News & Resources
Event Blog & Archives
Stay updated with all the latest news, insights, and highlights from our Divi event. Here, you’ll find in-depth articles, speaker spotlights, behind-the-scenes stories, and tips to help you make the most of your Divi experience.
Zachary Greene Warfield
Zachary Greene Warfield, 35, died July 4 in a boating accident on the Potomac River. Zack was a co-founder and a member of the Board of Directors for Omnis, Inc., a McLean, VA-based strategic consulting firm for the intelligence, defense and national security...
Fanjun Meng & Chunyang Zhang
Fanjun Meng, 29, and Chunyang Zhang, 26, drowned in a Branson hotel swimming pool. Both were from China and working in the anatomic pathology lab at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Meng was a visiting scholar and his wife, Zhang, was a research specialist,...
Andrei Tropinov, Sergei Rizhov, Gennadi Benyok, Nicolai Tronov and Valery Lyalin
Andrei Tropinov, Sergei Rizhov, Gennadi Benyok, Nicolai Tronov and Valery Lyalin died in a Russian plane crash. The five scientists were employed at the Hydropress factory, a member of Russia's state nuclear corporation and had assisted in the development of Iran's...
The Symbolism Hidden Within “The Wizard of Oz”
The Wizard of Oz ,was produced as a motion picture in 1939 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (Book by L. Frank Baum; Adaption by Noel Langley; Screenplay by Florence Ryerson, Noel Langley, and Edgar Allan Woolf; Lyrics by E. Y. Harburg; Produced by Mervyn LeRoy; Directed by...
Rodger Lynn Dickey
Rodger Lynn Dickey, 56, died from an apparent suicide Mar. 18 after he jumped from the Gorge Bridge. Dickey was a senior nuclear engineer with over 30 years of experience in support of the design, construction, start-up, and operation of commercial and government...
Gregory Stone
Gregory Stone, 54, died from an unknown illness Feb. 17. Stone, who was quoted extensively in many publications internationally after the BP oil leak, was the director of the renowned Wave-Current Information System. Stone quickly established himself as an...
Bradley C. Livezey
Bradley C. Livezey, 56, died in a car crash Feb. 8 2011. Livezey knew nearly everything about the songs of birds and was considered the top anatomist. Livezey, curator of The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, never gave up researching unsolved mysteries of the...
Dr. Massoud Ali Mohammadi
Dr. Massoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, was assassinated Jan. 11, 2011 when a remote-control bomb inside a motorcycle near his car was detonated. This professor of nuclear physics at Tehran University was politically active and his name was on a list of Tehran University staff...
John (Jack) P. Wheeler III
John (Jack) P. Wheeler III, 66. last seen Dec. 30, 2010 was found dead in a Delaware landfill. He fought to get the Vietnam Memorial built and served in two Bush administrations. His death has been ruled a homicide by Newark, Del. police. Wheeler graduated from West...
Chitra Chauhan
Chitra Chauhan, 33. Died Nov. 15 2010, was found dead in an apparent suicide by cyanide at a Temple Terrace hotel, police said. Chauhan left a suicide note saying she used cyanide. Hazmat team officials said the cyanide was found only in granular form, meaning it was...
Mark A. Smith
Mark A. Smith, 45, died Nov. 15. A renowned Alzheimer's disease researcher has died after being hit by a car in Ohio. Smith was a pathology professor at Case Western Reserve University and director of basic science research at the university's memory and cognition...
Franco Cerrina
Franco Cerrina, 62. Died July 12 was found dead in a lab at BU's Photonics Center on Monday morning. The cause of death is not yet known, but have ruled out homicide. Cerrina joined the faculty of BU in 2008 after spending 24 years on the faculty at the University of...
Vajinder Toor
Vajinder Toor, 34, Died April 26, 2010. He was shot and killed outside his home in Branford, Conn. Toor was a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale School of Medicine who was working with the infectious disease section of Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Joseph Morrissey
Joseph Morrissey, 46, died April 6, 2010 as a victim of a home invasion. The autopsy revealed that the professor died from a stab wound. Although the cause of death was first identified as a gun shot wound, the autopsy revealed that the professor died from a stab...
Amy Bishop
Amy Bishop, 45, Neurobiologist - [Not Deceased] murdered three fellow scientists February 13, 2010 after being denied tenure. Dead biology professors are: G. K. Podila, the departments chairman, a native of India; Maria Ragland Davis; and Adriel D. Johnson Sr. This...
Adriel D. Johnson Sr.
Adriel D. Johnson Sr. , 52. Died February 13 at the hand of Neurobiologist Amy Bishop. His research involved aspects of gastrointestinal physiology specifically pancreatic function in vertebrates.
Gopi K. Podilla
Gopi K. Podila, 54. Died February 13 at the hand of Neurobiologist Amy Bishop, Indian American biologist, noted academician, and faculty member at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He listed his research interests as engineering tree biomass for bioenergy,...
Maria Ragland Davis
Maria Ragland Davis, 52. Died February 13, 2010 at the hand of Neurobiologist Amy Bishop. Her background was in chemical engineering and biochemistry, and she specialized in plant pathology and biotechnology applications. She had a doctorate in biochemistry and had...
Keith Fagnou
Keith Fagnou, 38, died November 11, 2009 of H1N1. His research focused on improving the preparation of complex molecules for petrochemical, pharmaceutical or industrial uses. Keith's advanced and out-of-the-box thinking overturned prior ideas of what is possible in...
Stephen Lagakos
Stephen Lagakos, 63, died October 12, 2009 in an auto collision. Stephen's wife Regina, 61, and his mother, Helen, 94, were also killed in the crash, as was the driver of the other car, Stephen Krause, 52, of Keene, N.H. Lagakos centered his efforts on several fronts...
Malcolm Casadaban
Malcolm Casadaban, 60, died Sept. 13, 2009 of plague. Casadaban, a renowned molecular geneticist with a passion for new research, had been working to develop an even stronger vaccine for the plague. The medical center says the plague bacteria he worked with was a...
Wallace L. Pannier
Wallace L. Pannier, 81, died Aug. 6, 2009 of respiratory failure and other natural causes. Pannier, a germ warfare scientist whose top-secret projects included a mock attack on the New York subway with powdered bacteria in 1966. Mr. Pannier worked at Fort Detrick, a...
Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez
Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, died July 3, 2009 after being bound, gagged, stabbed and set alight. Laurent, a student in the proteins that cause infectious disease, had been stabbed 196 times with half of them being administered to his back after he was...
August “Gus” Watanabe
August "Gus" Watanabe, 67, died June 9, 2009. He was found dead outside a cabin in Brown County. Friends discovered the body, a .38-caliber handgun and a three-page note at the scene. They said he had been depressed following the death last month of his daughter Nan...
Caroline Coffey
Caroline Coffey, 28, died June 3, 2009 from massive cuts to her throat. Hikers found the body of the Cornell Univ. post-doctoral bio-medicine researcher along a wooded trail in the park, just outside Ithaca, N.Y., where the Ivy League school is located. Her husband...
Naseer Talebzadeh Ordoubadi
Nasser Talebzadeh Ordoubadi, 53, died February 14, 2009 of "suspicious" causes. Dr. Noah (formerly Nasser Talebzadeh Ordoubadi) is described in his American biography as a pioneer of Mind-Body-Quantum medicine who lectured in five countries and ran a successful health...
Bruce Edwards Ivins
Bruce Edwards Ivins, 62, died July 29, 2009 of an overdose. He committed suicide prior to formal charges being filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for an alleged criminal connection to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Ivins was likely solely responsible for the...
Dr. Mario Alberto Vargas Olvera
Dr. Mario Alberto Vargas Olvera, age 52, died October 6, 2007 as a result of several blunt-force injuries to his head and neck. Ruled as murder. Found in his home. He was a nationally and internationally recognized biologist.
Yongsheng Li
Yongsheng Li, age 29, died sometime after 4 p.m. on March 10, 2007 when he was last seen as a result of unknown causes. He was found in a pond between the Women's Sports Complex and State Botanical Gardens on South Milledge Avenue Sunday and had been missing 16 days....
Mark Purdey
Mark Purdey, his Lawyer, and Veterinarian working with Purdey die: CJD doctor Mark Purdey was familiar with the expression "abnormal brain protein." Purdey’s house was burned down, his lawyer on mad cow issues was driven off the road and died and the veterinarian in...