When he first appears in the strip, Doctor Hugo Glassvitch is Chief of Research at Transylvania Polygnostic University in Beetleburg, and a brilliant scientist in general, although not a Spark. He is a generally kind person and is the closest thing Doctor Silas Merlot has to a friend. He originally studied in Paris, possibly at the Paris Institute of the Extraordinary (where Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and Ardsley Wooster would eventually study), then came to TPU to work for and with Doctor Tarsus Beetle.