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.
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...
Yoram Kaufman
Yoram Kaufman, age 57 (one day before his 58th birthday), died May 31, 2006 when he was struck by an automobile while riding his bicycle near the Goddard center's campus in Greenbelt. Dr. Kaufman began working at the space flight center in 1979 and spent his entire...
Lee Jong-woo
Lee Jong-woo, age 61, died on May 22, 2006 after suffering a blood clot on the brain. Lee was spearheading the organization's fight against global threats from bird flu, AIDS and other infectious diseases. WHO director-general since 2003, Lee was his country's top...
Leonid Strachunsky
Leonid Strachunsky died on June 8, 2005 after being hit on the head with a champagne bottle. Strachunsky specialized in creating microbes resistant to biological weapons. Strachunsky was found dead in his hotel room in Moscow, where he had come from Smolensk en route...
Robert J. Lull
Robert J. Lull, age 66, died on May 19, 2005 of multiple stab wounds. Despite his missing car and apparent credit card theft, homicide Inspector Holly Pera said investigators aren't convinced that robbery was the sole motive for Lull's killing. She said a robber would...
David Banks
David Banks, age 55, died on May 8, 2005. Banks, based in North Queensland, died in an airplane crash, along with 14 others. He was known as an Agro Genius inventing the mosquito trap used for cattle. Banks was the principal scientist with quarantine authority,...
Todd Kauppila
Todd Kauppila, age 41, died on May 8, 2005 of hemorrhagic pancreatitis at the Los Alamos hospital, according to the state medical examiner's office. A picture of him was not available to due secret nature of his work. His death came two days after Kauppila publicly...
Dr. Douglas James Passaro
Dr. Douglas James Passaro, age 43, died on April 18, 2005 from unknown cause in Oak Park, Illinois. Dr. Passaro was a brilliant epidemiologist who wanted to unlock the secrets of a spiral-shaped bacteria that causes stomach disease. He was a professor who challenged...
Geetha Angara
Geetha Angara, age 43, died on February 8, 2005. This formerly missing chemist was found in a Totowa, New Jersey water treatment plant's tank. Angara, 43, of Holmdel, was last seen on the night of Feb. 8 doing water quality tests at the Passaic Valley Water Commission...
Jeong H. Im
Jeong H. Im, age 72, died on January 7, 2005. Korean Jeong H. Im, died of multiple stab wounds to the chest before firefighters found in his body in the trunk of a burning car on the third level of the Maryland Avenue Garage. A retired research assistant professor at...
Tom Thorne & Beth Williams
Tom Thorne, age 64; Beth Williams, age 53; died December 29, 2004. Two wild life scientists, Husband-and-wife wildlife veterinarians who were nationally prominent experts on chronic wasting disease and brucellosis were killed in a snowy-weather crash on U.S. 287 in...
Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher
Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher died on December 21, 2004. Iraqi nuclear scientist was shot dead north of Baghdad by unknown gunmen. He was on his way to work at Diyala University when armed men opened fire on his car as it was crossing a bridge in Baqouba, 57 km northeast of...
John R. La Montagne
John R. La Montagne, age 61, died on November 2, 2004. Montagne Died while in Mexico, no cause stated, later disclosed as pulmonary embolism. He was a PhD and Head of US Infectious Diseases unit under Tommie Thompson. Montagne Was NIAID Deputy Director and an expert...
Matthew Allison
Matthew Allison, age 32, died on October 13, 2004 in a fatal explosion of a car parked at an Osceola County, Florida Wal-Mart store. It was no accident, Local 6 News has learned. Allison was found inside a burned car. Witnesses said the man left the store at about 11...
Michael Petrich
Michael Perich, age 46, died on October 11, 2003. He was killed in a single-vehicle car accident. The LSU West Nile research scientist was wearing his seat belt and drowned. He was an LSU professor who helped fight the spread of the West Nile virus. Perich, who was...
Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani
Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani, age 40, died on September 5, 2004. The Iraqi nuclear scientist was shot dead in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. He was a practicing nuclear physics since 1984.
Professor John Clark
Professor John Clark, Age 52, died on August 12, 2004. He was found hanged in his holiday home. He was an expert in animal science and biotechnology where he developed techniques for the genetic modification of livestock; this work paved the way for the birth, in...