ANDY THLIVERIS
13
'REM E M BER T H E UN DERGRADS'
first department chair of Biology,
majored in biology as well as geology
had a profound impact on him. “He
and geophysics, and later attended
changed my life,” reported Thliveris
the U’s medical school where he
whose main message to the faculty
earned his MD, prepared him well.
and friends who had gathered was
Following his ophthalmology
“Remember the undergraduate
residency at Wisconsin in 1998, he
students.”
was a postdoctoral research fellow as a launch to his auspicious 28-year
IN DECEMBER 2022 , ANDREW "ANDY" THLIVERIS BS’83 MADE A SPECIAL TRIP TO SALT L AKE CIT Y WITH HIS WIFE L AUREN. THEY JOINED THE SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES IN A BELATED (DUE TO THE PANDEMIC) REMEMBRANCE OF K. GORDON L ARK WHO HAD PASSED AWAY MORE THAN TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS EARLIER IN APRIL 2020.
Vice Chair and Ophthalmology Residency Training Program Director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Thliveris, until his retirement in September, was also Chief of Ophthalmology at the W.S. Middleton VA Hospital and holds the rank of Professor at the School of Medicine in Madison. At the event Thliveris remembered that as an undergraduate he worked in the Lark Lab for five years and that Lark, the
Thliveris also surprised many by
career. After joining the faculty in
announcing that through his affiliation
2000, he took on the position of
with the Carl & Mary Ann Berg
Veterans Affairs Hospital service chief
Charitable Remainder Trust he had
and later, in 2014, vice chair of resident
arranged to fully fund the K. Gordon
education and residency director—
Lark Endowed Chair. The Lark fund
roles he held until his retirement
was established in 2017, followed in
and during which time he trained
July 2022 with a campaign to “reboot.”
countless physicians, including many
The ambition was to achieve the level
of the department’s own faculty.
of endowed professorship through an anonymous, matching donation of
At the announcement of his
$250,000. But with Thliveris’s brokered
retirement, Thliveris said, “Our
gift—added to many others from
residents are beyond amazing, and
generous individual donors—the Lark
the dedication from the faculty to
Endowment was elevated to the more
our program has made short work
prestigious level of endowed chair.
for our education team. We have a very proud tradition here and are
With his characteristic humor, Thliveris
poised to continue for generations to
was eager to recall his time in Lark’s
come.” In hearing the news, many in
Lab. He confessed to being that “pesky, nerdy undergrad—highmaintenance—known to call Gordon at 11 pm on several occasions, [until] finally, Gordon, then speaking to his post-doc Paul Keim, [said], ‘You’ve got to get this guy under control because I have no idea what the hell I told him last night.’” Clearly, Thliveris's sojourn at the U as an undergraduate where he
RESEARCH & ALUMNI | 2023
