Deborah Breiter is the Bergmann Professor of Chemistry. She teaches a wide variety of major and non-major courses within the biological and chemical fields along with teaching in the first-year program. Breiter is a native of LaCrosse, Wis. and received a bachelor of arts degree from Grinnell College (Grinnell, Iowa) majoring in both chemistry and French. She was fortunate to spend her junior year spring semester in Rennes, France. She holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and did post-doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis Medical School. During both her graduate and post-doctoral careers, she held National Research Service Awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

After her postdoctoral studies, she started her teaching career with a one-year visiting assistant professorship at Reed College (Portland, Ore.) where she taught structural biochemistry and a non-majors general chemistry course. She continued her teaching career at Rockford University in the fall of 1996. She has taught a wide variety of courses at Rockford University, from chemistry, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry and immunology to first-year seminar. She has enjoyed teaching a number of team-taught courses, one such course concerning the Human Genome project led to a number of keynote speaker positions at conferences.

Dr. Breiter was the coordinator of first-year advising from the fall of 1998 to 2005, working with a specially trained team of faculty to ensure the academic success of first year students. She is a member of the American Chemistry Society (ACS), the American Crystallographic Association (ACA), the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and Sigma Xi (The Scientific Research Society). She has had the great honor to be awarded both the Advisor of the Year Award in 1999 and the Excellence in Teaching and Campus Leadership Award in 2002.