2025 Haggerty Award for Research Excellence Recipient

Dr. Brian Bennett is an internationally recognized expert in the technique of electron paramagnetic resonance, an important tool for understanding molecular structure and catalytic mechanisms in a variety of important materials and chemical and life processes. Bennett’s world-class research program is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary, at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. 

His 30 years studying metalloenzymes has provided important knowledge about the molecular mechanisms of such processes as metabolism, hormone processing, tumor growth and metastasis, pathogenic infection, bacterial resistance, inherited genetic disease, pharmaceutical biosynthesis and bioremediation. His more recent work with cancer cell lines and biopsy tissue has impacted the understanding of cancer treatment and the molecular mechanisms of cancer genesis and proliferation. 

Bennett’s enterprise has resulted in almost $15 million in federal research support. He also continues to serve the Milwaukee scientific community as an adjunct professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin; as a collaborator of the Cancer Center, the Southeast Wisconsin Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Children’s Research Institute; and as a regular dissertation committee member at Marquette, MCW and at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 

“It is an honor to be inducted into a group that includes my esteemed scientific colleagues Bill Donaldson, Scott Reid, John Borg, Rosemary Stuart, Chieu Tran and Jim Kincaid,” Bennett says. “The award is important by prompting us, on an annual basis, to reconsider the need and value of research to society and humanity at large, and to Marquette and our mission, in particular. In my own case, I feel it is a recognition of the increasing trend toward, and value of, multidisciplinary and collaborative research, and I gratefully accept it on behalf of my many mentors, colleagues, trainees and students over the years.”