McGuire Center For Lepidoptera and Biodiversity

Honoree

William W. and Nadine M. McGuire

William W. and Nadine M. McGuire have made significant contributions to the University of Florida with involvement in both facilities and programming related to the arts, natural sciences and the environment.

They are both graduates of the University of Texas at Austin, where Bill pursued a liberal arts program and earned a B.A., and Nadine received a B.S. in textiles and fashion design. Bill later received his M.D. from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston; became Board Certified in Internal Medicine and then Pulmonary Medicine [following a medical residency and a pulmonary fellowship at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio.]; conducted basic research in inflammatory processes involving the lung at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California; and was a practicing physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After leaving the daily practice of medicine, he became the chairman and CEO of UnitedHealth Group from 1991 until his retirement in late 2006. Dr. McGuire is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

In addition to a focus on raising their two daughters, Nadine has been actively involved in the support and leadership of a variety of local as well as national arts organizations. These include the Guthrie Theater, the Walker Arts Center, and the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Together, Bill and Nadine have directed their philanthropic efforts to the arts, education, biomedical research and initiatives involving our natural environment. At the University of Florida, they extended their lifelong interest in butterflies, which began with collecting trips while in college, to helping to build and support the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, the Butterfly Rainforest, and creation of the Institute for Biodiversity and the Environment, as well as facilities for education and training in the performing arts.

Facility History

The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity comprises a 50,000 square feet building complex that serves museum-collection and laboratory-based research functions as well as public education. Three floors of specially constructed, climate-controlled, pest-proof, and natural disaster-proof collection rooms will accommodate up to 20 million Lepidoptera specimens and abundant research space for University of Florida students and staff as well as hundreds of visiting lepidopterists annually who wish to study the collections.

State-of-the art laboratories focus on molecular genetics, scanning electron microscopy, morphology and physiology, digital image analysis of chromosomes and other small structures, sound analysis, conservation and captive propagation of endangered species, optical microscopy, and specimen preparation. A large professional Library, classrooms, greenhouses and special culture rooms, conference rooms and offices for 12 faculty curators, collection managers and other staff, and several dozen graduate students and undergraduate research assistants, complement and support the world's largest collection of adult and immature Lepidoptera representing over 9.5 million specimens as of 2009.

The great biodiversity research collections, including many rare and extinct species, together with the largest group of curatorial staff, researchers and students studying Lepidoptera in the world, make the University of Florida the top research center for anyone wishing to study taxonomy, evolution, ecology, conservation, genetics, development, and other scientific fields involving Lepidoptera.

The center also includes extensive and informative public exhibits that have brought in over 100,000 new visitors annually to campus. These include a 6800-square-foot living Butterfly Rainforest, and thousands of square feet of exhibit galleries that feature specimens, photographs, videos, and scientifically detailed information about Lepidoptera, the Center's biodiversity research programs, and rainforests worldwide.

Click here to visit the McGuire Center virtually through UF's campus map