After eight years of teaching general chemistry and managing general chemistry labs at the University of Toledo in Ohio, Nathaniel Coleman Jr. has returned to his home state of Illinois to continue teaching general chemistry at the University of Illinois.
Coleman grew up on the south side of Chicago and attended Monmouth College in west central Illinois, where he was a double major in chemistry and math with a minor in physics.
Coleman earned his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at the University of Iowa, working on solid-state metathesis reactions and making semiconductor materials.
"After that, I did a postdoc at the University of Iowa, continuing my graduate work there. And then I did another postdoc at Kansas State University for a year and started on my teaching path," Coleman said.
Coleman gained his initial chemistry teaching experience at the community college level before moving to Ohio to teach at the University of Toledo. Coleman said his teaching leans toward an "old school" style, delivering the course content without the use of PowerPoint slides.
At Illinois, Coleman will continue teaching general chemistry classes and looks forward to the opportunities on campus. He has a brother and a sister who graduated from Illinois and his brother lives and works in town, so he's excited to be near family again.
"So, it was really cool to come here to live and teach. And my passion is always helping the students. So, that's why I'm here," he said.
Coleman said what he enjoys most about teaching chemistry is seeing that moment when the material begins to make sense to the students.
"I love to see when that moment happens," he said. "When I see that happening and they care about the course and the material that they're learning, that makes me feel good that I'm helping someone else."
Coleman said he incorporates demonstrations in his classes, so students can link what they are learning to an actual application and to what they do in their lab section. He gained a lot of experience with demonstrations as the lab coordinator at Toledo.
Outside of labs and lectures, Coleman has a variety of interests that keep him busy.
"I'm a huge gamer. I've been playing games with my brothers since we were five or six. I'm also a streamer. So, I play video games, and I stream them so people can watch in live time. I record my game play, and I have a library of all the games I play," Coleman said.
He also enjoys gardening, growing flowers and crops, and he enjoys cooking.
"I'm a pretty good chef. That was plan B if chemistry didn't work. I was going to go to culinary school. So, I'm always cooking for my family," he said.
And if he isn't gaming or in the garden or the kitchen, Coleman said he enjoys do-it-yourself projects. He makes pixel art designs by melting pearler beads.
"I started that when I was in college. It was a small group of my friends, and we all work individually now and go to anime conventions and teach people how to do this. It's nostalgic," he said.