Andrew Bent was born in Springfield, OH. He obtained a B.A. degree in biology, magnum cum laude, from Oberlin College in 1983 and a Ph.D. degree from MIT in 1989. Following post-doctoral work at the University of California-Berkeley, he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1994 and, in 1999, transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is currently professor of plant pathology. He has received multiple awards and recognition for his research and teaching, including the Pound Research Award (2002) for excellence in research at the University of Wisconsin.Bent is an eminent authority on the molecular mechanisms underlying plant disease resistance, including pathogen recognition, signaling events leading to gene activation, and the host defenses induced. His research primarily involves Arabidopsis as a model plant, whose rapid life cycle and facile genetics facilitate discovery of general principles applicable to other plants, such as soybean, which Bent also studies. His major contributions fall essentially into five major areas as follows.