Who's Responsible ?

WormLearn is (for the time being) the sole responsibility of Dr Peter Darben (aka wormman). Wormman is an online identity I created to serve as an email address and IRC alias, because I was bored with the same old p.darben@blah.blah.blah. The name has been around for a little while, but it stuck after a colleague created a comic strip in my honour.

I completed my undergraduate degree (a Bachelor of Applied Science - Medical Laboratory Science) in 1989 at the Queensland University of Technology and then hung around there to do a PhD on the chemical nature of the shell wall of nematode eggs (graduating 1996). During that time I was appointed as a laboratory demonstrator in Clinical Parasitology, Clinical Biochemistry, and various other odds and sods (eventually making it to a brief term as an associate lecturer), and kept myself busy tutoring 3rd year Med Lab Science students, maintaining the QUT Parasitology Collection, creating the original QUT Parasitology Pages (from which WormLearn evolved), and getting involved in communty health and education projects.

In addition to all of this, I've also worked in the food testing laboratory of a company which exports wild boar meat to various countries in the EU and elsewhere (we're the only country that doesn't have pork tapeworm or Trichinella endemic). The lab does basic microbiology (E. coli, preliminary Salmonella, basic hygiene and total aerobic mesophiles) as well as checking for Trichinosis (just in case). Fairly mindless, but interesting enough with plenty of little side treks (hydatids popping up occasionally, spargana and the omnipresent mystery of the seasonal yellow pigs).

Continuing cuts to university budgets by governments of both stripes put paid to my ever hoping to continue my career in academia, so in 1997 I enrolled (and completed) the Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education at QUT. I'm afraid I've always enjoyed the teaching side of things to the research side, so I'm more suited to be a teacher than an academic.

I'm currently a secondary school biology and science teacher living in Queensland, Australia. I've been teaching since 1998, starting off with six years in Mount Isa (at Mount Isa SHS, later to be known as Spinifex State College - Mount Isa) and since then I've been incredibly fortunate to be part of the science team at Cavendish Road SHS in Brisbane.  At Cav I was given almost free reign to develop the sorts of courses I always wanted to teach, including Outbreak ! Worms Germs and Genes, a disease processes, genetics and anatomy elective subject in Year 10 (the supporting website can be found here). I've also taken two groups through the Academy program, where students study a first year Cell and Molecular Biology subject through Griffith University alongside their senior biology studies and in 2008 we delivered the program to eight Distance Education students via Education Queenslands Learning Place.

I've managed to keep up my old professional contacts and interests in the years. Being a former scientist, I am particularly interested in working with science professionals to make my classroom practice more relevant to the students to the students I teach. I keep my hand in at QUT, demonstrating the occasional parasitology prac class or delivering the odd guest lecture, and I regularly take students there to work with real scientists (like Robert Dow, who takes the Outbreak ! students through a haematology workshop).  I've taken part in a number of partnerships aimed at forging links with academia and industry, in particular a period of upskilling my molecular biology at the CRC for Sugar Industry Innovation through Biotechnology in 2006. My career highlight to date would have to be working with Prof. Ian Frazer (our Scientist in Schools) in 2008, where our Academy students did their senior biology project on trying to tweak the recombinant method of producing the protein which forms the basis of the Gardasil vaccine so that it could be suitable for production in developing countries. High school kids working with an Australian of the Year to use genetic engineering techniques to make one of the more important medical advances in recent years - it doesn't get much better than that.

My interests other than education and parasitology include Forteana (more of a personal philosophy than a hobby), progressive politics, science fiction and fantasy, and fighting the dark forces of fundamentalism in all its forms.

Some more professional information can be found at  my (frequently out of date) curriculum vitae.

Take me back to the main page . . .