On this podcast episode, Science chair and “physics dork” Dan Latreille sat down with Josh to talk about his upbringing in schools, and how he found his way to Austin and Saint Andrews’s.

Dan talked about growing up in Sacramento and why he was more interested in working and making money than doing well at school.  In Dan’s words, he was “not good” at school.  Although, he definitely turned into a great student after high school, enjoying more and more math and science courses to the point where he had basically taken all of the physics classes available to him at the community college he was attending before heading to college and settling on physics as a major.  Dan spent his years in California after high school taking education courses and math and science courses all the while working with a latchkey program with kids.  After graduation, Dan taught for several years in the same school in California before deciding a move to Texas was necessary for his family.  Dan joined the faculty of Saint Andrews and after fellow physics teacher Richard Wright joined the science department, Dan then took on the unenviable position of evolving our physics program into a modeling-based program, a change which had garnered national attention, and which Dan believes serves the needs of our student population and encourages individual growth as budding scientist.