Instructor Biographies

Professor Anderson received his BS and MA degrees in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater and Johns Hopkins University respectively. Between his MA and Ph.D. degree programs, Dr. Anderson’s education was interrupted by the Vietnam conflict. During this time, he served as an Officer in the Chemical Corp of the US Army and was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, MD. After returning to civilian life, he completed his Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1974. He has had two sabbatical leaves of absence at the Institute of Catalysis at Louvain La Neuve in Belgium, the Institute of Ceramics in Arganda, Spain and was a Fulbright Fellow at CIEMAT in renewable energies in Madrid. His research efforts have focused on production of nanoparticulate oxides, and thin-nanoporous films that are then used in a variety of processes including adsorption, the destruction of toxic chemicals and in energy storage applications. These oxides have high surface areas and are extremely active as catalysts or photocatalysts. These novel materials have led to more than 25 patents and over 160 scientific papers. Dr. Anderson is considered one of the world-class experts in photocatalysis, photoelectrocatalysis and ultracapacitors.

Gary Hoffman is the manager of the Newborn Screening Laboratory at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. He graduated from UW-Eau Claire in 1970 with a degree in chemistry and has been employed by the State Laboratory since then. His involvement with newborn screening began in 1978 when testing was transferred to the state laboratory. He is actively involved on a local, state, regional and national basis regarding newborn screening issues. On a personal side, he is a huge gardener and an avid muskie fisherman.

Milt was born in Malden, MA. He has earned college degrees at the universities of Maine (B.S.), Massachusetts (M.S.) and Wisconsin (Ph D). Milt entered the wildlife conservation field in 1956 as an assistant waterfowl biologist with the Vermont Fish and Game Department. He has held subsequent positions in this field with the Massachusetts and New York Fish and Game Departments and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). He also developed the concept document for a national wildlife disease center while with the FWS, and in January 1975 was assigned to develop that program on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Milt served as Center Director through 1998, at which time he accepted a special assignment from the Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to develop and lead a science effort to resolve environmental issues at California’s Salton Sea. He retired from active government service in 2003. Milt continues his involvement at the National Wildlife Health Center as an Emeritus Scientist and with teaching at the University of Wisconsin (Adjunct Professor, full professor since 1987; Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences).

Among Milt’s many publications are two award winning books: “Field Guide to Wildlife Diseases” and “Disease Emergence and Resurgence: The Wildlife-Human Connection.”

Cris Marsh is the content manager for the NBII-Wildlife Disease Information Node. She has an undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before returning to UW-Madison for her master’s in library studies, she worked as a veterinary technician for many years. She is a member of the Special Libraries Association. In addition, she is a member of the following professional working groups: NBII-Species Knowledge Management Working Group, NBII-Content Leads working group and the Wildlife Disease Informatics Working Group.

Ed Lyon is the full-time Director for Allen Centennial Gardens, the teaching gardens for the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He held previous positions as Executive Director of Rotary Botanical Gardens, Janesville, WI; Director of Education, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin; and Symposia and Special Events Coordinator, Chicago Botanic Garden. He teaches and lectures across the Midwest for public and professional audiences on topics including plant materials and design. He has written for both green industry and public magazines, including American Nurseryman, Nursery Management Pro, Midwest Gardening, Chicagoland Gardening, and Milwaukee Home. He currently writes a regular regional report for southern Wisconsin for Chicagoland Gardening.

Dr. Havey is a USDA Research Geneticist and Professor in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. His research program is focused on the breeding, genetics, and genomics of the Alliums (onion and garlic) and cucurbits (cucumber, melon, and watermelon). Specific projects involve molecular tagging of major quality attributes and disease resistances, including health-enhancing compounds in the Alliums and virus resistances in the cucurbits. He has also led an international effort to sequence expressed regions of the onion genome. Dr. Havey received his B.S degree in Plant Pathology from Iowa State University, M.S. degree in Plant Pathology from the University of Wisconsin, and Ph.D. degree with a double major in Plant Pathology and Plant Breeding & Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin. He completed post-doctoral research positions in Brazil and at Washington State University, before joining the USDA and UW faculty in 1988.

David Hart is the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist with the Aquatic Sciences Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through this position, he conducts research and outreach to support sustainable management of the Great Lakes. David also holds an adjunct faculty appointment with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches a course on the application of GIS to urban and environmental planning issues. His activities occur at the nexus of the disciplines of urban and regional planning, environmental management, and geographic information science.

Aseem Ansari is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry in The Genome Center. He received a B.S. from St. Xavier's College, at Bombay University. Aseem also earned his Ph.D. from Northwestern University, and was a post-doc as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow at Harvard University and MIT. In 2007, he founded the Khorana Scholars Program.

I was born on campus 2 blocks from where I work. My mother is from Green Bay and my father comes from the township of Porter between Evansville and Edgerton (Cooksville). My Dad’s ancestors bought that land from Daniel Webster before the Civil War. I grew up in DeKalb, Illinois, where I learned how to de-tassel corn and play the tuba. I spent portions of my summers growing up on my grandfather's farm in WI in the township of Porter and part of my time with my mom's sister, Aunt Alice, at Peninsula State Park in Door County, where my mom's ancestors settled after leaving Belgium. I went to UW-Madison as an undergrad, where I was in the marching band and was in two Rose Bowl games. I went to UCLA for my graduate work, where I got a master's degree in ichthyology (chasing fish), then switched to chasing lizards and exploring the function of shiny black linings to the body cavities of some species of lizards and helping my adviser figure out how a lizard that can brighten itself as it gets hotter can stay out longer in the heat of the desert. I got a postdoctoral fellowship with a physicist turned botanist who was interested in climate effects on plants. I developed with him a general model for how animals interact with climate. I came back to Madison thanks to Art Hasler, my former undergraduate adviser, who invited me to Madison to present seminars on my postdoctoral research and I discovered I was being recruited. Since coming back to Wisconsin as a faculty member, I have taken approximately 42 courses in 16 different departments on campus to broaden my technical competence and expand my interdisciplinary research programs. My research centers on 1) how do climate, disease, and environmental contaminants affect the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems and developmental and genetic expression processes and capacity to grow, reproduce, and survive at local and landscape scales? 2) Ultra early detection of disease or infection (~ 2 hours after introduction) using stable isotopes in breath non-invasively and determination of disease progression/status using biomarkers in breath and serum. I can honestly say I have never been as excited about my research as I am today.