Peter K. Hepler

Peter Klock Hepler HonFRMS (born 1936) is the Constantine J. Gilgut and Ray Ethan Torrey Professor Emeritus in the Biology Department of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who is notable for his work on elucidating the roles of calcium, membranes and the cytoskeleton in plant cell development and cell motility. Personal life Peter Klock Hepler was born on October 29, 1936, in Dover, New Hampshire, to Jesse Raymond Hepler and Rebecca Orpha Peterson Hepler. He married Margaret (Peggy) Dennison Hunt on March 7, 1964. They have three children: Sarah, Anna and Lukas. Peter and Peggy have six grandchildren: Finn, Leif, Louisa (Lulu), Jesse, Marit, and Haakon. In an interview published in the Newsletter of the American Society of Plant Biologists, Hepler was asked, "What is your most treasured possession?" He answered, "My family; but I don't possess them." Peter and Peggy Hepler live on a farm in Pelham, Massachusetts that was established in 1740 and is now a part of the Kestrel Land Trust. University life Peter Hepler graduated from Dover High School in 1954. He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire in 1958 and earned his Ph.D. in plant cell biology from University of Wisconsin in 1964, studying the role of cortical microtubules in plant cell development with Eldon H. Newcomb. After receiving his Ph.D., Hepler served at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research until 1966, studying malarial parasites. Hepler then returned to the University of Wisconsin for a postdoctoral fellowship and then became a postdoctoral fellow with Keith Porter at Harvard University from 1966 to 1967, where he continued his investigation of microtubules, focusing on their role in the mitotic apparatus and the phragmoplast of the endosperm cells of Haemanthus Katharinae. After being an assistant professor at Stanford University, Hepler joined the faculty in the Botany Department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He was an associate professor from 1977 to 1980, a professor from 1980 to 1989, and became the Ray Ethan Torrey Professor in 1989 and the Constantine J. Gilgut Professor in 1998. Hepler retired from the Biology Department as the Constantine J. Gilgut and Ray Ethan Torrey Professor Emeritus, although he continues to do research. Hepler spent many summers teaching and doing research at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.