A conference champion distance freestyler, Todd Laverty was a member of three conference championship teams and four NAIA top four teams from 1975 to 1979.
Laverty won the 1650 freestyle as a freshman and in the process established a new conference record. He went on to earn NAIA All-American recognition that year and was named the team's Most Improved award winner.
Laverty earned his undergraduate degree in biology, graduating in 1979, then went on to earn his master's in biology in 1981. He left Eau Claire to become a Research Associate at the University of Utah for a year, then came back to the University of Minnesota to serve for a year as a Principal Lab Technician.
In 1983, he joined the staff at the University of California-Berkley as a Staff Research Associate. He has been a Senior Research Technician at UC-Berkley and the Howards Hughes Medical Institute since 1987.
Laverty has collaborated on numerous published articles as a research scientist in genetics. He and his wife Molly, a teacher, have two children: Tyler and Erin.