Robert T. Brown earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in botany from the University of Wisconsin - Madison before joining the forestry faculty at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology (now Michigan Technological University) in Houghton, Michigan. He was instrumental in establishing the Department of Biological Sciences in 1962. He received the Medal of Forestry from Finland for his research on conifer growth rates, and three Fulbright Fellowships: to Turkey, Finland, and Trinidad. In addition, he served as an educational consultant in India, courtesy of the Agency for International Development. Robert and his wife, Viola, shared a love of nature and the environment and together worked to protect it. The Keweenaw Land Trust awarded Robert and Viola the organization's Heart and Hand Award in 2000 for their years of work in promoting peace, justice, and environmental stewardship. In 2002, the Michigan Nature Association dedicated its recently acquired Perrault Bog as the Dr. Robert Brown Teaching Sanctuary in honor of Brown who often took his classes there to learn about wetland ecology. Professor Emeritus Robert Brown passed away in August of 2002 (excerpted from "On These Foundations," http://www.engr.wisc.edu/che/newsletter/2008_winter/cbe_summer2004.pdf, a publication for alumni and friends of UW-Madison's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, accessed May 2011).