About Tom Duff

   Tom Duff was raised in Aspinwall, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh.  From an early age he enjoyed drawing whenever possible, often to the displeasure of his primary and secondary school teachers.  After high school he entered Haverford College, intending to go into medicine, but in his senior year, having grown up in a firmly religious home, became interested in theology and instead enrolled at Yale University Divinity School.  Shortly after graduation he realized that he’d prefer being in a more useful field and returned to his initial plan to go to medical school.  He entered Case-Western Reserve School of Medicine where he was quickly drawn to neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.  Following graduation he did a surgical internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital and then went to the University of Virginia where he completed a neurosurgical residency.  Thereafter he joined the neurosurgical department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and remained there until retirement.  

       A major reason for retiring was a resurgence of his interest in art, a resurgence that was in part stimulated by a chance reading of Dante’s “Inferno”, a work that since its first printing in 1472 has attracted the attention of numerous artists.  Traces of his religious background appear in much of Tom’s early artwork, but over time his interests have turned towards the endless fascinations of the secular world.  

     Tom has two grown sons from his first marriage, Tim and Peter, and now resides in Hilton Head, SC with his always inspiring wife, Megan Sisson, and their Irish Doodle, Finn.