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Danny Miles Jr., Ph.D., was awarded a doctorate in physical chemistry by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he developed a laser holographic method for probing liquid dynamics. Directly thereafter, he was appointed as a post-doctoral scholar in the Condensed Matter Laboratory at the College de France in Paris. Following that he further investigated liquid dynamics in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In the fall of 1988, he joined the Mount faculty as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. In 2005, he was promoted to Professor of Chemistry; his primary teaching responsibilities in the School of Natural Science and Mathematics are physical chemistry and general physics. In 2011, Miles received the John Richards Award for Teaching Excellence. Miles has incorporated into his courses computer-based interactive simulations, symbolic mathematics software, real-time data-acquisition activities, and software for molecular modeling and computational chemistry.
Professor Miles' research interests include the application of novel laser-based optical techniques to biophysical systems. He has been a visiting research professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and, most recently, at Lehigh University, where he gained experience with laser optical trapping, a method for studying biomechanical properties of cells. Miles engages in discipline-specific service at the national level as a member of the Physical Chemistry Examination Committee of the American Chemical Society.
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1983)
B.S., M.S., University of Alabama at Birmingham (1975, 1977)
Richards Award for Teaching Excellence, 2011
Visiting Research Scientist, Lehigh University, July 2012
Visiting Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, May-November, 1997 (sabbatical leave)
Visiting Professor, University of Alabama-Birmingham, summer, 1995, and summer, 1996
Appointed Visiting Associate Research Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, summer, 1994
Nominated by Mount St. Mary's College for Maryland Association of Higher Education Outstanding Educator of the Year Award, 1995
Physical Chemistry, General Physics
Received $4100 fluorescence spectrophotometer as part of Foundation for Independent Higher Education's 2000-01 AT&T Learning Network Teaching and Technology Grant, June 15, 2000.
Proposal "Study of Atmospheric Terpenes, Ozone, and Ethylene in the Blue Ridge Mountains by FTIR and UV-Visible Spectroscopy" (co-authored with Dr. J. J. Thomas) funded by the National Science Foundation, Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Program, April 12, 1990.
Proposal "Experimental Studies of Surfactant Adsorption Kinetics" funded by the Research Corporation, May 1, 1990.
I am looking at ways to incorporate computer programming and computer-based pedagogy into my physical chemistry and physics courses. In addition, Dr. Kreke and I are collaborating on a project involving the synthesis and characterization of surfactant-modified gold nanoparticles. Outside of the Mount, I am on a committee developing physical chemistry assessment exams for the American Chemical Society Exams Institute.
Michael S. Epstein, Danny G. Miles, Jr., and Lee L. Yu, "What Were They Drinking? A Critical Study of the Radium Ore Revigator," Applied Spectroscopy 63, 1406-1409 (2009).
Danny G. Miles, Jr., David W. Bushman, and Zhong-Ying Chen, "Protein Gel Electrophoresis in the Undergraduate Physics Laboratory," American Journal of Physics 73, 1186-1189 (2005).
Danny G. Miles, Jr. and Theresa A. Francis, "A Survey of Computer Use in Undergraduate Physical Chemistry," Journal of Chemical Education 79, 1477-1479 (2002).
Danny G. Miles, Jr., Zhihao Yang, and Hyuk Yu, "Surface Light Scattering Adapted to the Advanced Undergraduate Laboratory," Journal of Chemical Education 79, 1007-1012 (2002).
Danny G. Miles, Jr. and Theresa A. Francis, "A Graphical Approach to the Angular Momentum Schrdinger Equation," Journal of Chemical Education 78, 405-408 (2001).
Deborah Sauder, Marcy Towns, Betty Derrick, Alexander Grushow, Michael Kahlow, George Long, Danny Miles, George Shalhoub, Roland Stout, Michael Vaksman, William F. Pfeiffer, Gabriela Weaver, and Theresa Julia Zielinski, "Physical Chemistry Online: Maximizing Your Potential," Chemical Educator 5, 77-82 (2000).
Danny G. Miles, Jr. and James W. Schmidt, "Structure of the Polymer-Solvent Interface," Journal of Chemical Physics 92, 3881-3885 (1990).
Danny G. Miles, Jr., Nhat Le, and Daniel Kivelson, "Longitudinal and Transverse Waves in a Viscoelastic Fluid," Journal of Chemical Physics 90, 5327-5332 (1989).
Daniel Kivelson and Danny Miles, "Bimodal Angular Hopping Model for Molecular Rotations in Liquids," Journal of Chemical Physics 88, 1925 (1988).
Danny G. Miles, Jr., Patrick D. Lamb, Kee Woo Rhee, and Charles S. Johnson, Jr., "Holographic Relaxation Spectroscopy of Benzospiropyran in Mixtures of Water and Dioxane," Journal of Physical Chemistry 87, 4815-4822 (1983).