College of Letters & Science
IN FOCUS
February 2019, Vol. 9, No. 2
A History Written in Stone
Geosciences students are traveling the southern hemisphere looking for clues about the last Ice Age - and about our current climate change
Front and back cover photos by John Isbell
Shall w
Contents Feature Stories
Alum founds dance degree Psychologist links alcohol and IPV Students search for glacier trails Sociologist peers into patient portals Largest research grants of 2018 History prof explains medieval feasts
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Art History alum designs new Jennifer Hasso is an unlikely champion of dance. Although she loves dancing and took classes as both a child and an adult, she preferred gymnastics and cheerleading in her teen years. Rather than a dance degree, she holds a Master’s in Art History from UWM.
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Jennifer Rose Hasso is the architect of City Colleges of Chicago’s new associate’s degree in dance, and its n 2012 UWM Art History graduate. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Hasso.)
Nevertheless, she’s become the architect of both the City Colleges of Chicago’s new associate’s degree in dance and its partnership with the Joffrey Ballet. Since the program began in the fall of 2018, City Colleges has become one of just three schools in Illinois, and the only one in Chicago, to offer an associate’s degree in dance.
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2 • IN FOCUS • February, 2019
“The responses have been really great. Last semester, we started the program at 65 percent capacity,” Hasso said. “Particularly within the dance community, people have been so warm and welcoming. We are providing more equitable dance education.”
we dance?
w dance degree - and a partnership with Joffrey Ballet Hasso is an adjunct instructor who teaches fine arts and humanities classes at Harold Washington College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago. It is the largest community college system in Illinois and serves more than 80,000 students per year. Most of those students don’t look like the typical classical dancer. That’s why, in 2015, Hasso invited a representative from the Joffrey Ballet to come and speak to her classes. “Ballet has a history of being very homogenous in terms of class and race,” Hasso said. “The Joffrey Ballet … (is) very diverse. Their focus is more on the ability of the dancer rather than what they look like.” After the representative spoke to the students, she had a question for Hasso as well: Did the college offer any studio courses for dance?
“(The Humanities and Music department at Harold new partnership with the Joffrey Ballet. Hasso is a Washington) is very strong in visual art, in music, in philosophy, in cinema studies,” Hasso said. “Why didn’t we have dance? Well, we just didn’t have the space.” But the Joffrey did – several studios, in fact, that occasionally went unused and would be perfect for City College students. A partnership was born. Hasso set to work designing a dance curriculum that would eventually turn into a path for an associate’s degree. In addition to designing classes, Hasso also had to collaborate with four-year institutions to determine how her students’ credits would transfer after they graduated. She’s even developed a partnership with Columbia
College to offer a “2+2” program where students can take their two years of dance at Harold Washington and complete their last two years to earn a BA or BFA at the four-year school. Students began their first classes this past fall. The college offers introductory courses in ballet, hip-hop, modern, jazz, and world dance. The latter will be a rotating class featuring styles like West African dance, Middle Eastern, Latin dance, and more. Harold Washington is also looking into building its own studio on campus to support budding dance majors. It’s important to Hasso that she provides new opportunities for community college students, since she’s a product of community colleges herself. She took classes at a couple of two-year institutions in Michigan and fell in love with her art history and anthropology courses. Hasso completed her Bachelor’s degree at DePaul University and chose UWM for graduate school based on its proximity to Chicago and its strength in African and Caribbean art education. She was a commuter student with a very long commute; Hasso attended classes at UWM while still living and working in Chicago. She graduated in 2012. In addition to teaching at Harold Washington, she also lectures at Triton College and bartends on the weekends. Because she holds an arts degree, Hasso is familiar with a question many of her dance students will face: How do you expect to earn a living? “You have to be a bit more diligent to figure out what you can do with any sort of art degree,” she acknowledged, but, “I think there are a lot of very diverse career opportunities, especially in a large city.” Several of her students want to become professional dancers, dance instructors, or physical therapists, for instance. Whatever they decide to do, Hasso will be supporting them every (dance) step of the way. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 3
A BAD RELATIONS
UWM Psychologist examines the link between alcohol an
Assistant professor of psychology Ryan Shorey studies how alcohol impacts intimate partner violence, or IPV. At first glance, the relationship seems obvious – of course alcohol would correlate with incidences of abuse. But beneath the surface, there are many questions left to answer. What questions are you looking at in your research? We know that not everybody who drinks is violent. We know that people are not violent every time they drink. The question that still isn’t answered is, who is most at risk to become violent when they drink, and what are the situational factors around drinking that makes violence more likely to happen? Ryan Shorey
If we think about it from an intervention standpoint, the answers to those questions tell us who we should target and what we can do in programs to prevent alcohol-related violence. What are some of the other risk factors for intimate partner violence? There are a lot. Experiencing abuse as a child or witnessing parents or caregivers engage in violence against each other is strong predictor across studies and populations. Being “high” in anger or being quick to anger is a strong predictor, or not being able to cope with strong emotions. There’s some research on depression increasing the risk for violence, probably because of the irritability associated with depression. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is also a really strong predictor of IPV.
Ryan Shorey received two awards at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) meeting - The President’s New Research Award and the Early Career Award from the Addictive Behaviors special interest group. https://bit.ly/2WGreON
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So what role does alcohol play in IPV? We think that alcohol disinhibits the behaviors that make violence more likely to occur. Theoretically, as someone drinks and their blood-alcohol content rises, their attention narrows. We call it ‘alcohol myopia.’ If someone’s intoxicated and there’s a conflict with a partner, their attention’s honed in on that argument and their negative feelings. We also think there are folks who are at greater risk for that happening. If someone who is high in trait anger – they get angry easily – is now intoxicated and there’s a conflict, we think that person’s probably at the greatest risk of being violent. Your previous research has shown that a person’s mood can affect whether or not they’re violent when they’re drinking. If someone is angry, I would suggest that drinking wouldn’t be a good thing to do under pretty much any circumstance. Certainly, emotions could change throughout the night of drinking. But theoretically, we would think that if you’re drinking and happy, your risk for violence shouldn’t be increased. Theoretically, it should be decreased as long as you stay happy, because you’re really focused on how happy you are, but we don’t have any empirical evidence related to that point. We just see that alcohol isn’t related to violence when people feel neutral or happy, but it is when you’re angry. Do you have any current research projects? One project is the Ecological Momentary Assessment study,
SHIP
The three categories of intimate partner violence:
nd intimate partner violence where folks are going to have an app on their cell phone programmed to send them a survey four times a day at random times. They’ll be asked to report on their alcohol and their violence every time they complete a survey. It’ll help us pinpoint when violence is most likely to happen: Night? Morning? Afternoon? Day of the week? But it also will allow us to see how close in time to violence alcohol use occurs. In another study that’s wrapping up, we were interested in finding out what happens with intimate partner violence when both partners drink or when only one partner drinks. In all of my other research, only one partner in a couple has participated. This study uses a daily diary method with both members of a couple, where participants fill out one survey a day for 60 days detailing what happened the day before – violence, alcohol. We can try to figure out, did drinking happen before violence, and how much were they drinking? And we can corroborate reports of violence between partners. We collected DNA samples from them and we’re going to look at folks who are high in genetic risk for emotion dysregulation and impulsivity and see if those are the folks, or the couples, for whom alcohol increases the risk for violence to the greatest extent. What about alcohol and violence in same-sex relationships? What does that look like? Individuals who identify as a sexual minority have been neglected in this area of research, which is quite problematic. I’m really excited about a new project where we’re going to look at how alcohol and minority stress interact to potentially increase the risk for violence in relationships of sexual minorities, both in college samples and the local community. It would be the first study to do this that Graphic by Yer Lee
1. Psychological aggression: Verbal threats, put-downs, name-calling, derogatory comments, expressed verbally or through written communications like texts, emails, or tweets.
2. Physical aggression: Pushing, shoving, slapping, kicking, punching, using a weapon, throwing something at a partner, etc.
3. Sexual aggression: Unwanted sexual touching or kissing; forced intercourse; coercion, persuasion, or threats to engage in unwanted intercourse.
we’re aware of. There’s reasons to think we might need to modify IPV prevention programs for sexual minority populations because they experience many different stressors, like discrimination or harassment. Our hope is that this project could be really helpful to the field and to the LGBT community. During your research, you’re talking to people who can drink heavily and can be abusive toward their partners. Is it tough to stay objective? I think participating in our studies is a good thing because participants get access to resources they might not have known about. For example, in the daily diary study or the EMA study, every time they complete a survey, we give them access to the victim advocacy center on campus, counseling center, or local resources in the area. I’m very thankful that they participate in our study. I think they’re helping future folks in violent relationships, because (we’re researching) how to prevent it. It’s a tough area. What helps me is staying focused on the ultimate goal, which is to reduce violence in relationships. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 5
Geoscience students uncover Between 335 and 256 million years ago, the landmasses of the southern hemisphere were squished together in a super continent called Gondwana. Gripped in the cold throes of an Ice Age, glaciers moved slowly across the landscape, churning up ground and leaving a trail of sediment in their wake. They retreated as the Earth warmed, transitioning from an icehouse to a greenhouse climate at the end of the Paleozoic Era. Today, UWM geosciences students are studying those glacier trails, hoping to discover information about the past that might help us understand our warming climate in the present. Nailing down the geologic record Since about the 1960s, said distinguished professor of geosciences John Isbell, scientists have worked under the idea that Gondwana was covered by one giant glacier, buried under ice for over 100 million years. But, he said, when studied in detail, the geology tells a different story. Drawing on research about ancient sea levels, Isbell determined that the late Paleozoic oceans were not
Geosciences graduate student Libby Ives perches on an outcrop in Antarctica where she researches glacial movement during the late Paleozoic Ice Age. Photo by John Isbell.
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r a timeline set in stone gaining nor losing water volume on the scale that would be locked up in an expanding and shrinking massive ice sheet. “What we’re finding is that there are alternating 1 to 8 million-year intervals where there was ice, and 1 to 8 million-year intervals where there was less ice or no ice within that time frame. And that ice wasn’t fluctuating from a single ice center, but a whole bunch of smaller ice centers,” he said. In fact, research shows that there were at least 22 individual ice sheets. Now Isbell and his students are trying to determine what might have happened to those glaciers and the landscape during those intervals. “We look at physical sedimentology – Distinguished professor of Geosciences John Isbell stands next to a map of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. everything from the size and shape of a Photo by Sarah Vickery. sand grain to the large-scale architecture of sandstones. That tells us about what the glaciers were like at that time,” explained graduate student Libby Ives. “Because these rocks are only preserved in certain places, we have to go to those places.” For graduate student Eduardo Luiz Menozzo da Rosa, that includes the Paraná Basin in Brazil, and, this May, Namibia. “There are some valleys over there that are believed to be shaped by the glaciers. Those valleys are the connection between the ice sheets in Africa to the eastern part of the Parana basin,” he said. He’s looking for evidence that the same glaciers that might have shaped the landscape of Namibia traveled far enough in Gondwana to alter Brazilian geography as well. “All of John’s students are looking at small little snippets, and then hopefully we’re going to put that big picture back together after we’ve got somebody covering every area,” graduate student Kate Pauls added. She’s researching the paleoclimate of Argentina, examining the bulk rock geochemistry of the sedimentary units of the Paganzo Basin to look for evidence of what the environment was like during the ice age. Other students have traveled to places like Patagonia in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Antarctica, and Tasmania. Understanding today’s climate change This research is essential because the late Paleozoic ice age was the last time that the Earth transitioned from an “icehouse” to “greenhouse” conditions – a state marked by higher temperatures, plants growing at the north and south poles, with ice found only on mountaintops. Today’s climate conditions seem remarkably similar. Just like the late Paleozoic ice house to greenhouse transition, an overabundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere seems to be leading to the shrinking of today’s ice caps. Isbell warns, though, that today the Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. “Understanding the history of our planet is important to interpreting what’s happening in our present day,” Ives said. “I took a wilderness first-responder course, and one of the things they drilled into our head was when trying to determine what is wrong with someone, you have to ask, ‘What’s normal for you?’ To understand the present state of our Earth and these large-scale (climate) trends, we need to know what was normal in the past.” College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 7
Geoscience students’ studies That way, da Rosa added, “we can start to make predictions about future climate change.” For instance, the ice house to greenhouse transition was followed by a mass extinction event when 90 percent of Earth’s species died out. The planet is in the midst of another mass extinction, Isbell said, and we should pay attention to the past to understand what might be in store should more carbon and greenhouse gases be released into the atmosphere. That should concern everyone, Isbell said. “We can’t roll the dice and expect to survive every time.” Let the good times “rock” and roll Though future predictions surrounding climate change can seem bleak, the work itself is not. Pauls, Ives, and de Rosa recount with excitement traveling to new countries, working with international teams of geologists paleontologists, and braving remote areas and extreme weather conditions in the name of science. “The best New Year’s Eve party I ever had was in Antarctica, 300 kilometers from the South Pole,” Ives said with a laugh. “The sun was out the whole time. The next day, everybody played baseball with a rock wrapped in bubble wrap, in the middle of a glacier.” Pauls’ favorite memory of field work comes from her time in Argentina. She and Isbell were collecting rock samples with an Argetine colleague, Carina Colombi, when Isbell began working ahead. To reach some hardto-climb areas, he abandoned his backpack. “After running out of pockets, he had apparently just started shoving samples in his shirt. We were like, look! It’s Kangaroo John! Because he just had a bulging pouch of samples,” she said. Isbell himself recalls with pride being the first person – or multicellular organism, for that matter – to lay eyes on a particular region of Antarctica, and braving treacherous conditions in Siberia when the next-closest town to his outpost was a city 2,000 miles away in Alaska. Wherever they travel, whatever the conditions, there’s plenty of rock and sediment waiting for them. “Of course, when you answer something, you always find another question,” Pauls said. “That’s how science is.” By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science Above: Geosciences graduate student Eduardo Luiz Menozzo de Rosa examines a rock face in the Parana Basin in Brazil. Left: Kate Pauls smiles overlooking a valley in Argentina. Photos by John Isbell. 8 • IN FOCUS • February, 2019
Sociologist uncovers who isn’t using patient portals As the health care industry incorporates more technology to improve patient experiences and health outcomes, many providers are turning to patient portals, secure websites that allow users to access their health care information online and communicate with their physician’s offices. There’s just one problem: Almost two-thirds of patients don’t use them. “That number is surprising when you think about how much emphasis there is in our society to adopt technologies, especially for health-related use and specifically for adopting patient portals,” said UWM assistant professor of sociology Celeste Campos-Castillo. Campos-Castillo’s recently published paper in the journal of Health Affairs explores who is – and isn’t – using patient portals and why. Drawing on data collected from the 2017 Health Information National Trends Survey, an annual questionnaire conducted by the National Cancer Institute that queries American adults on all things related to health care, she and her coauthors found that 63 percent of the people surveyed said they hadn’t used a patient portal within the past year. Among that percentage, there were some consistent trends. “Racial and ethnic minorities, people who are on Medicaid and Medicare, older adults, men – these are the patients who are not likely to use a patient portal,” Campos-Castillo said. “The reasons that came up were privacy concerns and people wanting to speak to their doctors directly, faceto-face.” Fears about privacy are well-founded. Hacking, she noted, became the most common type of medical record breach within the past three years. Before the advent of online records, the most people usually had to worry about was a careless employee leaving a file around the office. She found that while older adults are most concerned about privacy, that doesn’t mean younger patients are less worried about their data. “What I think is going on here is that as you get older, you also start to accumulate more information in your patient portal,” Campos-Castillo said. “You might be sicker, and you’re living your life more. There’s more information in there that you might want to keep (private). Younger people may not necessarily experience this. It’s not that they don’t care about privacy, period; it’s that they don’t have that much information to care about in their patient
portal relative to the older adults.” And, she said, older adults may be leery that their workprovided insurance may allow their employers to access their health information through patient portals. Or they may want to keep their health information private from their families to keep their spouse or children from worrying about a diagnosis. Still other people are wary of using a patient portal in lieu of talking with a doctor face-to-face. “This was particularly relevant for Medicare and Medicaid patients, who are vulnerable populations who may not have access to other resources and already face a complex web of health conditions that they have to manage,” she said. “A physician telling you, for example, ‘I’m sorry you’re feeling this way,’ or reaching out and taking your hand – that is therapeutic.” That sort of interaction doesn’t Celeste Campos-Castillo happen when patients communicate with physicians through a patient portal. However, that does mean that they are missing many of the benefits from using portals. Campos-Castillo points out that systems allows patients to access their health histories, see their clinic exam notes, refill prescriptions, message their health care providers, and even review information for errors or negative drug interactions. This research into patient portals grew out of a partnership born in the TecHealth Initiative. Founded as a way to help researchers from different disciplines meet and collaborate, the Initiative fosters inquiry into the intersection of health and technology. Campos-Castillo and UWM Psychology graduate student Paulina Lim were both attending an Initiative workshop and discovered a shared interest in technology and patient privacy concerns. Even as their research has revealed new information, Campos-Castillo says it’s also unveiled a new problem. “How should doctors talk to patients about patient portals?” she said. “We don’t know exactly what the doctor should be saying and how they should be saying it, but at this point, I think we’ve got enough evidence saying that that’s the next question researchers need to ask.” By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 9
NanoGRAV Physics Frontier Center (Xavier Siemens, Physics) $14.6 million over five years, National Science Foundation
The Large Grants
This funding supports the collective research of 11 institutions, called the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. Siemens directs this group, which follows millisecond pulsars with radio telescopes as a method of detecting low-frequency gravitational waves. Pulsars – rapidly spinning neutron stars – are like GPS for locating and studying gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that arise from largescale cosmic events. The waves can help scientists learn more about how galaxies are formed and evolve.
Data handling and analysis infrastructure for gravitational wave astronomy (Patrick Brady and Warren Anderson, Physics)
A research university runs on fe of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is o universities as recognized b Institutions of Higher Educati expenditures in fiscal year 201 $29.5 million – came from fede issues such as renewable energ and the beginni
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$7.2 million over four years, National Science Foundation The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (aLIGO) is an international partnership that first detected gravitational waves in 2015 and is now studying them as a means of learning more about the universe. This grant sustains and enhances aLIGO’s data-analysis infrastructure, which is as essential to gravitational-wave astronomy as the detectors themselves. It also funds skilled personnel who maintain and improve the LIGO Data Grid needed for a scientific return from aLIGO.
How environment affects children’s brains (Krista Lisdahl, Psychology) $3.8 million over three years, National Institutes of Health UWM is participating in the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study will follow the biological and behavioral development of more than 11,000 children beginning at ages 9 or 10, through adolescence and into early adulthood. Lisdahl, who heads the Wisconsin site, is evaluating 384 state students, using advanced brain imaging, interviews and behavioral testing to determine how childhood experiences interact with each other and with a child’s changing biology to affect their brain development.
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Imaging biology with Xray lasers (Abbas Ourmazd, Marius Schmidt and Peter Schwander, Physics) $3.1 million over five years, National Science Foundation and SUNY-Buffalo Basic questions about human biology have gone unanswered because scientists could not image most proteins. UWM scientists are using intense ultrashort pulses from X-ray free electron lasers to compile atomic-level movies that show proteins and viruses in action for the first time. Examples include 3D movies of a virus preparing to infect a healthy cell and a tuberculosis bacterium disabling an antibiotic.
Effects of trauma that add up to PTSD (Christine Larson, Psychology) $3.1 million over five years, National Institutes of Health Larson is exploring neurobiological factors that predict risk for long-term, post-traumatic stress disorder, with the goal of earlier intervention to improve mental health. Most prior work has focused on people who already have PTSD. Larson’s study is focusing on those who have just experienced a traumatic event, collecting biological, social and environmental data. Through a partnership with Terri deRoon-Cassini at the Medical College of Wisconsin, she has access to a large patient population.
Better catalysts for drug manufacturing (Wilfred Tysoe, Chemistry) $3.6 million over six years, U.S. Department of Energy Catalytic reactions needed to make pharmaceuticals are called “chiral,” which means they produce molecules with both “right-handed” and “left-handed” arrangements. But proteins and sugars in the human body exist in only one form of “handedness.” So, drugs have to be synthesized to match. Current catalysts used for this mix tightly with the reactants, making them difficult to separate afterward.This research aims to develop a solid chiral catalyst that is easily separated from its products.The researchers so far have uncovered how a solid chiral catalyst allows the formation of only one handedness of a molecule.
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 11
Feasting in medieval England: Pottage, boiled beef and no forks UWM historian Martha Carlin researches everyday life in medieval England, with special interests in London, food, shopping, the household and inns. Then, as now, she says, a festive meal was an essential part of the winter holidays. Here, Carlin discusses what foods were eaten by masters and servants in wealthy English households, and how the food was prepared. Today, we often make a turkey or prime rib as the main course for Christmas dinner. How would the menu have been different in medieval England?
who could afford it used honey, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and other spices to make a spiced wine called hypocras (or ypocras), which was the favorite afterdinner drink of wealthy households, comparable to a fine liqueur today. It was often served with sweet or savory wafers – very thin, delicate, crisp cookies made in a “wafering iron,” which was similar to the krumkake iron still used in Norwegian cookery.
The turkey is native to the Americas, so there were no turkeys in medieval Europe. But those who could afford it ate lots of meat and poultry when the Catholic church allowed it. Meat-eating was prohibited in medieval England on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, as a form of religious fasting. Dinner, the main meal of the day, was eaten at midday. In a wealthy household, a grand festive meal would have included four courses. On a “flesh day” (when meateating was allowed), the first course was always a hearty pottage (soup or stew), followed by grete flesshe – large, inexpensive joints of beef, mutton or pork, either roasted or boiled. These might be served with boiled or braised seasonal vegetables, such as cabbage or spinach. The elite diners would be served with fine-quality bread, ale and wine; the servants and non-elite guests would be served with coarser bread, second-quality ale and no wine. For the non-elite diners, the first two courses would comprise their entire meal, but the high-status diners would have been offered the full four courses. The third course featured expensive delicacies, often spit-roasted, such as venison or other wild game; tender meats such as lamb or veal; or poultry, such as pigeons or geese. These might be accompanied by elegant, labor-intensive vegetable dishes, such as creamed leeks. The last course included light and sweet dishes, such as fritters, baked fruit and wafers. Speaking of sweets, today we make so many it’s hard to avoid them. What about in medieval England? Seasonal berries and other fruits were beloved by all classes. Some varieties of apples and pears could keep well for months. They could be roasted or poached, spiced and stuffed with raisins or currants. (Fruit pies did not appear until later, when pastry-making was transformed.) Medieval Europeans craved sugar and other spices. In England, however, spices and wine were very expensive because they were all imported. The imported wine didn’t keep especially well and was often quite sour. Those 12 • IN FOCUS • February, 2019
UWM historian Martha Carlin says bread, pears and baked apples would be common on English dinner tables in the Middle Ages. (UWM Photo/Troye Fox)
What kind of tableware would have been used in a wealthy medieval household? People drank from cups and ate their soups and stews from bowls using spoons. They ate solid foods from plates, using small, sharp table knives to cut the food into small pieces. The solid foods were often served on top of slices of bread to catch the juices, and they were eaten with the fingers, not with the spoon or knife. Forks did not appear on medieval tables. People were skilled at eating neatly with their hands, and in wealthy households they were provided with linen napkins. Elite people ate from expensive dishes made of pewter, silver or (for wine) imported glass; most people ate and drank from inexpensive tableware made of wood or pottery. How would the lord or lady of a manor have treated their rural tenants at Christmas? A lord or lady might entertain the male farmworkers and tenants by inviting them to the manor house for a hearty dinner of soup, boiled meat, bread and ale. They would eat this sitting in the great hall, and they could stay on afterwards, drinking and singing songs in the warmth of the fire. When it was time to go, they probably took any uneaten bread and meat home to their families. By Laura Otto, University Relations
The Largest Research Grants of 2018 Asthma treatment minus the inhaler (James Cook, Alexander “Leggy” Arnold and Doug Stafford, Chemistry) $2 million over four years, National Institutes of Health The researchers are developing a new drug for asthma that’s taken as a pill. It will replace the use of steroid inhalers, potentially reducing the side effects of long-term use of steroid medication by patients. The research involves redesigning a drug compound that Cook had originally created for drugs that calm anxiety without the threat of addiction. The new compound targets relaxation of the lungs’ smooth muscle and tames the inflammation that occurs in an asthma attack.
Alumni Accomplishments Retired Colonel Thomas Evans (’70, BA Psychology) was recently elected to be the president and CEO of the United States Army Ranger Association. The volunteer organization seeks to preserve the heritage and spirit of the U.S. Army Rangers by strengthening the relationship among past, present, and future Rangers. Evans previously served as the Executive Vice President. Jo Baldwin (’85, PhD English) was named the 2018 Humanities Teacher of the Year by the Mississippi Valley State’s University Office of Academic Affairs. “Dr. Jo” is a professor and director of the writing center at MVSU. She was the first black American to earn a PhD in English from UWM. https://bit.ly/2Gc1vrv
Danielle Angileri (’15, BA Psychology) was named among “People to Watch for 2019” by the Register Star. The publication recognized her for her work with mental health issues as the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Northern Illinois. https://bit.ly/2AlEBKA Jo A. Baldwin Rebekah Beaulieu (’05, MA Art History/Museum Studies) has spent the past 10 months putting her own stamp on the Florence Griswold Museum since she took over from the museum’s long-time director. She was profiled in The Day newspaper. https://bit.ly/2BQwaqQ
Michael Hawes (’06, BA Political Science; ’09, Master of Public Administration) began his new job as the village administrator of Union Grove, Wisconsin, on Feb. 6. He brings 11 years of local government experience to the position, where he will be responsible for overseeing much of the village’s day-to-day operations. https://bit.ly/2RVfF7D
Michael Hawes
Peter Tase (’06, BA Italian Studies) appeared on the CBC television channel of the Republic of Azerbaijan in January to discuss a meeting in Paris between the ministers of foreign affairs from both Azerbaijan and Armenia surrounding ongoing armed conflicts in Azerbaijan. (https://bit.ly/2DvYAZ0) Tase also provided an analysis of current affairs in Paraguay in the Eurasian Daily Journal of Azerbaijan. https://bit.ly/2RaEHdF
Brinton Resto (’11, BA English and Philosophy) joined the Internet defamation law firm Minc Law in January. The firm, based in Orange Village Ohio, represents business around the world in controlling their online reputation and image. Resto brings experience in conducting depositions, arguing cases in court, and an understanding of technological litigation techniques. https://bit.ly/2B39La6 College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 13
Upcoming Events Sun
Feb. 6-14
Gallery Show: Stanley William Hayter & The Death of Hector. 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday-Thursday. Emile H. Mathis Gallery. Free and open to the public. https://uwm.edu/arthistory/gallery
Feb. 6
Planetarium Show: Stars, Stories, & Rhythms of Africa. Two shows beginning at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Manfred Olson Planetarium. Admission is free. Sponsored by Sociocultural Programming and the Planetarium Club. http://uwm.edu/planetarium/
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Feb. 7
Geosciences Colloquium: LiDAR, Artificial Intelligence and Overlook Crater. 4 p.m. Lapham N101. Steven Anderson, University of Northen Colorado.
Planetarium Show: Cupid’s Constellations. 7 p.m. Manfred Olson Planetarium. Celebrate Valentine’s Day with stories of love in the constellations. Tickets are $5.
United We Read: Student-Faculty Creative Writing Series. 7 p.m. Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee. Readings by Molly Beckwith Gutman, Ryan Burden, Beth Vigoren, and Liam Callanan.
https://uwm.edu/planetarium/
https://bit.ly/2wQfErA
Feb. 15
Feb. 8
Political Science seminar: Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe. 11 a.m. Bolton B84. Duane Swank, Marquette University. Cosponsored by Marquette University and UWM Department of Political Science.
Feb. 8-22
Science Bag - Balancing Act: The Physics of Bicycling. 7 p.m. Physics 137. Shows run Fridays through Feb. 22 with a Sunday matinee show at 2 p.m. on Feb 10. Free, family-friendly, and open to the public. uwm.edu/science-bag
Feb. 8-22
Planetarium Show: Birth of the Universe. 7 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Manfred Olson Planetarium. Shows run Fridays through Feb. 22. Admission is $5 for the general public and $4 for UWM students. https://bit.ly/2PybcCy
Feb. 10
Science Bag - Balancing Act: The Physics of Bicycling. 2 p.m. Physics 137. Free, family-friendly, and open to the public. uwm.edu/science-bag
Feb. 14
Major Matters: Rethinking and marketing your areastudies focus. Noon. Curtin 187. Kevin Mulholland, UWM. 14 • IN FOCUS • February, 2019
Poetry Reading: Rodrigo Toscano. 7 p.m. Hefter Center. Free and open to the public. Anthropology Colloquium: Macaque attack! Covariation among dental wear, craniofacial morphology, and pathologies in Macaca fascicularis. 3:30 p.m. Sabin G28. Claire A. Kirchoff, Marquette University.
Feb. 18
Chef and Author Michael Twitty: A Journey Through African American Cooking Traditions. 6 p.m. Mitchell Street Library. Organized by Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies and Boswell Book Company. This event is free. Registration required. https://bit.ly/2TltEAr
Feb. 19
Chef and Author Michael Twitty: The Cooking Gene. 4 p.m. 4th Floor Library Conference Center. Panel discussion includes panelists Portia Cobb, Jennifer Jordan, and Shahanna McKinney Baldon. https://www4.uwm.edu/jewishstudies/
Feb. 22
Geography Colloquium: Situating Worker Co-ops – the urban and racial geographies of cooperative development. 3 p.m. AGS Library. Rebecca Wolfe, UWM.
Laurels, Accolades, and Grants The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel lauded undergraduate student Shannon Dugan (Biology and Biochemistry) for her volunteer efforts in a recent article. Writers highlighted her work with soup kitchens, visiting with dementia patients, and working with a doctor in Guatemala to triage patients in a health care clinic. https://bit.ly/2SpmZEV Shevaun Watson (English) received a $10,000 grant from the National Council of Teachers of English/Conference on College Composition and Communication to research UWM’s English 102 course – College Writing and Research. This 6-year longitudinal study will examine information literacy transfer and writing skills across all of a student’s coursework, work life, and personal life. Graduate student Alexis Jordan (Anthropology) was selected as a 2019 National Humanities Without Walls Predoctoral Fellow and also won the Carew-Rendle History Prize, which is awarded by the Royal Cornwall Museum in the United Kingdom for best essay in Cornish history or prehistory. https://bit.ly/2BHd1Yi Liam Callanan’s (English) most recent novel, Paris by the Book, was named among Boswell Book Company owner Daniel Goldin’s top 10 books of 2018. Wisconsin Public Radio reported Goldin’s list Shevaun Watson and pointed out that if you want to find a good book, you should ask a bookseller. https://bit.ly/2AJl6vO
Neal Pease (History) received the Swastek Prize from the Polish American Historical Association at its 76th Annual Meeting in Chicago in January for his article, “Mighty Son of Poland: Stanislaus Zbyszko, Polish Americans, and Sport in the 20th Century.” The Cultures and Communities Program has received a $6,000 grant from Milwaukee Public Schools to provide “drop-in Ethnic Studies” teaching. A team of five undergraduates (Margarita Garcia-Rojas, Max McHone, Paul Newcomb, Myah Palechek, and Alexandra Talsky) will be teaching materials they developed last fall in social studies classes at Riverside High School this spring.
People in Print Natasa Durovicova, Patrice Petro, and Lorena Terando (Translation and Interpreting), editors. 2019. At Translation’s Edge. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Kirill Shmilovich (’18, BS Physics and Mathematical Sciences) and Ionel Popa (Physics). 2018. Modeling proteinbased hydrogels under force. Physical Review Letters, 121(16). https://bit.ly/2BHg6Hy Haig Khatchadourian (emeritus Philosophy). 2019. Time and Change. Wisdom, 11(2): 12-31. (Published posthumously.) https://bit.ly/2sqFIEm Martin G. Vieten and Richard H. Stockbridge (both Mathematical Sciences). 2018. Convergence of Finite Element Methods for Singular Stochastic Control. SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, 56(6): 4336-4364. https://bit.ly/2ssoqH6
Long Cheng, John S. Heywood (Economics), and Guangliang Ye. 2019. Partial acquisition with an excluded public rival. International Review of Economics & Finance, 59(1): 164-173. https://bit.ly/2VXdZJ5 Rebekah Carnes and Sarah Riforgiate (Communication). 2019. Female Peace Corps Leaders’ Fight for Community Mobilization: One Billion Rising Against Gender-Based Violence. Sage Publishing. Online. https://bit.ly/2GbUK99 Jiao Le, Jinyong Ying, Dexuan Xie (Mathematical Sciences). 2019. On the analysis and application of an ion sizemodified Poisson-Boltzmann equation. Nonlinear Analysis: Real World Applications, 47:188–203. https://bit.ly/2BlKfgz College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 15
In the Media and Around the Community Paul Roebber (Atmospheric Science) explained some of the difficulties associated with weather forecasting to WUWM. https://bit.ly/2RxTJyA Lisa Silverman (History) contributed content to “Design Dialogue: Jews, Culture and Viennese Modernism,” edited by Elana Shapira. The publication follows a 2016 international symposium on the same subject. WalletHub.com may have gotten it wrong when the website argued that Milwaukee’s economy is not diversified, Sunwoong Kim (Economics) told Watchdog.org. (https://bit.ly/2VqPMKQ) He was also quoted in an article in Houma Today for his assessment that in order to grow jobs and wages, cities should make themselves more competitive in growing industries. Sunwoong Kim
https://bit.ly/2BcBi9h
The Lincoln Journal Star announced that Nan Kim (History) will be one of the guest lecturers for Humanities Nebraska and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment’s 2019 Winter Lecture Series titled, “The Korean Peninsula: Past, Present, and Future.” https://bit. ly/2ssV4sa
National Cheeselover’s Day was Jan. 20, so the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked Sabrina Magyar (’91, BA Communication), the owner of The Village Cheese Shop in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, for her recommendations for celebrating the day. https://bit.ly/2Meg8vG WiscNews.com cited a report by David Pritchard (emeritus Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) that gave details about university employees suing to block the release of personnel records under open records laws. https://bit.ly/2QuoVdg Breaking with many climate scientists, Anastasios Tsonis (emeritus Atmospheric Science) opined in The Washington Times that the public should be skeptical toward claims that climate change is due solely to human activity. https://bit.ly/2TKC2t1 After initial reports that Tawainese manufacturer Foxconn was considering changing the scope of its planned Wisconsin factory to focus more on research and development, Marc Levine (emeritus History) called the company’s proposal a “bait and switch” in an article by the Associated Press that was published across the nation. https://bit.ly/2t50ytD
16 • IN FOCUS • February, 2019
Ideologically, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court John Roberts leans conservative, but his style is definitely moderate, Sara Benesh (Political Science) told The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2Vh6sVp
People recommend talking to your plants, but can plants talk back? Rafael Rodriguez Sevilla (Biological Sciences) discussed the possibility of plants deliberately producing sound in an article in The Atlantic. https://bit.ly/2Ci2tyU
Policy analyst Lisa Williams (Center for Economic Development) lamented in The New York Times that “dark-store” lawsuits will raise her own property taxes or cause her local schools to suffer as big-box retailers try to lower their assessed value. https://nyti.ms/2SFsEGP
The same anti-government sentiment that swept President Trump into office may have driven some people to vandalize and damage National Parks during the government shutdown, Richard Grusin (21st Century Studies) speculated in an article published on Mashable.com. https://bit.ly/2D6U6GZ
Join us for the February Science Bag! David Allen (Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) discussed the state of journalism education on WUWM. https://bit.ly/2FrlRNU Arizona Senator John McCain died in 2018 from glioblastoma. Now, Shama Mirza (Chemistry and Biochemistry) and other UWM researchers are working on a compound targeting that particular type of cancer, Medical Xpress reported. https://bit.ly/2Dy6Urj Zachary Meyer (’07, BA Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) Shama Mirza outlined the history of his family’s company, Rock River Laboratory, in an article published in Wisconsin State Farmer. https://bit.ly/2RckQe9 The Brewer Magazine announced that graduate student John Harry (History) will author a history of the Stevens Point Brewery. The book is due out during the 2019 holiday season and will be published through Arcadia Publishing. https://bit.ly/2FCXD2D Gladys Mitchell-Walthour (African & African Diaspora Studies) presented a guest lecture titled, “Black Identity and Continuing Black Movement Activism in Brail in an Era of Repression” at the University of Florida on Jan. 17. Phys.org reported how Emily Latch (Biological Sciences) is part of Gladys Mitchell-Walthour a committee that is helping the U.S. government determine the taxonomic status of red wolves and Mexican gray wolves. https://bit.ly/2TYrE0N
Karyn Frick (Psychology) is one of the founding members of a pharmaceutical start-up that is exploring new health care treatments, especially for treating dementia in postmenopausal women, according to WisBusiness.com. https://bit.ly/2Cr5flE Marc Tasman (Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) opened his Tranformative Commentary series at the Harry and Rose Samson Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, in January. Tasman’s work features lyrics from Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” album and mashed them up with drawings of public figures, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg. https://bit.ly/2UfLjJL
Balancing Act: The Physics of Bicycling The simple bicycle is one of humankind’s most fascinating and versatile inventions, and its behaviors have perplexed scientists and engineers for centuries -- or so some headlines would have you believe. Dr. Andrew Dressel from the UWM College of Engineering and Applied Science will separate the myth from the machine with many demystifying demonstrations, and we hope you will join us as we take a closer look at how bicycles harness human power, brake on a dime, stay upright -- even without a rider -- and steer down the road! This show is family-friendly. Date: Fridays, February 8, 15, and 22 Time: 7 p.m. Location: UWM Physics Building, Rm. 137 Cost: Free! There will also be a Sunday matinee show at 2 p.m. on February 10.
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 17
