Laurels and Accolades Winson Chu (History) has received a fellowship for experienced researchers from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He will be based at the Center for Holocaust Studies in Munich, Germany, for the 2021 academic year, where he will pursue his monograph project on the German criminal police. Tim O’Brien (Sociology) and his co-author, Oren PizmonyLevy, received the Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology’s Publication Award for Significant Contributions to Applied and Public Sociology. Their awardwinning paper, “Going public, gaining credibility: Student perceptions of publicly engaged scholars,” was published in Tim O’Brien Sociological Perspectives and explores how students regard their professors as more credible when those professors are publicly engaged. https://bit.ly/2lHtFm6
Gwyn Wallander (Letters & Science advising) was chosen to receive a 2019 Don Racheter Impact Award at the Midwest Assocation of Pre Law Advisors (MAPLA) conference. She was selected by her peers for the award, which recognizes her work as a prelaw advisor and her support of MAPLA membership. https://bit.ly/2nuZLlU
Chris Quinn (Biological Sciences) received a $1.7 million, 5-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for neuroscience research related to autism. His project is titled, “Investigation of how axon development is disrupted by the autismcausing Timothy Syndrome mutation.” Chris Quinn Bonnie Klein-Tasman (Psychology) was elected to the Board of the Clinical Child and Pediatric Psychology Training Council, which oversees education and training that ensures state-of-the-art skills in work with children, adolescents, and families at the doctoral, internship, and postdoctoral levels.
14 • IN FOCUS • October, 2019
Alum finds satisfactio One of the people Kaila Binger worked with had six children and had been chronically homeless for a year – living on the streets, in derelict housing or couch surfing. When the woman finally called Binger’s office for help, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee alum was able to connect her to resources that helped the woman change her life. “It’s been about a year ago now since she called, but she was able to find housing with enough bedrooms to house herself and her children,” Binger said. Binger is a program coordinator for Foundational Community Supports, a Seattle Medicaid program that helps mentally ill and homeless people find and maintain housing and employment. The program is under the umbrella of Blue Cross Blue Shield and Anthem of Seattle. “It’s an extremely rewarding job,” she said. Crediting UWM Binger, who graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s in psychology, credits what she learned at UWM for preparing her for the work she is now doing. “I am thankful for my experiences, good and difficult, at UWM and for how it prepared me for the world at large.” Foundational Community Supports is a pilot program to illustrate that housing and employment for homeless people with mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders helps improve long-term health outcomes. Assisting those with the greatest need not only benefits the individuals and their families, but the health of their communities and the state as a whole, Binger said. “The Medicaid clients that we serve tend to be the most costly,” she said. “However, their health tends to improve exponentially with an appropriate job and a roof over their head. That’s the point of the program. For me, my motivation is to help people in my community in a direct way, and I get to do that.” Research course helps As part of her job, she has to provide data to the state of Washington to support the value of the program. A research course she took as part of her psychology program at UWM has provided great guidance in that effort, Binger said. “I had some professors that really changed my life.” One of them was Pamela Schaefer, a faculty member who taught the statistics course and has guided Binger’s thinking as she does research.
