Brent Iverson
Professor
Department of
Chemistry and Biochemistry

Although Professor Brent Iverson runs and goes scuba diving to keep in shape and relax, he can't help but make them part of his organic chemistry class.

Students can get out of being tested on the systematic nomenclature of molecules (which is as fun as it sounds) on two late-semester tests if 15 percent of the class participates in a 5-kilometer run.

Iverson, a trim, self-described middle-of-the-pack runner, wants to impress on his 20-something students the importance of exercise and the difference it can make over their lifetimes.

"It seems like a good choice to me and what they generally find out, especially the ones who've never run before, is it really isn't so bad," said Iverson, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Each semester, the students take part in a 5K race. This spring it was the Running of the Horns race around the university campus and last fall it was the Race for the Cure in downtown Austin. The highest number to participate has been 113 in the Race for the Cure.

"I make it extremely clear it's not competitive," Iverson said. "I find some students and run with them. I think it's real important that they realize it's not about time. It's about the people who never thought they would do it."

Iverson teaches chemistry and conducts research in his own lab and in one he runs with George Georgiou, a biomedical engineering professor. They've developed an anthrax antitoxin that has proven to be effective.

As for diving-he doesn't take the class on dives. Not literally, at least.

What he does is show them slides of his diving adventures at the end of a teaching chapter.

"It allows them to decompress a little bit and be a reminder that there's more than mid-terms and finals and school out there," Iverson said.

It started when a lesson ended with extra class time remaining and he showed the class come of his diving slides. Thinking it was a one-time thing he took the photos home, but found that they were a big hit-and the students let him know about it.

"Students will let me know-what are you doing?-even though it has absolutely nothing to do with organic chemistry," he said. "It does somehow feel like the right thing to do, a transition from one set of topics to another. And it allows me to talk about the world's oceans conservation."

As much as it's another world underwater, Iverson can't stop being a scientist down there.

"I pride myself on not memorizing Latin names of fish because I find that ruins it for me, but I always try to find out what's going on in ways that make it a lot more interesting."

He passes those stories on to the students.

"To me one of the best parts of the whole experience is being able to take pictures. So you don't just say "You won't believe what I saw.' Because people who don't dive wouldn't believe it. So you can bring it back.

"It's a lot of fun, too. It's an activity that requires all of your senses and concentration because you have to worry abut diving and all the diving mechanics but you also have to worry about a camera and all the photography characteristics."

And worry about getting his subjects in the viewfinder.

"The fish don't pose. They move really, really fast. They do not hover," he said. "It takes your full concentration."

Underwater, the diver is freed of some of the constraints of land.

"It is three-dimensional. If you want to go up, you go up. If you want to spin around, you spin around. And you're weightless the whole time. So it's a very unusual activity in that regard. It's a very odd experience to be 50-80 feet under water and go up 10 feet and go down 10 feet. This is just a weird thing. Humans don't go up and down. And you literally fly. If there is a current you set your buoyancy so that you're neutral and you just fly, you're cruising over everything.

"Unbelievable," he said. "It feels just like you're Peter Pan."