In Focus Magazine: January 2025

Volume 15, Number 1

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Alumni Accomplishments 

Robert Freckmann (‘62, BS Biology) was named a 2025 Inductee to the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame. He will be honored in a virtual ceremony in April. Freckmann taught botany and museum courses at UW-Stevens Point for 32 years and is credited with growing the university’s herbarium to over 230,000 specimens. The facility is now named after him. Previously, he worked at the Milwaukee Public Museum and has served on the boards of several conservation organizations.  

David Herro (‘85, MA Economics) was featured on Guru Focus to highlight his third quarter investment strategies. Herro is the chief investment officer for International Equities at Harris Associates and has been a manager of the Oakmark International Fund since 1992, the Oakmark International Small Cap Fund since 1995, the Oakmark Global Select Fund since 2006 and the Oakmark Global Fund since 2016. 

Joel Geier (‘19, MS Nonprofit Management) launched his new book, Flights Across America: A Brewery Lover’s Journey, in December at Lakefront Brewery. The book includes information and details Geier’s visits to more than 1,300 breweries across all 50 states. OnMilwaukee featured Geier in an article previewing the book. 

Kevin Cullen (‘08, MS Anthropology) was appointed the executive director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc in July. Cullen was previously the museum’s chief curator and deputy director and worked at Green Bay’s Neville Museum before that. Cullen is also an underwater archaeologist and was part of the team that discovered the remains of the sunken schooner Margaret A. Muir. 

Paul J. Hoffman (‘85, BA Mass Communications) has written his third book, 200 Years of First Presbyterian Church Columbus, Indiana (PathBinder Publishing LLC, 2024). A resident of Columbus, Indiana, he also wrote Murder in Wauwatosa: The Mysterious Death of Buddy Schumacher (The History Press, 2012) and Wicked Columbus, Indiana (The History Press, 2017). Hoffman was a career journalist at various publications in the Midwest, including the old Milwaukee Sentinel. 

John Diedrich (‘92, BA Journalism, Advertising, & Media Studies) penned the investigative reporting that led to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s inaugural Wounded Warrior Project Award for excellence in coverage of veterans. The award, founded in conjunction with the National Press Association, seeks to elevate the discourse around veterans’ affairs in the media. Diedrich’s winning journalism was a series titled, “Behind the Gun” that examined gun deaths in the state, including firearm suicide by veterans. 

Isaiah Ness (‘22, BA Economics) was named one of Wisconsin’s 40 Most Influential Black Leaders for 2024 by Madison365. Ness is the founder of Sun Bear Industries, a consulting firm specializing in connecting Wisconsin’s Indigenous nations with renewable energy. He discussed his business further in another Madison365 article. 

Janine Kwapis (‘10, MS; ‘13, PhD Neuroscience) was awarded the 2024 McKnight Brain Research Foundation Innovator Award in Cognitive Aging and Memory Loss by the American Federation for Aging Research and the McKnight Brain Research Foundation. This three-year, $750,000 grant will support Kwapis’s research project, “Improving cognitive flexibility in old age by fixing the transcriptome within memory cells.” Kwapis is the Paul Berg Early Career Professor in the Biological Sciences and assistant professor of biology at Penn State. Her research seeks to better understand the mechanisms behind the memory updating process. 

Laurels & Accolades 

Brenda Cárdenas (emerita English) was named the new Wisconsin Poet Laureate in December by the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. Her three-year term as laureate will begin on Jan. 15, 2025. In her new position, Cárdenas is charged with promoting poetry, creativity, and artistic expression across the state by publishing, education, social media, and other avenues. Cárdenas is also a former poet laureate of the city of Milwaukee and is a published author. 

Arijit Sen (History) was presented with the National Federation of State Humanities Councils’ 2024 Schwartz Prize for outstanding work in the public humanities for his program “Community Powered,”  a community resilience initiative that helps “communities recognize, communicate, and act upon their strengths, their challenges, and their histories to envision a vibrant future.” Sen created the program based on his years of community-building work with his Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School at UWM. 

In the Media and Around the Community 

Professor Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece (Film Studies) spoke with Wisconsin Public Radio on the release of the movie “Nosferatu.” She shared her expertise on the history of vampires in movies. She also was featured on radio WORT Eighty Nine Nine for their show recapping 2024 at the movies. 

Director of the Digital Arts & Culture program, Marc Tasman, spoke to Fox 6 News on how he incorporated the social media reaction to the killing of United Healthcare’s CEO into his class discussions.  

 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel drew on research by Professor Emeritus Marc Levine (History) about the depressed economic conditions of Milwaukee’s predominately Black 53206 zip code. 

WUWM Radio’s Lake Effect invited director Jean Creighton (Manfred Olson Planetarium) on the air to talk about the Planetarium’s show “A Night in Greece,” which held special meaning for Creighton. 

The Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service reported on the efforts of doctoral student Dulmini Jayawardana to showcase the environmental stewardship of residents of Milwaukee’s Lindsay Heights neighborhood through a photovoice research project. 

Professor Jennifer Johung  (Art History) penned her thoughts on the nature of animation, performance, agency, and intelligence in a piece published by e-flux.com. 

Why did a significant number of Black men vote for President Donald Trump in November? Assistant Visiting Professor Robert “Biko” Baker (African & African Diaspora Studies) spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the shift. He also spoke to the Journal Sentinel about the benefits of having Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley as a student in his classes; Crowley returned to UWM to finish a degree after dropping out decades ago and graduated in December. 

After California introduced a new Southeast Asian Studies model curriculum, Professor Chia Youyee Vang (History) remarked in the Optimist Daily that the lessons highlight the vitality of southeast Asian communities. She spoke on the same subject to the Los Angeles Times. 

The Thomas A. Greene Geological Museum was recently designated as a Geological Heritage Geo-Collection. Museum director Rob Graziano (Geosciences) explained the significance of the collection to Wisconsin Public Radio. 

Professor Paul Brodwin (Anthropology) commented on medical ethics and the responsibilities of physicians in an article published by Scot Scoop, Carlmont High School’s student news website. 

Professor Jeffrey Sommers (African & African Diaspora Studies and Global Studies) wrote an opinion piece published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel following the death of President Jimmy Carter. 

After Denis Kitchen (‘68, BA Mass Communication) was presented an honorary degree at UWM’s fall Commencement ceremony, he sat down to talk about the state of freedom for comic books on WUWM Radio. ICv2 also covered Kitchen’s honorary degree. 

From where does the Cream City get its nickname? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel relied on information from the UWM History Department’s “Encyclopedia Milwaukee” to find the answer. 

Archaeologists use lots of tools in their work, including AI – and it may be particularly useful for underwater archaeology, as associate professor Ashley Lemke (Anthropology) explained on the Points North Podcast. She also spoke about her underwater excavations on Bridge Michigan. 

Senior teaching faculty Fahed Masalkhi (Arabic) was an invited speaker at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee’s December panel ISM Forum: A Conversation with Muslim Professors. 

People in Print 

PhD student Kristine Koyama (English). 2025. Decolonized Bodies of Land and Children: Sarah Winnemucca’s Landback Project in Life Among the Piutes. In Decolonizing Bodies: Stories of Embodied Resistance, Healing, and Liberation (eds. Carolyn Ureña and Saiba Varma). New York: Bloomsbury. 

Xin Yu (History). 2025. Copying Is Editing: Handwritten Copies of Printed Genealogies in Late Imperial China, 1450–1900. In Genealogical Manuscripts in Cross-Cultural Perspective (eds. Markus Friedrich and Jörg B. Quenzer): 195-218. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 

Xin Yu (History). 2024. Printing Technology in Rural Society: Rethinking the Rise of Print Culture Through Chinese Genealogies, 1450–1644. The Chinese Historical Review, November: 1–20. 

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.