If you ever sit down to chat with Peter Pribis, Andrews University nutrition professor, give yourself at least an hour. The Slovakian native has more stories than Uncle Arthur, Uncle Dan, and Aunt Sue combined, and when listening to his boyhood tales of communism and Cambridge it’s easy to lose track of time.

Pribis did not have a typical childhood by American or Slovakian standards. None of the other boys in the little mountain village of Poprad, for example, had the opportunity to leave the country twice and study English at Cambridge, a rare luxury in communist Slovakia. “I was the exception, in this respect,” Pribis confesses, explaining, “The man in charge of issuing passports had always dreamed that his son would learn to play the accordion. My mother was a music teacher. The son was lazy and never practiced, but my mother was patient with him, and one day the official came to her and said, ‘you know, if any of you would ever like to take a trip … .’” And so, with the sponsorship of an Austrian uncle, the young Pribis was able to spend two summers in England.

This taste of life abroad whet Pribis’s appetite for travel, and he headed for southern California in 1990 after earning a M.D. in Internal Medicine at Charles University, Prague. Pribis completed a Doctorate in Public Health at Loma Linda University in 1996, and subsequently held various research and consulting posts in the Czech Republic and southern Germany before landing a position in the Andrews University Department of Nutrition in 2004.

An experienced mover, Pribis has had no trouble settling into a quieter life in rural Berrien Springs, where he lives with his wife, Natasa, and their two daughters, Abigail and Aimee.

Aaron Beaumont, University Relations student news writer