For Elena Enache-Pommer, Penn State professor Michael Horman was a person she could talk to about anything.

Enache-Pom-mer knew Hor-man for more than three years, working with him as a graduate student and later his research assistant. She remembers him as a laid-back Australian who was full of energy.

"He was always joking around," she said. "He would bring up Australian football --he was someone who I could really talk to about everything. He was a good friend."

Horman, an associate professor of architectural engineering, died Tuesday at the Mount Nittany Medical Center after collapsing Monday while teaching a graduate class. He had taught at Penn State for nine years.

An autopsy found one of his main arteries was 80 percent blocked, causing heart failure, his wife Cheryl Horman said.

Michael Horman was 38 years old. He is survived by his wife and two children: Olivia, 10, and Joshua, 6.

"We loved him very much," his wife said Tuesday. "He was a great father, a great husband and a great teacher. He was generous and kind and loving."

Department of Architectural Engineering head Chimay Anumba said the department is saddened and shocked by the loss.

"He will be very fondly remembered by his students," he said. "He worked very hard. He was highly respected by his colleagues, including at other universities internationally."

Horman earned his bachelors and masters degrees at the University of Melbourne, Australia, according to his department Web site.

His teaching and research focused on "lean production methods and green construction," Anumba said.

Horman was the director of the Lean and Green Research Initiative at Penn State and general editor for the Journal of Green Building

He served as a specialty editor for the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, a faculty adviser for the student chapter of the Design-Build Institute of America at Penn State and an adviser to the Interagency Sustainability Working Group.