Our Lives Before the Archive

Before the FBI records, FOIA litigation, police reports, and University memoranda, there were two physicians building careers in academic medicine while raising a family between Ann Arbor and Baltimore.

Dr. Myria Petrou was born and raised in Cyprus and was the only child of two public school teachers. Her father, Petros Petrou, taught high school physics, while her mother, Maria Petrou, taught mathematics. Myria attended the University of Cambridge on a highly competitive Commonwealth Scholarship before coming to the United States for radiology training at the University of Michigan. Dr. Bradley Foerster was born in the United Kingdom, the son of a Lutheran mission pastor, and moved to Caro, Michigan at the age of five. He later graduated as salutatorian from Caro High School before earning a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, graduating summa cum laude. During college, he worked as a co-op engineering student and later worked for Dow Chemical Company in research engineering and technical sales before returning to medical training and eventually pursuing neuroradiology and imaging research.

The two met in Ann Arbor during residency training in 2001. Their professional and academic lives would later become closely intertwined through neuroradiology, neuroimaging research, teaching, and academic medicine.

Over the following years, both trained and worked at major academic institutions including the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Foerster later completed a PhD in Clinical Investigation through the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins focused on ALS imaging research and translational neuroscience. Their work collectively included research involving neurodegenerative disease, chronic pain, Parkinson disease, dementia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The record includes NIH-funded research activity, peer-reviewed publications, invited lectures, teaching responsibilities, and faculty appointments spanning more than a decade.

Outside the institutional record, however, there was also ordinary family life.

The years in Baltimore and Ann Arbor were defined not only by research and academic advancement, but by the long clinical hours and relentless pace of medical training and academic medicine — overnight call schedules, weekend hospital coverage, fellowship responsibilities, research deadlines, grant writing, conferences, teaching obligations, and raising young children while simultaneously caring for aging parents.

During that period, Dr. Petrou’s mother underwent colon cancer surgery while her father was diagnosed with Cushing’s syndrome requiring major endocrine surgery. Those events unfolded while both physicians were balancing fellowship training, faculty responsibilities, research programs, pregnancy, newborn children, and the demands of two academic medical careers.

Ultimately, the family returned to the University of Michigan following recruitment discussions involving radiology and ALS imaging research opportunities.

What followed afterward became fragmented across University of Michigan records, Ann Arbor Police Department investigative materials, HHS-OIG correspondence, FBI interview summaries, peer review proceedings, financial and foreclosure records, and ultimately federal FOIA litigation involving more than 500 pages of FBI records.

Amid the institutional fragmentation, prolonged litigation, financial pressures, and years of uncertainty, the family also raised two remarkable children who remain at the center of their lives.

The purpose of this archive is not simply to preserve disputes or allegations.

It is to preserve chronology, records, institutional interactions, and the human timeline that existed before — and during — the creation of the institutional record itself.

Before the archive, there was a real life.

Before the records, there was a family.

And through everything that followed, the family endured — sustained by love, commitment, resilience, and two remarkable children who remain at the center of their lives.

St. John’s Cathedral, Old Nicosia, Cyprus — October 3, 2004
Wedding ceremony conducted by Bishop George of Cyprus (now Archbishop Georgios III).

Peter, Brad, Maria, and Myria

Related material:

Town & Gown: Maria Petrou, Paul Cronin, and the Evolution of the “Nick” Allegations, Foreclosure, and Eviction
A chronology examining the evolution of the “Nick” allegations, the Ann Arbor police investigation, foreclosure and eviction proceedings, and overlapping relationships involving Maria Petrou, Paul Cronin, and the University of Michigan.

Related Reporting

Brad Foerster, MD PhD

Brad Foerster is a FOIA advocate documenting requests, transparency disputes, and accountability investigations involving public agencies, universities, police oversight, and Russia-Gate related inquiries. His work compiles original documents, timelines, and analysis of public records and institutional responses. Brad is also a board-certified radiologist, author of Town & Gown, and has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles. Brad lives in Potomac, Maryland with his family and is active in the Montgomery County Medical Society and the Takoma Park U.S. & World History Book Club.