CURRICULUM VITAE
Brian Craig Taverner
6/2/1996
SCHOOL
Primary School Rivonia Primary School
1976 - 1982
Awards Most improved in mathematics for standard four
High School Pretoria Boys High School
1983 - 1987
Awards Academic tie (standards eight to matric)
Second place in Mathematics, Physical Science and Biology for Matric mid-year exams.
Matric (TED) Passed with full exemption
English 1st Language (Higher Grade) C
Afrikaans Tweede Taal (Hoër Graad) C
Latin (Higher Grade) B
Mathematics (Higher Grade) A
Physical Sciences (Higher Grade) A
Biology (Higher Grade) A
Music (Standard Grade) C
Matric (JMB)
Additional Mathematics (Higher Grade) A
Olympiads
1987 Top Hundred in Mathematics Olympiad
Top Eight Hundred in Science Olympiad
1988 Participated in Mathematics and Computer Olympiads
20th place in Science Olympiad
Attended Olympiad Science week
UNIVERSITY
The University of the Witwatersrand (1988 - present)
Bachelor of Science
1988 Chemistry Major I 80%
Mathematics Major I 73%
Physics Major I 70%
Zoology I 76%
1989 Chemistry Major II 59%
Mathematics Major II 59%
Microbiology II 64%
Physics Major II 64%
1990 Advanced Biology III 67%
Chemistry III 61%
Physics III 72%
Awards
1988 Certificate of Merit for outstanding work in Zoology I
1988 Certificate of First Class award for Chemistry I
Bachelor of Science (Honours)
1991 Physics IV (Experimental and Theoretical) 66%
Additional Courses
1991 French I (as occasional student) 54%
1992 Selected Chemistry Honours Courses during 1st year of M.Sc
(Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Stereoselective Synthesis)
Master of Science by Dissertation
1992-1994 Research in Structural Chemistry and Crystallography.
Title: Disorder in Thiourea/Selenourea Inclusion Compounds
Graduated on 20th April 1995.
Doctorate in Philosophy
1995-1996 Research in Computational/Theoretical Chemistry.
Title: Electronic Properties of Compressed Atoms
Currently busy with this work.
Additional Projects
1993 Reconstruction/Renovation of the electronics and computer control for the liquid nitrogen cryostat used by the Structural Chemistry Group (Wits University) for the single crystal diffractometer, including a redesign of the computer control for the nitrogen transfer.
1992 - 1996 A variety of utility programs were written for general crystallography use under both DOS and UNIX. This included the x-ray diffraction systematic absences viewing program sysabs.
1992 - 1995 Mathematical contributions and programming for work on the calculation of steric effects of molecular fragments about points, as part of a research project involving Professor Neil Coville and David White of Wits University, and others. Extensive combined program called steric written. Calculations included the Tolman cone angle, solid angles (numerical and semi-analytical), radial profiles, conformer averages and ligand congestion.
1995 - 1996 Monte Carlo and fixed grid molecular and crystal cavity volumes, as well as an analytical algorithm for orthogonally projected molecular areas and planar overlaps and added to steric program. This included crystal symmetry features.
Papers
Published
D. White, B.C. Taverner, P.G.L. Leach and N.J. Coville, "Quantification of Substituent and Ligand Size by the Use of Solid Angles", J. Comp. Chem., 14, 1042 (1993)
D. White, B.C. Taverner, P.G.L. Leach and N.J. Coville, "Solid Angles II. The radial profile", J. Organomet. Chem., 478, 205 (1994)
David White, B. Craig Taverner, Neil J. Coville and Peter W. Wade, "Solid Angles III: The role of conformers in solid angle calculations", J. Organomet. Chem., 495, 41 (1995)
Accepted
B.C. Taverner, "An Improved Algorithm for the Accurate Computation of Molecular Solid Angles", J. Comp. Chem., (1996)
To be submitted
D. White, B.C. Taverner, N.J. Coville, "Solid Angles IV: Steric Interactions and the Vertex angle of overlap", J. Organomet. Chem., (1996)
B.C. Taverner and D.C. Levendis, "Disorder in Thiourea/Selenourea Inclusion Compounds" (1996)
FINANCIAL AWARDS
AECI Open Scholarship for the three years of the B.Sc. (1988 to 1990) as well as for the first year of the M.Sc. (1992).
FRD Bursary for the B.Sc. Honours (physics) year (1991)
Senior Bursary for the B.Sc. Honours (physics) year (1991)
FRD Postgraduate Studentship for the first year of the M.Sc. (chemistry) under Dr. Demi Levendis (1992).
AECI Postgraduate Fellowship for the second and third year of the M.Sc. (1993 and 1994), as well as for the first year of the Ph.D. (1995).
Sasol Silver Medal for Excellence in Chemistry awarded at the South African Chemical Institutes Young Chemists Symposium at Rand Afrikaans Universiteit, 1995.
CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS
1991 South African Institute of Physics National Conference in Bloemfontein.
Gave a talk entitled "Photoluminescence of GaAs/AlGaAs Superlattices".
1993 Royal Society of Chemistry 1st International Conference on Materials Chemistry in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Presented a poster entitled "Disorder in Thiourea/Selenourea Inclusion Compounds".
International Union of Crystallography XIVth Tri-Annual Congress in Beijing, China.
Presented a poster entitled "Disorder in Thiourea/Selenourea Inclusion Compounds".
AECI Postgraduate Fellowship Get-together, AECI Research and Development, Modderfontein.
Gave a talk entitled "Inclusion Compounds of Thiourea and Selenourea with Camphor".
1994 South African Crystallographic Society, at Technicon Witwatersrand.
Gave a talk entitled "Creative Use of Computer Programs in the Study of Disorder in Inclusion Compounds".
Symposium on Crystallography, at the University of the Witwatersrand. Gave a talk entitled "Molecules, Symmetry and Disorder in Crystallography: A Comparison of a well behaved molecular structure and a disordered system".
AECI Postgraduate Fellowship Get-together, AECI Research and Development, Modderfontein.
Gave a talk entitled "Disorder in Thiourea/Selenourea Inclusion Compounds".
1995 The international conference, The Small-molecules Indaba held at Skukuza camp, Kruger Park, on the fundamentals of molecular modelling under the auspices of the Small Molecules commission of the International Union of Crystallography.
Presented a poster entitled "Electron Densities and Scattering Factors of Compressed Atoms".
AECI Postgraduate Fellowship Get-together, AECI Research and Development, Modderfontein.
Gave a talk entitled "The Electronic Structure of Compressed Atoms".
South African Chemical Institute Young Chemists Symposium, Rand Afrikaans Universiteit.
Gave a talk entitled "The Electronic Structure of Compressed Atoms".
1996 The South African Chemical Institute annual symposium in Cape Town.
Presented two posters entitled:
"Numerical Modelling of Molecular Steric Features".
"IUCr XIX 2002 - the Southern African Bid".
And gave a talk entitled:
"Crystallography, Chemistry and the New World of Computing".
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Part time individual tutoring of high school students, standards seven to matric, from 1989 to 1992.
Wits University
1991 - Demonstrated and tutored basic physics to first year students.
- Supervised second year physics project on "Holography".
1992 - Tutored basic chemistry to first year chemistry students.
- Demonstrated and tutored physical and quantum chemistry to second and third year chemistry students.
- Demonstrated a third year physics lab.
- Gave two lectures and a lab on "Holography" as a part of the first and second year College of Science physics classes on optics.
- Supervised a third year physics project on "Holography".
1993 - Demonstrated and tutored physical and quantum chemistry to second and third year chemistry students.
- Gave a single lecture and tutored and demonstrated for the crystallography workshop for the chemistry honours class.
- Demonstrated a third year physics lab.
- Supervised a third year physics project on "Holography - holograms and the diffraction grating".
1994 - Demonstrated and tutored physical and quantum chemistry to second and third year chemistry students.
- Gave a full days lectures on "Crystallography: the basic concepts", and demonstrated and tutored for the crystallography workshop for the chemistry honours class.
- Demonstrated a third year physics lab.
- Supervised a third year physics project on "Holography - the use of Fresnel lenses in white light holography".
- Gave a single lecture on "The Quantum Mechanical Model of the Atom" to the first year chemistry class.
- Gave a single lecture on "Inclusion Compounds and Molecular Packing" to the third year chemistry class as a part of their physical chemistry course.
1995 - Demonstrated and tutored physical and quantum chemistry to second and third year chemistry students.
- Gave a full days lectures on "Crystallography: the basic concepts", and demonstrated and tutored for the crystallography workshop for the chemistry honours class.
- Demonstrated a third year physics lab.
- Supervised a third year physics project on "Holography - the use of parabolic mirrors in white light holography and real-time interferometry".
- Gave a mini workshop on using the new Linux and Windows based network of computers in the Structural Chemistry Research Group.
- Gave preliminary training to the Chemistry Network Administrator at the University of Cape Town on running their new Linux based Workstation and administering the Cambridge Database system on it.
EMPLOYMENT
1988 - Eight week project on the ammonium nitrite concentration in emulsion explosives for AECI Explosives.
1989 - Six week project on the production of iron oxide pigments for AECI Chemicals Research.
1989 to 1992
- Part time individual tutoring of high school students, standards seven to matric.
1995 - Occasional private computer troubleshooting.
- One week installation and configuration of a Linux database server for the Crystallography section of the Chemistry department of the University of Cape Town.
1994 to 1996
- Part time development, configuration and administration of the computer facilities and network of the Structural Chemistry Research Group at the University of the Witwatersrand.
- Part time technical administration for the South African National Centre for the Cambridge Structural Database System.
1996 - Part time work with the WWW service providing company "Symphony Research".
COMPUTER EXPERIENCE
1981 - One weeks hands on BASIC programming course.
1990 - Programmed quantum mechanical calculations in amigaBASIC for a third year physics project entitled "The Finite Potential Barrier and Level Repulsion".
1991 - Took course during physics honours on "Computer Interfacing". This involved a study of the main chips and the io-control chips commonly involved in IBM compatible PC architecture, and programming in 8088 assembly language.
- Took a course during physics honours on "Numerical Methods". This involved numerical programming in the pascal programming language.
1992 - 1996
- Wrote a variety of utility programs in C for DOS and UNIX, and several utility scripts in the Bourne shell for UNIX. These programs were designed to facilitate the use of the computers by the research group and could be divided into two groups based on functionality: programs for computational chemistry and crystallography and programs for general computing and networking. Of the programs relevant to chemistry, three are of most importance:
Steric - A program to calculate a wide range of molecular steric parameters. This program took several years to write as additional steric calculations were added to the original molecular data core.
Cael - A program to calculate the electronic structure of compressed atoms. It is basically a C translation of a 1963 fortran program by Herman & Skillman to calculate free atom electronic energies and wave functions, with various facilities added on after translation.
Sysabs - A program to visualize the symmetry and absence conditions in x-ray diffraction data. It was originally written with TurboC for DOS, but was extended considerably when ported to the X window system on UNIX.
1994 - 1996
Developed, configured and administered the computer network used by the Structural Chemistry Research Group of the University of the Witwatersrand. The final network involved four extensively networked UNIX workstations running Linux for computational work and e-mail and internet access and four windows for workgroups computers primarily for word processing. Additional network facilities offered by the system were e-mail, ftp services for data transfer to remote colleagues, http services for advertising of the research groups facilities on the World Wide Web and mail list services for wide area discussions of topic relevant to crystallography in South Africa. Several packages of interest to crystallographers were ported to Linux, including the Cambridge Structural Database.
Computer Languages
In approximate order of experience:
C - Most programs under both DOS and UNIX have been written in C, primarily ANSI C. Some experience with TurboC graphics under DOS and Xlib for X11 graphics under UNIX. Programs are portable and many have been ported to various UNIX systems and from UNIX to DOS and back.
HTML - Extensive World Wide Web authoring for the research group. This includes CGI Forms for conference registration as well as image maps.
BASIC - Intermittent experience with various forms of BASIC, commodore 64, amigaBASIC, GWBASIC for DOS, BWBASIC for UNIX and QBASIC for DOS.
FORTRAN - Mostly porting across systems, small modifications and simple translation to C.
Scripting - Various scripting languages under UNIX. Primarily Bourne Shell scripting, but also a little C-shell, AWK, SED and Perl.
Assembly - exposure to motorola 6402/6410 and intel 8808.