Oral History Interview, Marion Greaser (1706)

Abstract

In his two 2017 interview sessions with Joan Parrish, Emeritus Professor of Animal and Meat Science Marion Greaser discusses his education and career spent at UW-Madison. In his first interview, Greaser discusses his early life on the farm, involvement in agricultural clubs and teams, and studying animal science at Iowa State. Greaser pursued his PhD at UW-Madison under the joint program in Biochemistry and Animal Science from 1964-1968. He discusses the campus atmosphere and notable faculty at the time of his graduate education. In his second interview session, Greaser discusses UW-Madison’s prominence in research of the PSE (pale, soft, exudative) issue in meat, including his own dissertation work. He also shares his research on subunits of troponin as postdoctoral fellow at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute before becoming a UW-Madison faculty member in 1971. He held an 80% research, 20% teaching appointment in Animal Science. Greaser discusses the courses he taught, departmental name changes, and collaboration with the Biochemistry Department. To close out the interview, Greaser extensively discusses his research on the titin protein. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the UW-Madison Archives and Records Management Oral History Program.