Short Biography (updated 1/2/2008)

I grew up in southeastern Wisconsin and will always be a Badger and proud of it. I went to the University of Wisconsin, Madison for two years and then transferred to the University of California at Berkeley. I received my AB at Berkeley in the 1968 and my PhD in biochemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1974.  I did postdoctoral work at UW Madison,  in a cabinet shop in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and on whitewater rivers from Tennessee to Idaho.  

I started my teaching career at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. My first full time teaching position was at a campus of the University of Maine in Fort Kent (on the Canadian border in "Baja New Brunswick") for 3 years - cold weather, warm people!   I have been teaching chemistry at BU since 1986.

I am trained as a biochemist and have done postdoctoral and sabbatical research, as well as research with undergraduates at BU, in the biochemistry of  the natural product biopolymers, lignin and suberin.  Since 1997 I have focused on chemical and biochemical education at the college level and on math and science education at the pre-college and college levels.   I am interested in projects that enhance K-12 teacher education and renewal.  Until the Fall of 2003, I was the team co-leader of the Bloomsburg University effort of the statewide NSF-Collaboratives in Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP). I was also the first director of the Math and Science Learning Center from its opening in late May, 2001 until Fall, 2003. I publish regularly in the Journal of Chemical Education and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. I am also a reviewer for the Journal of Chemical Education. I am currently working on a high school chemistry textbook that takes a "pattern recognition" approach to learning chemistry.

I am continuing as director of the Honors Program at BU, a position I took in the Spring, 2001. This job has allowed me to appreciate faculty and student scholarship in other disciplines than chemistry.

I have been married to Beth for 22 years and we have three sons, Joseph (19), Thomas (T.J.) (18), and John (14).

I love the Badgers, Packers and hockey in all forms from high school roller hockey (with my son John) to the NHL.

"Without water there would be no life and no ice and without ice there would be no hockey. But without hockey, even if there were life, it would not be worth living".  

You can check out my Vita  to see more.