Dr. Waters received his B.S. and D.V.M. degrees from Cornell University and his PhD degree from the University of Minnesota. He is currently Professor of Comparative Oncology and Associate Director of the Center on Aging and The Life Course at Purdue University. Since 2005, Dr. Waters has served as Director of The Center for Exceptional Longevity Studies at the Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation. Appointed to The National Academies of Sciences – Keck Futures Initiative Scientific Panel on Extending Human Healthspan in 2007, he is nationally recognized for his work on utilizing pet dogs as models of human aging. He is a Fellow in the Biology of Aging, Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Waters is also an expert on the comparative aspects of prostate cancer in men and dogs. His research, which targets the underexplored intersection of the fields of aging and cancer, is aimed at developing personalized interventions that promote successful aging and cancer avoidance. As a teacher, Dr. Waters contributes significantly to Purdue University's Dual Title PhD Program in Gerontology. His course"To See and To Seize Opportunities" offers inter-disciplinary graduate students the opportunity to explore the skills and attitudes that promote self-renewal and peak performance in discovering and educating. In 2005, he was awarded The Great Teacher Award for Exemplary Interdisciplinary Teaching at Purdue. In 2010, his cross-country scientific expedition to study the oldest-living pet dogs in their homes (“The Old Grey Muzzle Tour") was featured in USA Today, AARP Bulletin, and Good Morning America. His recent TED^x talk"The Oldest Dogs as Our Greatest Teachers: Get the Words Out of Your Eyes" underscores how language limits the scientific method.

Creative excellence in interdisciplinary discovering and educating demands an open-mindedness to fresh ways of thinking.  This paper explores a novel method of achieving such excellence: Scientists-in-training could benefit from paying more attention to language. It argues that, in contrast to the conventional, single-minded approach to scientific training that relies so heavily upon analytical problem solving, we should nurture the development of imagino-analytical expertise so that each investigator can make richer interpretations of their glimpses of Nature. Specifically, it will be argued that by opening the minds of scientists-in-training to the intellectually versatile and illuminating expressions of Wallace Stevens, we strengthen their preparation for a life of discovering, for seeing and reporting in a flickering world of words.  By situating Stevens in science education, we will come to recognize more fully how categories and the act of naming – our use of language – limit the scientific method. Ultimately, by seeing the prime goal of education as the pursuit of contextual self-description – the description of moving Self-in-changing World – we position ourselves to guide a new generation of scientists in the process of becoming tomorrow’s imagino-analytical leaders.