Want to get on Dr. Alice Waegel’s good side? Ask for a tour of her gardens. As winter drags on, the world might seem dead to many of us — but not to Dr. Waegel. The Neumann University microbiologist nurtures a winter garden of mosses, Winterberry Hollies, red twigged dogwoods and even flowers that bloom when Pennsylvania is at its coldest. 
The daughter of two chemists, Dr. Waegel developed an early passion for science. Her interest was bolstered during her teen years when — as a student at John Dickinson High School in Wilmington, Delaware — she was taught by a passionate biology teacher named Mr. Gilligan. Captivated by the study of the biological world, her destiny was set.
She went on to earn a B.S. and a Ph.D in biology from the University of Delaware. Since 1984, Dr. Waegel has taught at Neumann, where she hopes to pass along Mr. Gilligan’s enthusiasm to the next generation. The winner of the 2004 Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award, she leads courses such as microbiology, molecular biology, plant biology and parasitology. Decades into her career, she remains fascinated by the link between diseases and microorganisms, especially by the appearance of AIDS, which seemingly came out of nowhere in the early ’80s.
Dr. Waegel encourages students to actively participate in her plant tissue culture research program, and in her classes where she requires them to write “minute papers.” At the end of class, students write down something that occurred to them or something they wondered about, and then pen a question to their teacher. Dr. Waegel chooses the best questions to answer the following class.
If one of the questions was: “Would you like to tour MY garden?” she would probably say ‘yes.’ Visiting other people’s gardens — especially ornamental ones specializing in mosses and ferns — is one of her favorite pastimes.