Farmington Faculty


David Heroux, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor – Chemistry

Ph.D., Kansas State University
B.A., Manhattanville College

In the Classroom: Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists
David Heroux teaches Chemistry at Farmington to students majoring in a physical science area as well as those not majoring in science (Education or Community Health Education majors for instance). He also teaches Chemistry to students enrolled in Farmington’s sharply-focused Pre-Med program.

But no matter what their major at UMF, students who take David’s Chemistry classes find the material — and especially the way it is taught — interesting, engaging and tailored to their level of expertise. It’s something David incorporates into all of his classes. In fact, he is known to sometimes turn the course into more of a “chemistry appreciation” class, depending on the interest and experience of the students in a particular classroom. In doing so, David first focuses on the broader teaching question: “How can he make the subject of chemistry truly matter to his students?”

He believes this concept is particularly important for UMF’s Education majors, who may also have a slight fear of science. There is such a shortage of people interested in science in the U.S. — and an even bigger shortage of those who teach it — that David strives to do all he can to inspire all of his students’ interest in the sciences.


Engaging Students: Setting High Academic Expectations
To get his students to think about science in a different way, David will break up the lecture and assign students a reading a few days ahead and pose some thought-provoking questions such as, “What are some of the benefits and potential dangers of genetic engineering?” or “What do you think of the use of nanotechnology in medicine?” What he’s doing is prodding students to make broader-issue connections to the classroom subject matter.


Exploring Nanotechnology: Small Idea — Big Potential
 An example of how David connects students to complex scientific concepts is how he presented the cutting-edge field of nanotechnology. He first posed a thought-provoking scenario, “It has been reported that in less than 50 years, water will be the new oil. Instead of fighting over oil, people will fight over something as simple and basic as water. Did you know nanotechnology could prevent that from happening?”

Next, he described a new, life-saving invention that employs nanotechnology: a drinking straw that employs nanotechnology to make contaminated water instantly drinkable — all without the use of electricity or machinery.

His students were instantly intrigued and began to relate nanotechnology to their particular majors, asking: How does nanotechnology actually work? What impact could nanotechnology have on Third World nations? What are the sociological ethics of nanotechnology? How might nanotechnology be used in cancer research? How will nanotechnology impact poor children in urban and rural America? What are the costs and potential marketability of nanotechnology? What would be the environmental impact of using nanotechnology?

David’s students — who came from different academic majors offered at UMF — ended up conducting additional research on nanotechnology, doing outside-the-classroom readings, writing detailed papers on the subject, making in-the-classroom presentations on nanotechnology, and more, truly engaging with the subject matter.

The end result: The entire class wanted to know everything there is to know about nanotechnology, which was David’s hope all along.


An Even Deeper Understanding of the Subject
 The Nanotechnology project was highly successful in getting students involved in the course, working in groups, presenting projects, and doing labs that involved nanotech concepts. And it’s in the Chemistry labs where the real science work comes into play. David inspires his students to investigate and make the things they’ve heard of or seen.

For instance, his students actually made magnetic nano particles, called ferrofluids, which are essentially nano-scaled magnets. These fluids are comprised of several trillion tiny nanoparticles, about 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, that will align when put in a magnetic field.

Students initially said nobody had ever heard of nanotechnology and that its practical usage is still years away, but David had students discover for themselves that nanotechnology is already being used everywhere: in automobile catalytic converters, in liquid O-ring seals, in computer hard drives, and more. In this way, students learned way to appreciate the field of Chemistry for what it is, and how it is used — today and in the future — in areas one may not think of as “chemistry-related.”


In the Lab: Innovation and Excitement — Putting Theory into Practice
Generally, David’s Chemistry classes consist of a large lecture hall-type class, which is then broken into four smaller, hands-on lab sections (each lab with 20 students or fewer). The smaller lab settings are where he works very closely with his students, individually and in small lab teams. Together, they explore the foundations of chemistry and its practical uses — again, building easy-to-relate-to Chemistry examples to give meaning to his class work.


Farmington Undergraduate Research Helping in Africa
 In the summer of 2008 David and student Abby Pettit traveled to Kaoma, Zambia as a member of WISE-Zambia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families and communities in developing countries. There, they conducted an undergraduate research project on drinking water safety, aimed at giving the people of Kaoma a better understanding of healthy drinking water with an ultimate gola of decreasing in water-borne disease.

Together, David and his student researcher spent the month of June in the southern African village testing water sources and storage devices for possible contamination. They also investigated different methods of water treatment and how to use the results to show residents how to treat water prior to consumption.

David also spent time working with the Kaoma Children's School, a community facility that offers free education to more than 700 area students from grades 1 to 9. David's focus there was to help increase the school's science resources and open the world of microscopic study to its students by bringing microscopes into the classroom.

As part of his work, David introduced the children to lesson plans on ways to maintain healthy water quality and actions they can take to share what they learned about drinking water safety with their families.


A True Academic — Areas of Special Interest
David’s areas of interest and scholarly expertise are in: Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Chemistry, Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Applications of Nanoparticles, Characterization of Nanoscale Materials, In-situ Remediation of Toxic Compounds, the Chemistry of Maine, and Chemical Demonstrations.

He has studied and conducted research at Russia’s Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, in the middle of Siberia, where he was a visiting professor working with Russian researchers on the study of how to speed up reactions.


Respected in the Field — Noteworthy Accomplishments
While David Heroux has presented chemistry research across the globe (presenting “Destructive Adsorption of Freons on Nanocrystaline MgO” at the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis in Russia; “The Art and Science of Chemical Demonstrations” at Colby College, to name a few) his passion is teaching Chemistry — particularly at the undergraduate level, and especially in a Liberal Arts college setting, like Farmington.

As a scientist, he is deeply committed to the Liberal Arts college mission. In fact, David said he only applied to teach at small liberal arts colleges, such as Farmington.


Outside of Academia — Personal Interests and Activities
After Chemistry, David’s passion is softball. He has competed in summer leagues since his undergraduate days and recently his team won the Franklin Country League championship.

Having grown up in New England, David has hiked about half of the 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire and has hiked most of Maine’s Baxter State Park. Locally, he takes on Tumbledown Mountain, which he considers the best hike in the area.

David is also an avid gardener. He completed a master gardener course when he lived in Maryland and has been gardening since he was about five.

David speaks Russian (both reading and writing Cyrillic) and enjoys translating Russian folk and pop songs from Russian to English.


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