David Tees' work in experimental biophysics concerns how nanoscale
interactions between adhesive proteins and carbohydrate molecules mediate
microscale adhesive behavior in blood cells and plant cell walls. David
is Canadian and was born and brought up in and around Montréal, Québec,
Canada. He received a B.Sc. in Physics, a Masters in Atmospheric Physics
and a Ph.D., all from McGill University in Montreal. He did his Ph.D.
with Harry Goldsmith, a biorheologist at the Montreal General Hospital
Research Institute. He then did postdoctoral work (at Cornell University
and the University of Pennsylvania) with Daniel Hammer, a leader in the
biophysics of cell adhesion. David joined the Physics & Astronomy faculty
at Ohio University in 2001. He is also an adjunct member of the graduate
faculty in the Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and
Biomedical Engineering at Ohio University. David was awarded a National
Science Foundation CAREER grant in 2006. His teaching philosophy focusses
on the importance of learning by doing. For undergrad and graduate
students, active learning and research experiences are essential to
learning the craft of science.
When asked for his favourite quote from outside science, David considered and rejected quotes from the Monty Python oeuvre as well as an obscure bit of comic relief Anton Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya". He finally settled on "Confidence is what you have before you fully understand the problem", which comes from a poster of aphorisms that was posted on a door at the McGill Radar when he was a Masters student.
David has sung major choral works with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra. He currently sings with the Ohio University Choral Union and the choir of First Presbyterian Church in Athens. With his wife, Melanie (who's a botanist), he also works as part of a local forest stewardship group on invasive plant removal and on learning the local native flora.
