Hagedorn was born in Milwaukee, WI on 4 April 1940. He attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison (UW-Madison), receiving a B.S. degree in 1965 and an M.S. degree in 1966. There, he became interested in insect physiology under the influence of Dr. Stanley Beck. He finished a Ph.D. degree in 1970 at the University of California, Davis with Dr. Charles L. Judson. He had a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Connecticut with Dr. Hans Laufer and another at Yale University with Dr. Gerard R. Wyatt. In 1972 he was a Fertilization and Gamete Physiology Trainee in Woods Hole with Dr. William H. Telfer. In 1973 he joined the faculty of the entomology department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He moved to Cornell University in 1977, and to the UA-Tucson in 1988. In 1981, Hagedorn was awarded a Von Humboldt Senior Science Fellowship in Tübingin Germany. He became a Fellow of the AAAS in 1988. He retired in 2005 and moved back to Wisconsin where he is an adjunct member of the Department of Entomology at UW-Madison.
Research in Hagedorn’s laboratory focused on egg development in the mosquito, Aedes aegypti (L.). His group’s research on hormonal control of egg development led to the discovery that 20-hydroxyecdysone regulated the expression of the vitellogenin genes, and the fact that the ovary was the source of ecdysone. They also examined the roles of juvenile hormone in egg development. This work led to a model for understanding the multiple roles of these hormones in mosquitoes.
Hagedorn was director of the Center for Insect Science in Arizona for 5 years. He led a group of students and teachers that produced materials for primary school teachers (http://insected.arizona.edu). He also worked with Emory and Marlene Sekaquaptewa, to produce a video, “Hopi Corn: The Mother of Life” (http://insected.arizona.edu/Hopicorn.html).
Hagedorn taught a variety of courses for undergraduate and graduate students. The course he enjoyed the most was “Views of Life,” a biology course for non-majors. The course title was taken from the last paragraph of On the Origin of Species. He enjoyed the challenge to instill an appreciation for evolution in non-science majors.
In 2001 Hagedorn started the Journal of Insect Science, an open access online journal, with the support of Dean Carla Stoffle of the library at UA-Tucson. The journal has become an international journal that covers all aspects of the biology of insects and other arthropods. The journal is published by the Department of Entomology at UW-Madison (http://www.insectscience.org).
Updated, May 2013