Dayspring Christian Academy

A Family Restores

Phil Taylor ‘00 Published in Nature

Bradford Taylor ’03 Receives Full Scholarship for UC Berkley Doctoral Program

“It is one of the most difficult publications in which to be published,” says John Taylor, father of 2000 Dayspring graduate Philip Taylor, who was published in the April 22, 2010, issue of Nature, which is said to be the world’s most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal.

Phil is the lead author of the paper in Nature, “Stoichiometric control of organic carbon-nitrate relationships from the soil to the sea.” Implications of the study are to find a more farmer-friendly way to control pollutants going from streams to larger bodies of water.

“It tells how to control the carbon-nitrates in relation to going from soil to the sea,” John said. “It is being a good steward of God’s creation without being so extreme. You don’t need to say the world’s going to end. There are easier ways to control that. This study deals with that.”

Phil has one more year at University of Colorado at Boulder to complete his doctoral degree in environmental science. He has been awarded a full scholarship to Stanford University to complete post-doctoral work. He was chosen to serve as a support person for Greg Asner, who is one of the four National Academy of Sciences appointed by the President of the United States. While Phil is one of 20 who was selected, Asner chose Philip to serve as his “right-hand man” at Stanford.

“This publication will give him a seat at any table,” John said.  “He has met many of the lead scientists in the country on the subject. They respect him so much, they are starting to relate to him in areas other than science, including his faith in God. This has come after a lot of work. Many of these scientists don’t know anyone in their area who is a person of faith. It’s given him a voice in the environmental world. He’s able to provide dissenting points to commonly held beliefs in controversial areas, such as global warming. It’s interesting how he has learned to think and reason and communicate his ideas. That is so much a gift from Dayspring to him.

“When I look back on the Dayspring education, they did a lot of that. They did logic, they reasoned, they thoroughly researched their subjects,” John noted. “That is a gift that you don’t appreciate while at school. But both of my sons felt they were better prepared than their peers.”

Bradford Taylor, a 2003 DCA graduate and John’s youngest son, recently received a full scholarship to the University of California at Berkley for the doctoral degree he is pursuing in English/literature.

“Originally Bradford went to Covenant College (Lookout Mountain, GA)  for two years then transferred to Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA), because US News and World Report rated it the most difficult school in the country,” John said. “The hardest class at Swarthmore, so they said was, Shakespeare. Bradford had to read all of Shakespeare before the first day of class. That’s more than 1,400 pages. But he is a serious student, and he learned how to study at Dayspring. It’s painful when you are learning it, but once you have it, it is a gift.”

According to John, Bradford has been in the mission field, has become fluent in French after living in Paris for a year, then he worked in New York City working for Travel and Leisure magazine. He received a full scholarship to University of California at Berkley, where he is studying for his doctoral degree in English/literature. Bradford plans to be a college professor. This summer, he is going to Paris to study at The Sorbonne University. He will take on a comparative study for literature written in both English and French.