Daniel Koon

Dr. Daniel Koon’s specialty is materials science. Specifically, he probes materials by looking at how they treat their electrons. He measures charge transport, particularly the Hall effect, which is the result of electrical current curving under the influence of a magnetic field. With his students at SLU he has both calculated and measured how local defects alter measured electrical quantities -- a question of interest for quality control in microelectronics fabrication -- and has used resistivity, Hall effect, and optical transmission to monitor hydrogen absorption in metals -- of interest for the storage of hydrogen fuel for transportation. He has carried out these studies with SLU students in his own laboratory at St. Lawrence, in laboratories in Costa Rica, Spain, and the Czech Republic, and with colleagues from Denmark. He is known internationally and across disciplines for having proven that polar bear hair does NOT behave as an ultraviolet lightpipe and that the iridescence of butterflies acts as a sunblock, not a solar collector. Teaching science fiction in the First Year Program led him into translating science fiction from Cuban and other authors from Spanish to English, which he has published online and in print. Koon is a two-time Fulbright scholar.

Dr. Koon taught in the St. Lawrence Physics department from 1987 to 2022.