Volume 15, Number 10
- Data science major flexes analysis muscles with AI internship at Northwestern MutualHave you ever typed a question into ChatGPT and had it return an answer that was almost, but just not quite, right? Khatera Nazari knows that frustration well. Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company has an internal …
- History professor’s new book explores “how to” manuals for meditative retreatsYou’re familiar with the image of a wise old man meditating on a mountaintop as a weary traveler climbs the treacherous path to ask this sage for his knowledge. But how did that wise man …
- UWM debuts new data analytics and AI certificateThis semester, UW-Milwaukee is debuting its undergraduate Multidisciplinary Data Analytics and Applied Artificial Intelligence certificate. The new certificate is designed to complement nearly any academic major so that students are prepared not only for a …
- UWM is Making New WavesThe University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | Make New Waves celebrates our community’s curiosity, creativity and impact. At UWM, ideas create ripples that grow into waves of progress that uplift entire communities. Those ripples start in labs, …
- What can you do with a Journalism, Advertising, & Media Studies major?Every year, graduates from the College of Letters & Science enter the workforce and begin to contribute thousands of dollars to their local, state, and national economies. They bring the skills and knowledge they gained …
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Alumni Accomplishments
Edgar Mendez (‘09, BA Sociology and Journalism, Advertising, & Media Studies) was promoted to managing editor of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Mendez has a long history with the publication and was one of the newsroom’s founding reporters. He won a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award in 2018 and multiple Milwaukee Press Club honors between 2015-21.
Chris Fons (’87, BA; ’95, MA History)) was recently elected to the school board of Milwaukee Public Schools, where he will draw on his background in teaching and education to advocate for public schools as an equalizing force in the community. Fons is also the co-founder of Riverwest 24, a 24-hour bike race in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood. He was recently profiled in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Elizabeth Brzeski (‘02, BA History and Religious Studies) was named the Chief Operating Officer of St. John’s on the Lake, a luxury senior living community, in August. Brzeski was most recently the vice president of specialty service for Agrace in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.
Dennis McBride (‘76, BA Journalism) is the author of a new book, A City on the Edge: Pandemic, Protest and Polarization. The book details his time as the newly-elected mayor of Wauwatosa in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. McBride spoke about his book on WORT Radio in September.
Tammy Gilpin-Ripp (93, BA Mass Communication) served as a stage manager at the 40th anniversary Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago. In her role she greeted authors, moderators and audience members as well as presented an overview of the festival, highlighted/thanked sponsors, encouraged festival-supporting donations, shared program participant bios and book purchase opportunities, and kept the program running on time for stage transitions.
Laurels & Accolades
Associate Professor Peter Sands (English) has been elected to the Council on Honors Education Executive Board for a three-year term. COHE is the advocacy, policy, and leadership organization for Honors colleges and programs at APLU-member institutions. Sands has also been reappointed to the Professional Development Committee of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC).
Professor Mike Allen (Communication) will be awarded the National Communication Association Mark L. Knapp Award in Interpersonal Communication at the annual convention in November. This award, one of the organization’s most prestigious, recognizes career contributions to the study of interpersonal communication and individuals who have made significant scholarly contributions to the study of interaction and/or relational processes. The recipient will also have contributed to the quality of interpersonal communication through active involvement in the discipline, significant mentoring of students, and/or public service focused on interpersonal communication.
Assistant Professor Lia Medeiros (Physics) contributed to the collection of new, detailed images of a super-massive black hole which reveal a dynamic environment with unexpected changing polarization patterns. The images were captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, and the images are available for viewing online.
Students in UWM’s Chinese Program connected with Brookfield East High School on Sept. 24 as part of the program’s ongoing commitment to community outreach and cultural exchange. During the visit, UWM students delivered a presentation titled, “Tasty, Techy, and Green: Exploring China with UWM Students.” Senior Teaching Faculty Lu Yin opened the session with an introduction to UWM and the Chinese Program. UWM students then shared highlights from their summer study experience in China, touching on topics such as electric vehicles, robotics, AI, transportation, digital infrastructure, cuisine, and cross-cultural communication.
In the Media and around the Community
After his passing at the age of 91, Urban Milwaukee published a remembrance of Distinguished Professor emeritus Reginald Horsman (History).
PhD student Nkwocha Stephen Tochi (Chemistry & Biochemistry) was interviewed in The Guardian (Nigeria) about his education and water policy advocacy work in his home country of Nigeria.
Lecturer Rick Edwards (Anthropology) presented a talk on “Archaeology of Oneota Villages and Community Building at Lake Koshkonong” during the “Lunch and Learn” series at the Waukesha County Museum in September.
Professor emerita Kimberly Blaeser (English) starred in the Dickinson Poetry Series in Door County in September. The series features regular readings of renowned local or regional poets.
After UnitedHealthcare and Ascension Wisconsin announced that the insurer may drop the healthcare provider from its network, Distinguished Professor John Heywood (Economics) explained the contract negotiations at play for Spectrum 1 News.
As further details about the UnitedHealthcare and Ascension Wisconsin insurance dispute became clearer, Professor Scott Adams (Economics) explained on WTMJ Radio how there are fewer large hospital groups in Wisconsin than in the past and how that impacts people buying health insurance.
How cool are the windows of UWM’s new Chemistry Building? Very, according to The Architect’s Newspaper.
Professor Jeffrey Sommers (African & African Diaspora Studies and Global Studies program) was the feature interview for Edge podcast on Sept. 16’s episode titled, “Continuity and Rupture in American Foreign Policy: Global and Regional Consequences.” He also penned a piece for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explaining how the recent jobs report demonstrated the impacts of governmental economic policies.
WUWM Radio reported on how the UWM Planetarium acknowledged Latine heritage month with its “A Night in Guatemala” program in September. The Planetarium also hosted invited the community to come celebrate “Observe the Moon Night” on Oct. 4 with telescopes and outdoor activities.
Professor emerita Brenda Cárdenas (English), who is the Wisconsin Poet Laureate, gave a reading of her work Notre Dame University in September.
It seems that old ideas are being increasingly recycled in Hollywood to play on people’s nostalgia and entice them to come to the movies. But that strategy can backfire, undergraduate Ian Dugenske (English and Film Studies) warned in the Badger Herald.
Alumna Rebekah Beaulieu (‘06, MA Art History) was profiled on the American Alliance of Public Museum’s website as she discussed her work as the CEO of the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinatti.
Milwaukee hosted QWERTYFEST, a three-day celebration of the typewriter, in early October. The occasion was marked with several events, including talk hosted by Associate Dean of the Humanities Jason Puskar (English) and UWM alum Bobby Tanzilo (‘89, BA Mass Communication).
Commweal Magazine gave a short analysis and review of Professor emeritus John Koethe’s (English) latest volume of poetry, Centuries and Galaxies, in September.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding research to combat diseases that impact the country’s citrus crops. The USDA recently reported on success by Distinguished Professor Ching-Hong Yang (Biological Sciences) in developing a compound known as Reju Agro that has shown immense promise in treating citrus crop diseases.
New fossil evidence discovered by Visiting Assistant Professor Erik Gulbranson and Distinguished Professor John Isbell (both Geosciences) suggests that Antartica used to be covered by lush forests before dinosaurs ever walked the Earth. The news was reported on Ancient-Code.com.
People in Print
Associate Professor Nan Kim (History). 2025. Introduction: Martial Law Crisis and Democratic Renewal in South Korea [Special section Guest Editor’s essay]. Critical Asian Studies, 57(3): 351-356.
Professor Joel Rast (Urban Studies). 2025. Racial Governance in Postwar Chicago: A Multiple Orders Perspective. Urban Affairs Review, 61(5): 1314-1344.
Emily Godager and Professor Sarah E. Riforgiate (Communication). 2025. Workplace resocialization after parental leave as a site of work/life paradox in three boundary-setting contexts. Behavioral Sciences, 15(9): 124.
Vilashini Rajaratnam (‘22, PhD), Mohammad Mohiminul Islam (‘22, PhD), dissertator Ethan F. Kub, dissertator Franca Ohikhuare, and Shama P. Mirza (all Chemistry & Biochemistry). 2025. Physicochemical assays, pharmacokinetics, and tissue distribution of ARN14988, an acid ceramidase inhibitor, for glioblastoma therapy. Int J Pharm, 681:125891.
Associate Professor Sara VanderHaagen (Communication). 2025. Community and Critique: The Rhetorical Activism of Black American Women’s Memory Work. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Amanda S. Gallinat, Distinguished Professor Mark D. Schwartz, Professor Alison Donnelly (both Geography), Xiaolu Li, and Theresa M. Crimmins. 2025. Combined volunteer and ecological network observations show broad-scale temperature-sensitivity patterns for deciduous plant flowering and leaf-out times across the eastern USA. Journal of Ecology. Online.
Passings
Robert “Bob” Greenler passed away on Sept. 21, 2025 at the age of 95. He spent his full life marveling at the beauty of the natural world and sharing that wonder with his students and community.
Bob joined the UW-Milwaukee faculty as a professor of physics in 1962. He helped to found and shepherd the university’s Laboratory for Surface Studies and was a co-founder of Letters & Science’s popular “Science Bag” series. Beyond the university, Bob was involved in his field, serving in various offices in the Optical Society of America, the American Institute of Physics, and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. He also authored several books.
Bob left lasting legacies at UW-Milwaukee. His work will continue to resonate throughout the city, not only through the students he taught, but also in the College of Letters & Science’s Dean Distinguished Lecture in the Natural Sciences series, for which he provided the start-up funding.
A full obituary is available for viewing online.