elementary schools, his additional time in the middle and high school helped him gain an awareness of what is meant by vertical articulation in science k-12, and cross/ inter-curricular at all grades.

Originally form Indiana, he is married to his college sweet heart, Lisa, who together have an adult daughter and son; he loves to travel to see family with his wife. Ask him about hiking trips in Denver, or time on the farm in the sticks, where the sky is so dark, the stars and planets seem to cast shadows from their light. He has more than a few stories to tell.