Website Index
I'm Richard Crooks, a protein chemist, bioinformatician, and BEd student at York University, based in Toronto, Ontario. This is my home on the internet filled with my random collection of stuff that interests me.
My interests in the sciences are in the areas of biochemistry, particularly of proteins, and bioinformatics, especially as applied to clinical genetics. As a consequence of these interests, I am also interested in chemistry, math and genetics, which are all subjects I find fascinating and I enjoy using and sharing my knowledge in them. I tutor students, and I am currently undertaking a BEd to teach biology and chemistry in the senior and intermediate divisions of Ontario public high schools.
I also enjoy canoeing and used to compete in canoe racing. I also have weird other things I’m interested and talk about them. Take a browse of my simple and straightforward website. I don’t like things that are too impressive, in fact I was on the internet when stuff was in plain white pages.
About Biology - Biology is the science of life, and covers the breadth of life science phenomena, from both how parts of an organism behave, right through to how whole ecosystems of many species behave.
About Canoeing - Canoeing, especially competitive canoeing, is my sport of choice. Canoes are boats propelled by a single bladed paddle typically from a kneeling position, and are extremely awesome.
About Mathematics - Mathematics, or math(s) for short is the science of numbers. Many mathematical techniques are important for understanding the sciences, and have wide application across them. Many different phenomena can be described using the same mathematical techniques.
Other Stuff - I have a collection of weird stuff that I do, because I’m weird.
Volunteering In Armenia - I spent two months volunteering in the Republic of Armenia, a small country between Europe and Asia. It was a unique and transformative experience and you can read my diary from it here.
Sprint Racing Results Service - Combining my data management skills with my canoeing interests, I developed a database to organize UK sprint canoe racing results.
Canada has a long history of appalling treatment of its indigenous people, who were forcibly assimilated into white Canadian society and had their cultural and religious practices suppressed, under the dogma that they needed to be “civilized”. A manifestation of this cultural genocide was the removal of children from indigenous families into residential schools in order to separate them from indigenous parents and disrupt the transmission of indigenous language and culture, and where they suffered physical and sexual abuse. September 30th is in the fall, around the time when children would have been separated from their families, and the color orange is representative of the story of Phyllis Webstad, who had a new orange shirt given to her by her grandmother taken from her at age 6, which was never returned.