Close Up
For Titus and Bisantz, a match made at UB
Ann Bisantz and Albert Titus relax with their daughter, Sara, in their North Buffalo home. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI
In a crisply pressed shirt and bow-tie, Albert Titus leans back behind his desk in Bonner Hall as he waits for his wife and fellow UB faculty member, Ann Bisantz. A few minutes later, she walks in, smiling as she takes a chair across from him.
“What did I miss?” she asks, giving the impression that, in fact, she misses very little. “I was trying to remember when we moved from Batavia to Buffalo,” Titus replies with a lopsided grin, telling her his guess.
Bisantz grins back. “Nope… we moved in 2003.” They also couldn’t quite agree on when they began dating.
Titus and Bisantz do agree that they’ve known each other since 1985, when they were undergraduate engineering students in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. By the time they had earned master’s degrees from UB in 1991, the two were a couple. Both chose Georgia Tech for graduate school, married in 1995, and with PhDs in hand, Bisantz returned to UB in 1997 as an assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering, while Titus took a job at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He joined her at UB four years later, in the Department of Electrical Engineering.
Bisantz and Titus lived in the Governors Complex with small group of other honors students. Titus recalls how helpful it was to be part of a tightly knit group at such a large university. “We were all very close,” adds Bisantz. “We’d study together, spend most of our social time together, and we were in most of the same classes. So it’s like we always knew each other.”
What did they do for fun? Bisantz throws Titus a look. “We studied a lot… I guess you could say we were typical engineering nerds,” she says wryly. They were members of the UB Pep Band and fondly recall its “low-key” vibe; they wore oversized sweatshirts instead of uniforms at home football games, and there was no budget for travel to away games.
“I notice a lot more students wearing UB gear now than when we were students,” Titus says. “Having Division I football helps.”
They also remember a very different-looking UB campus: The Student Union was brand-new, math and chemistry courses were still taught on the South Campus, and there was a shared microwave on each floor of the dorms. No Commons, no Center for the Arts. There were, however, some lingering memories among some upperclassmen and faculty from the years without a student union, and even of the campus unrest in the ’60s and ’70s. “The pay lot across the street used to be a muddy field, with puddles and ducks,” Bisantz recalls. “UB has certainly come a long way…”
Other aspects of UB life haven’t changed. They remember selling Kids Day newspapers along Millersport Highway, eating wings at Duff’s and sloshing around in the mud at Oozefest.
“Boy, all this makes me sound like a dinosaur!” Bisantz laughs.
The couple is anything but—they live happily in North Buffalo, near Delaware Park, with their 10-year-old daughter, Sara, and Olive, their labradoodle. Both say they love living in Buffalo (Bisantz was born and raised here) and agree that UB prepared them well for their professions.
Their accomplishments speak for themselves. In addition to his faculty position in electrical engineering, Titus has been named co-chair in charge of developing programs for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ new Department of Biomedical Engineering. An inventor and patent holder, he was named a 2007 “Visionary Innovator” by UB and received a 2010 UB Teaching Innovation Award.
Bisantz also mentors many students, and has been honored by the National Academy of Engineering for her work in human factors—the study of the interactions between humans and technology. She serves on the UB Child Care Center Board of Directors, which helped guide an extensive renovation of the child care facilities on the North and South campuses as part of the Building UB comprehensive plan.
For Bisantz, what’s been most remarkable about coming back to teach and do research at UB is how fulfilling it is to be able to work with some of their former professors and mentors.
“It’s nice to be on the other side of the desk with them,” Titus agrees.
At UB’s annual University Welcome in August, Bisantz relayed that message to incoming students, urging them to collaborate with faculty, get involved with campus activities, and—as she and her husband did years ago—connect with their fellow students.
“The people you meet and work with now will be your friends, and may become your professional colleagues, for many years to come,” she said.
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