Henry and Theresa Biggs

Born in St. Louis, Henry Biggs studied Classics at Harvard University.  Among the graduate degrees he has received are the following:

• PhD in Romance Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, 1996
• MBA, Washington University in St. Louis, 2004
• JD, Saint Louis University School of Law, 2011
• LLM in Intellectual Property, Washington University School of Law, 2012
  
• Master’s Degree in French Law, Université Paris-Dauphine, 2013.

At Washington University, he served in various administrative capacities for many years, including as Associate Dean in Arts & Sciences, Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, advisor of Thurtene Carnival, and Associate Director of the McDonnell International Scholars Academy. Currently teaches International Property Law at the Washington University School of Law and at the University of Strassbourg and Computational Linguistics in Arts and Sciences at Washington University.  He is CEO and General Counsel at OfCourse Scheduling. He has swum the English Channel and around Manhattan and has completed many marathons and a run of fifty miles. Through his long-distance athletics he has raised money for numerous St. Louis charities, including Big Brothers and Big Sisters, where he has been a mentor for over thirty years. Henry is the Honorary Consul of France in St. Louis.

After growing up in San Diego, Theresa Biggs earned a BA in French literature at the University of California, Berkeley. She met Henry at UCLA, where she completed an MA in Romance Linguistics, with a focus on French and Italian. She has been Adjunct Professor of Italian at St. Louis University for ten years. An avid gardener, she has been an active volunteer for the St. Louis Audubon Society and Shaw Nature Reserve.

Henry and Theresa recently endowed the Henry and Theresa Biggs Lecture in Linguistics.

Henry and Theresa are parents of four children:

• Jack Kim-Biggs, 24, graduated with a BA in French and a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.  He married his partner, Josh Kim-Biggs, an architecture student at Carnegie Mellon University and Korean national, in January 2017. Jack is a kernel engineer for Apple in Cupertino, CA. He plans to hike the Appalachian Trail starting in March 2018.
• Alex Biggs, 22, is a senior at Sarah Lawrence College and plans to be a librarian (though his father thinks he should be a writer).
• Charlie Biggs, 20, is a freshman at Harvard University.  In fall 2017 he took “The Heroes of the Hellenic Civilization” with Gregory Nagy (a former Biggs Resident), as his father did when he was a student at Harvard. Charlie, Jack and Henry Biggs hiked to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in June 2017. 
• Thomas Biggs, 13, is in the seventh grade at Mary Institute and Country Day School in St. Louis. He was the lower school chess champion and is also an avid tennis player.

Henry, Theresa, and Charlie Biggs played the roles of Pierre Laclede, Marie Therese Chouteau, and Auguste Chouteau in the reenactment of the founding of St. Louis for the city’s 250th anniversary in 2014.