Zilber College of Public Health Seminar Series

Join us in a forum to hear the latest in the research and practice of public health to support a just, equitable, healthy future for people, communities, and the environment in Milwaukee, the state of Wisconsin, and beyond.

Seminars are held weekly on Thursday mornings from 9:00 – 9:50 a.m., on UWM’s Kenwood campus in the Kenwood Interdisciplinary Research Complex (KIRC) room 1150 (3135 N. Maryland Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53211).

Coffee and bagels will be served.

Most seminars can also be attended virtually via Teams.

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Spring 2026

January 29 – The Power of Connection: Social Cohesion and Mental Health in Autism, Jeana M. Holt, Ph.D., DNP, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC & Kate Siekman, BSE, OTD, OTR/L

February 5 – Mapping Racism and Resistance in Milwaukee County, Anne Bonds, PhD, Professor & Chair, Department of Geography, UW-Milwaukee

February 12 – Strengths-based and Innovative Pathways to Address Maternal Mortality, Emily Cramer, PhD, Associate Professor, Diederich College of Communication, Marquette University

February 19 – Guns Don’t Kill People:  Bullets Do: A Public Health Wound Ballistics Science Primer, Stephen Hargarten, MD, MPH, Professor of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin

February 26 – Home is Where Our Health Is, Deborah Heffner, Chief Advancement Officer, Community Advocates, Inc. 

March 5 – Everyone Can Move the Needle: Public Health Policy & Advocacy, Niki Lucht, MPH, Epidemiologist, Wood County Healht Department, Co-chair of the WPHA Policy & Advocacy Committee

March 12 – Explanatory Artificial Intelligence: Peeking into the Black Box, Susan McRoy, PhD, Professor & Dept. Chair, Computer Science, Biomedical and Health Informatics PhD, UW-Milwaukee

March 19 – The Department of Community Wellness & Safety Public Health Approach to Violence Prevention

April 2 – Everyone Deserves a Healthy Smile: Improving Oral Health Access in Wisconsin, Dr. Sidney M. Ebert, DDS, Director of Dental Services, Community Smiles

April 9 – How Culture and Local Ecosystems Can Affect Dietary Exposures to Environmental Contaminants, Matthew Dellinger, PhD, Associate Professor, Division of Epidemiology, Medical College of Wisconsin

April 16 – The Human Elements of Health Data Visualization in an AI Obsessed World, Amanda Makulec, MPH, Founder of Viz Responsibly

April 23 – Versiti on King – The Nation’s First Blood Donor Center in a Community Resource Hub, Kristen Harris, Senior Manager of Community Education, Versiti

May 7 – Children’s Environmental Health in a Changing Climate, Kirsten Beyer, PhD, MPH, MS, Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Social Sciences, Medical College of Wisconsin

Fall 2025

September 4 – Adverse Childhood Experiences and Public Health: The Case for Prevention, Josh Mersky, PhD, UW-Milwaukee Helen Bader School of Social Welfare

September 11 – Climate Rx: Advancing Public Health Through Climate Action at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Christa L. Wagner, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin

September 18 – Self-care, Healing and Social Support for those Dealing with Multiple Chronic Conditions, Priya Nambisan, PhD, UW-Milwaukee Zilber College of Public Health

September 25 – Research at UWM, Ali Abedi,PhD, UWM Vice Provost of Research

October 2 – Exploring the Intersection of Sustainability and Personal Well-Being on College Campuses, Lindsay Frost, UWM Sustainability Director

October 9 – Where Health and Safety Meet: Domestic Violence as a Public Health Issue, Sojourner Family Peace Center, Panel Discussion

October 16 – Leveraging Implementation Science for Public Health Intervention Development and Evaluation: Case Examples from HIV/STI Prevention, Steven A. John, PhD, MPH, University of Minnesota

October 23 – Mother Nature: Examining Greenspace Access and Postpartum Depression, Christine Prissel, PhD, MPH, Mayo Clinic

October 30 – Indigenous Ways of Knowing about Wisconsin’s Tribal Nations, Annie Jones, Professor, Organization Development Specialist and Tribal Nations Liaison, UW-Madison

November 6 – From Data to Action: Community Voices on Environmental Health and Green Infrastructure in Milwaukee, Panel Discussion

November 13 – Treatment Effect Estimation With Potential Outcomes for a Single-Arm Trial Compared To Historical Controls, Rodney Sparapani, PhD, Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Medical College of Wisconsin

November 20 – The Science and Soul of Health Equity: Lessons from the Community and Cancer Science Network, Laura Pinsoneault, PhD, Founder and CEO, Evaluation Plus, LLC

December 4 – Behind the Numbers: Tackling Complexity in Longitudinal Mental Health Data, Laleh Jamshidi, PhD, UWM Zilber College of Public Health

Spring 2025

January 23 – PeriData.Net Clinical Registry: Population-Based Cohort of Prenatal, Hospital, and Outcome Data

January 30 – Power to the People: Evaluation Considerations for Public Health Liberation, Dr. Monique Liston, UBUNTU Research and Evaluation

February 13 – Interpretable Fall Risk Prediction Using Explainable AI and Large Language Models, Jake Luo, PhD – Associate Professor, Health Care Informatics & Administration

February 20 – Brittany Keyes, DPT – Healthy Climate Wisconsin

February 27 – Exploring the Impact of Mutual Aid on Health and Well-Being of Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse People, Linda Wesp, PhD – UWM School of Nursing

March 6 – Still wrong after all these years, or…How cell culture methods that do not consider the amount of oxygen present in our body mess up risk assessment and drug discovery, Michael Laoisa, PhD – Associate Professor, Environmental Health Sciences

March 13 – Introduction to EMR and AI in Public Health, Min Wu, PhD – Associate Professor, Health Care Informatics & Administration

March 27 – Victor Florez-Garcia, PhD Zilber College Alum, University of Illinois Chicago

April 3 – What will it take to end campus sexual violence?, Rose Hennessy Garza, PhD, MPH

April 10 – Detecting mosaic chromosomal alterations in apparently healthy individuals, Paul L. Auer, PhD – Medical College of Wisconsin

April 17 – Health/Data Disparities in Indian Country, Will Funmaker, MBA, MLT (ASCP) – Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Epidemiology Center (GLITEC)

April 24 – The role of Public Health Nurses in Emergency Preparedness and Recovery in Local Public Health Departments – a Toolkit, Deborah Heim, PhD, MN, RN, PHNA-BC

May 1 – Integrating Teaching and Research at a Teaching Institution, Maren Hawkins, PhD and Barbra Beck, PhD

Fall 2024 Schedule

September 12 – Todd Miller, PhD – Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, UW-Milwaukee

September 19 – Amy Kalkbrenner, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, UW-Milwaukee

September 26 – Linnea Laestadius, PhD, MPP, Associate Professor of Public Health Policy, UW-Milwaukee

October 3 – Langston Verdin, MPH, Director of Community Partnerships and Strategy, Greater Milwaukee Committee, and Founder and Executive Director, MKE FreshAir Collective

October 10 – Young Cho, PhD, Associate Professor of Community & Behavioral Health Promotion, UW-Milwaukee

October 17 – Kat O’Connell-Valuch – Zilber College of Public Health Office of Research

October 24 – Christy Greenleaf, PhD, Professor of Kinesiology, UW-Milwaukee

October 31 – Scott Strath, PhD, ACSM Fellow, Professor of Kinesiology, UW-Milwaukee

November 7 – Mike Totoraitis, Commissioner of Health, Milwaukee Health Department

November 14 – Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project

November 21 – Street-View Greenness in Residential Environments: Exploring Equity in Distribution of Natural Spaces, Tara Jenson, PhD

December 5 – David Frazer, Director of CUPH