Brodl joined the Knox faculty in 1986 as a visiting instructor of Biology. He received his BA in biology, cum laude, from Knox in 1981, his MS from the University of Illinois, and his PhD from Washington University in St. Louis.
Brodl, who studies the heat shock response of plant cells, won a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1991, as well as a 1991 Sears Roebuck Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership. He has won Knox's Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching and has been a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkeley. Brodl has presented talks at conferences worldwide and has published more than 80 abstracts and articles in numerous scientific journals, many of which were co-authored with Knox students.
The Wallace C. Abbott Professorship was established in 1939 by a bequest from Mr. Abbott's widow, Clara A. Abbott. An 1854 graduate of the Knox Academy, Dr. Wallace C. Abbott was the founder of Abbott Laboratories, a multi-billion dollar chemical and pharmaceutical company. The Abbott Professorship, which recognizes excellence in the teaching of life sciences, was most recently held by Arthur C. Walton, who taught at Knox from 1924 to 1966.
Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college, located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.
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