Bob is a retired professor of biology from Bluffton University. He received a BS and MS in botany from Kent State University and a PhD from Virginia Tech. He has taught at the University of Montana, Clarkson University and Bluffton University. His primary interests are in higher fungi especially those fungi forming ectomycorrhizas. He has studied the ecology and physiology of ECM fungi associated with such species as arctic willows, Douglas fir, whitebark pine, jack pine, lodgepole pine, gray birch and various oaks. He has most recently been studying fungi of Ohio's oak savannas.