College of Letters & Science
IN FOCUS
August 2021, Vol. 11, No. 8
UWM’s Field School makes students the researchers Pg. 6
Future archaeologists dig up the past
Biochem student
Contents Feature Stories Meet a remarkable biochemistry major CES alum spotlights sustainability at Kohl’s Anthropology field schools uncovers artifacts Biologist studies protein misfolds Communication alum is new MKE fire chief PoliSci professors studies sex in politics
p.2 p.4 p.6 p.9 p.10 p.12
Columns In the Media Laurels and Accolades Upcoming Events Passings Alumni Accomplishments Video Story People in Print Scholarship News
Published College the
the first
Tuesday
of Letters and
University
Contact
of
of each month by the
Science
at
Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
us at let-sci@uwm.edu
L&S Dean: Scott Gronert In Focus Editor: Deanna Alba
p.14 p.15 p.15 p.15 p.16 p.17 p.17 p.18
Meet Sana Shakir. She’s a rising senior at UWM majoring in biochemistry with a certificate in forensic science. She’s also a student researcher in the Sensory, Neuroscience, Attention and Perception (SNAP) Lab; a former food research and development intern; and she’s also the incoming president of the university’s Muslim Student Association. Her secret to doing it all, and with aplomb? “I think one of the important things that I learned about myself throughout college ... is to be flexible to plans changing,” Shakir said. “I think many times we think we have to have everything set out and that’s the only way it can go. But I have found a lot of comfort and success in giving myself a guideline of what to prioritize, and I go from there. It’s helpful to be flexible so you don’t get locked into a corner.” Shakir’s life has been all about flexibility and being willing to try new things. Her family migrated from Iraq to America when she was just eight years old. They settled in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where Shakir grew up nurturing a love for math and science. She chose UWM for her college education both for its proximity and its status as an R1 Research University. When it came time to choose a major, “I was torn between biology and chemistry. I was like, let’s go in between and do biochemistry,” Shakir said. “Then I get the best of both worlds.” Research Her work at college began even before freshman classes started. Shakir participated in UR@UWM, a summer research program that pairs incoming UWM students with faculty mentors to assist in their research inquiries. Here, her flexibility started to shine: Despite being a biochemistry major, Shakir found herself under the mentorship of then-psychology professor Adam Greenberg and working in his SNAP lab. “That was something I was nervous about at first, because I wanted to do something more related to my major. When I tried to find other labs, it just didn’t work out. I was comfortable in that lab,” Shakir said.
Find us at UWMLetSci
2 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
She turned it to her advantage, in fact. Throughout her time as a student researcher, Shakir managed to find projects in the lab that aligned with her major. When Greenberg received an offer to teach at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Shakir continued her research with her mentor. Currently, “I’ve been trying to find a link between the chemical structure of odors that we smell and … how
shines in research and leadership “Throughout my time there, I worked on a few projects relating to sourness and sweetness and trying to develop the best formulas for that. I was mostly doing the work, but sometimes, when I got more experience, he would ask me, what do you think we could change here? So I got to have a little bit of input as well,” Shakir said. The experience gave her a taste – pun intended – of the working world. Shakir says that she could easily see herself working in food-related research and development, though she is leaning more towards a job in forensic science. Leadership This year, Shakir is tackling a new experience beyond work and Biochemistry major Sana Shakir stands in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum. Shakir research: Leadership. She is the is an undergraduate researcher and the incoming president of the UWM Muslim incoming president of the UWM Student Association. Photo courtesy of Sana Shakir. Muslim Student Association, an organization that provides support, community, and friendship for they’re perceived by human behavior, and seeing if those Muslim students on campus. Shakir served on the MSA’s minor chemical differences change how we smell certain things,” Shakir explained. Later this year, the group hopes board as an event coordinator during her junior year. to do some studies surrounding COVID-19 patients and This year, “I want make things a lot more inclusive in the if and how they recover their sense of smell after the organization and try to invite some new students,” Shakir disease runs its course. said. “I want to reach out to newer freshmen and people who didn’t see themselves in the MSA space before, to Résumé building find comfort in that and be able to meet new people and That research background has already proved useful. find it a welcoming community.” During her sophomore year, Shakir found a job posting That includes helping to organize events like dodgeball for an internship at Wixon, a research and development games, or bringing in Islamic speakers for education and company that assists businesses in the food and inspiration. beverage industry with flavor development. For example, if a company wants to make a diet version of a product Shakir is still unsure about her plans after graduation. by eliminating salt or sugar, Wixon will work to keep the She’s debating pursuing graduate work or entering the taste and flavor of the original product without using those working world, hopefully in a forensic science-related field. ingredients. Wherever she chooses to go, she’ll jump in with both feet Technically speaking, she shouldn’t have gotten the job. and a lot of flexibility. The ad called for a junior or senior to fill the position. By Sarah VIckery, College of Letters & Science “I was like, I’ll just wiggle my way in. I have enough science and math knowledge to see what they say. I went for an interview and they accepted me,” Shakir said. For a year, she worked in the flavor development lab, where her boss would often assign her formulas to mix together, after which she would taste and rank her creations.
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 3
Conservation and Corpo CES alum tackles
When Jessica Quinlan graduated from UWM, the job market was bleak. It was 2010 and she had just finished her major in Conservation and Environmental Science. At the height of the recession, few if any nonprofits and local governments were hiring full-time.
She began in her new role with the company’s environmental compliance team, eventually transitioning to her current job as a Sustainability and ESG (Environment, Sustainability, and Governance) Coordinator.
She scraped by with part-time parks and forestry jobs in Milwaukee County, Oconomowoc, and Muskego, all while continuing her college job as a cashier at Kohl’s department stores. But, when Kohl’s offered her a full-time position with a salary and benefits as an assistant store manager, Quinlan had a choice to make: Did she pursue her passion in environmental science, or take the job that offered great stability?
A sustainable role
Kohl’s made the decision easier. “I knew that Kohl’s had a sustainability team at the corporate office, and I knew that they had a strong volunteer program in place where I could leverage that to continue supporting the parks through Kohl’s volunteer hours and Kohl’s donations,” Quinlan said. Her choice paid off; after a few years as an assistant store manager, Kohl’s corporate headquarters had a rare opening on its sustainability team. “I was able to leverage my store experience with my background and expertise in environmental science, and they were happy to have me,” Quinlan said.
4 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
All large businesses and corporations – due to their size and scope – have the potential to make a significant impact on the environment. In recent years, public opinion has shifted towards demanding that businesses work to be part of the solution for a greener future. At Kohl’s, that’s the job of Quinlan and the rest of the Sustainability Team at the company’s headquarters in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. The Sustainability Team not only handles compliance – ensuring that stores can comply with regional and national environmental regulations – but also ESG standards. Those are a set of criteria that investors, customers, and even employees look for a company to abide by when it comes to environmental and social responsibility. “We focus on three key areas: Climate, Waste and Recycling, and Sustainable Sourcing (of Kohl’s products),” Quinlan explained. “We have over 1,100 stores in 49 states. Every store is expected to implement the sustainability programs that we have in place. ... It’s a big company, but it’s really rewarding because you can have a big impact.”
orations
corporate sustainability with Kohl’s Corporations and conservation
Quinlan in particular works with ESG rating agencies to pinpoint areas where Kohl’s can implement new programs or establish best practices to reduce its environmental footprint.
The idea of corporate responsibility is gaining traction as part of the effort to reduce the impact of climate change. Quinlan notes that Kohl’s has had its Sustainability Team in place for the last decade and has long had a commitment to being a responsible business.
“We have many different teams that impact sustainability, and I get to bring back my ESG research and say, hey, if we want to move the needle in this area or that area, here are some steps we could take,” Quinlan said.
Responsibility varies from industry to industry, she noted. Retailers like Kohl’s might find ways to eliminate plastic in their packaging or find new ways to sustainably source its products, whereas a restaurant might focus on eliminating food waste.
She also collaborates with other companies to share sustainability goals and best practices. Finally, “The other part of my job is I try to build awareness about all of the great things Kohl’s is doing in the sustainability space. How can we continue to amplify our story publicly?” Quinlan said.
Jessica Quinlan
“I draft a lot of communication for our corporate website. I’m heavily involved in writing our annual ESG report which details all of our programs around environmental and social sustainability … and also shows the progress that we make in these areas each year,” she added.
Quinlan is proud of the work she does at Kohl’s, but she’s the first to admit that she didn’t set out to work in the private sector. “I thought about becoming a forester,” she said with a laugh. “But, I’m really glad everything worked out the way that it did.” “I think that anyone who has a degree in Conservation and Environmental Science can use it in a lot of different ways,” Quinlan added. “I see myself at Kohl’s for many years to come. I’m really proud to be working for a company that’s so deeply committed to sustainability.” By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 5
An ancient bu
Anthropology field school tea As he ventured through the field towards the dig site, Seth Schneider had to be careful where he put his feet. To his left were rows of newly-planted tobacco, and to his right were the uncovered remains of an ancient village site. Nestled on a small strip of dirt at the edge of the tobacco field were Schneiders’ students, a cohort of budding archaeologists carefully excavating a checkerboard of 2x2 meter squares. They dug in 10 centimeters deep levels and logged their findings in their field journals. In the squares, they found pottery sherds, stone tools called ‘lithics,’ and discolored earth representing storage pits and structures that once stood in the same spot the students stand today. It’s all that remains of people archaeologists refer to as the Oneota, groupings of Native Americans who lived in Wisconsin roughly 1,000 years ago. Schneider led this summer’s UWM Anthropology Field School, which ran through June and into July. It was his job to help students in the field school not only learn about this ancient village, but also learn to become archaeologists themselves. “We want to give the students basically a practicum or hands-on approach,” Schneider said as he watched a student examine a pottery sherd. “They are the researchers.” A brief history of field school Schneider, a principal investigator in UWM’s Archaeological Research Laboratory Center, continued the excavation at this, the Koshkonong Creek Village Site, that Rick Edwards, a principal investigator in UWM’s Archaological Research Laboratory Center, began in 2012. Schneider collaborated with Edwards and together they’re old pros; this is their fifth summer working together in the Field School on Lake Koshkonong. Broken triangular projectile point recovered from the screened dirt. Photo courtesy of the Anthropology Department. 6 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
Field school students excavating a patch of farm field to expose pit and post hole features at the Koshko structures built by indigenous people known as the Oneota used to stand in this location. Photo courtesy
They learned their trade at the hands of UWM’s Anthropology professor emeritus Bob Jeske, who, now retired, led UWM anthropology students on field school excavations for some 30 years. They’ve been exploring the Oneota settlements around Lake Koshkonong and surrounding farmland. There are several sites scattered throughout the area and Schneider said the Field Schools have found evidence that the groups used to interact with each other. This year, the Field School returned to a farm in Edgerton, Wisconsin, where Edwards has previously run excavations. “The farm family is very excited to have us out there. Just knowing and learning about what used to be here is a very cool thing,” Schneider said.
uried treasure
aches students to unearth the past Learn more! The directors of the Field School recorded events, discoveries, and travels in a running blog. Click here to learn more about the archaeological techniques the Field School students learned and to see more of the artifacts they uncovered. “Practice is the answer,” laughed Anastasia DeMaio. “You’re looking for evidence of percussion. You’re looking to see a ‘bulb’ of percussion (on the stone),” Jordan Payne explained. “That’s part of being an archaeologist – you have to train your eyes.”
onong Creek Village site. Pits and post holes, indicated by discolored patches of earth, indicate the ancient of the Anthropology Department.
Learning as they dig The Field School runs for six weeks, during which students are expected to conduct surveys to identify archaeological sites and run excavations like a professional archaeological dig. “We need to give them the opportunity to excavate a unit using methods we would use on any other archaeology site,” Schneider said. “We talk about the theories behind what we’re doing, the methods … and material culture (pottery, stone tools, etc.).”
DeMaio and Payne are both graduate students in the Anthropology Department. They spent their summer baking in the heat and shivering through the rain as they worked on the next Phase of the excavation: Digging out a checker-board of 2x2 meter squares to reach below the “plow zone” and sifting through the dirt to filter out lithics, pottery sherds, and other materials. “When you bring it back to the surface, that’s where it really hits you. These are cultural
To begin, students started with a “Phase 1” survey, where they walked the field that they would later excavate. They Continued on Page 8 were looking for material remains on the ground that might have been churned up during plowing, since the This shell-tempered pottery sherd (temper means that crushed site is a working farm. Just how do you tell the difference between a stone tool and a regular rock?
shell was mixed with clay during the pottery production) and its trailed line decoration are indicative of people that archaeologist refer to as Oneota. Photo courtesy of the Anthropology Department. College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 7
Field school findings Continued from Page 7
Field School student Arik Scapellato exposes a large circular feature stain in the excavation unit he is working in. Photo by Seth Schneider.
materials that have been here for hundreds and hundreds of years,” Payne said. The students mapped out their squares, particularly noting the discolored dirt representing cultural features indicating that ancient people dug a pit or erected a structure on this spot. “They’re not specifically wigwams, but they’re about that size (5x5 meters),” Schneider said. “Depending on the size of the fetaure, we can tell this pit feature was used to process wild rice.” They finished by digging out the untouched checkered squares so that the entire area was excavated, covering 16x4.5 meters. By doing so, they could determine the full extent of the structures that once stood in the area. In addition to the excavation, the students also learned other archaeological and survey skills, including technologically mapping sites and exploring using groundpenetrating radar. Digging in the past, preparing for the future By the end of the Field School, students walked away with a better grasp of what it takes to perform cultural excavations.
“If they go on to get their graduate degree, having the basics down and knowing where to find archaeology sites and how to handle survey work and excavation work – these are skills they can take anywhere,” Schneider said. “A lot of students will go on and get jobs in this kind of thing,” Edwards added. “You get a better appreciation for what it is (you have in museum collections) when you’re the one taking it out of the ground.” After the excavation was complete, students headed back to UWM where they will spend the fall semester analyzing and reporting on the artifacts they found during the Field School. Schneider and Edwards are looking to publish their findings. DeMaio was excited to get back to the lab and examine the unearthed artifacts. She was initially drawn to anthropology because she enjoyed working with tangible connections to the past. Being part of the team to excavate this Oneota site gave her both an education and a sense of purpose. “To me, it’s always about being the voice for people who can’t speak for themselves anymore,” she said. “There were people here before us. … We owe it to them to explore this.” By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
8 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
Researcher details how cells keep protein balance to fend off disease The roughly 25,000 proteins in the human body can only do their jobs by folding into unique atomic shapes that correlate to various biological tasks. Many human disorders, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, begin when proteins misfold or unfold due to cellular stress. In a part of the cell where onethird of protein folding occurs, the endoplasmic reticulum, misfolded proteins can accumulate, tipping the healthy balance and setting off an alarm network – the unfolded protein response, or UPR, that also resolves the imbalance. A researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has mapped the role of a newly discovered protein in the UPR. The work demonstrates new details about how the UPR operates and shows that it is more complicated than previously thought.
Madhusudan Dey, associate professor of biological sciences at UWM, shows the atomic structure of the protein he found. The protein plays a role in the process the cell uses to maintain proteostasis – a healthy balance of cellular proteins. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Using a yeast model, Madhusudan Dey’s research is charting the complicated signaling network with an eye toward finding targets for new drugs to treat diseases caused by protein misfolding in people. UPR is both the sensor and the correction system for defective folding in the endoplasmic reticulum, said Dey, UWM associate professor of biological sciences. “It is the mechanism that spots anomalies and then sets off an intracellular system of signals to other proteins to correct the problem,” he said. Dey has discovered that a new protein, kinase Kin1, plays a regulatory role in maintaining proteostasis – the healthy balance of cellular proteins. The UPR is one of two processes used to maintain proteostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum. But, until now, neither sufficiently explained how the newly discovered protein contributes. In the mammalian cell, three protein molecules act as sensors and messengers in the UPR process, but only one of those protein molecules, called Ire1, is shared by both yeast and humans. He and his lab members collected various yeast strains, made single genetic changes to them and then compared
the communication pathways of the “mutants” to the unaltered yeast strains. In this work, published in May in Science Signaling, Dey and his collaborators detangled the role of the kinase Kin1 protein in the lre1 pathway and found it enabled the activation of UPR. The team included members from Quinnipiac University, Yale University School of Medicine and Argonne National Laboratory. Along with Ire1, two other proteins transmit ER stress signals in humans. Dey said this work suggests that there are likely more pathways to uncover that work in concert with each other. Some of these signaling pathways are also involved in cancer outcomes, he added. His lab is also trying to identify small molecules involved in disease where the signaling can be interrupted by turning a gene “on” or “off.” UWM coauthors include Chandrima Ghosh, Jagadeesh Uppala, Leena Sathe and Ashish Anshu. The work was funded by a $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. By Laura Otto, University Relations College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 9
New Milwaukee fire chief d Aaron Lipski, Milwaukee’s new fire chief, remembers vividly the first time he used what he learned at UWM. At the time, he was battalion chief in the Milwaukee Fire Department’s construction and maintenance division (the repair facility for all fleet and facility concerns). He was working on a master’s degree in public administration since he’d assumed responsibilities that called for more managerial and budgeting skills. “In class, we were talking about how you measure the replacement cycle for a fleet – some standard ways and various recommendations. I left that class and probably stayed up half the night refiguring everything we had previously just done on a hunch. The next day I went before a pretty powerful body here in the city.” The officials were amazed and impressed by what he presented, he recalls. Lipski was named the Milwaukee Fire Department chief in May 2021 to serve the one year remaining on the term of former chief Mark Rohlfing. He had been acting chief since Rohlfing retired in October 2020. Fourth generation firefighter He is the fourth generation in a family of firefighters and was well aware of the physical and mental stress of the job. “I was around it my whole life, but my family never pressured me. In fact, they encouraged me to go to college, do something easier on the body. “My dad would come home absolutely exhausted after a 24-hour shift. He’d try to take me and my brother fishing and he’d fall asleep 10 feet off the dock.” He did follow his family’s advice and earned his college degree – a bachelor’s in communication from UWM in 2001. One day, his dad mentioned that a firefighting exam was coming up and casually asked if he’d be interested. “I can’t fully explain it. It was like a light switch flipped, and I never turned back.” That was 24 years ago. Department faces challenges As the new chief, Lipski sees that the Fire Department is facing some major challenges that will draw on all of his experience and skills. “First and foremost, we’ve been struggling with pretty massive budget cuts for the past 10 or 15 years, and it 10 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
Aaron Lipski, recently sworn in as Milwaukee fire chief, is the fourth generation of firefighters in his family
doesn’t look like that’s going to be letting up anytime,” he said. While recognizing the cuts are part of overall city efforts to control spending, “fewer stations and crews make it harder to do the job, especially in a large urban setting.” At the same time that stations are being closed, the need for both firefighting and emergency medical services has increased, which has added mental and physical stress, Lipski said. Firefighters pride themselves on getting the job done, he said, adding “we need to be leaning forward on ensuring that we’re not causing compassion fatigue and just general fatigue.” Another major challenge the department faces is increasing diversity, Lipski said. “The fire service nationwide – and Milwaukee is no different – has been largely a predominately white male group of employees. There is value in every one of those individuals, and they have saved a ton of lives, but I will tell you we don’t represent demographically the city we serve, and that’s a problem.”
draws on UWM experience Lipski’s appointment as chief. “He has successfully navigated through the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing strong support to our public health response; he has taken a solution-oriented approach to challenges such as the withdrawal of a private ambulance provider – a big disruption in our emergency medical system; and, he has successfully tapped into expertise within his department and elsewhere in city government.” “The PA program is very proud of Aaron’s accomplishments, said Doug Ihrke, current program chair of UWM’s Public and Nonprofit Administration program. “It’s exciting to have a graduate of our program in such a position of influence in the city.” While Ihrke didn’t have Lipski in class, he said faculty who did said that Lipski was an excellent student. “He ... garnered great respect from fellow students.” Good reputation As chief, Lipski is proud of the reputation the department has in the community. “People tend to let us in their homes, or they’ll come out on their porch, and they’ll give us time in their day.”
y. (Photo courtesy of Aaron Lipski)
The Fire Department has been actively recruiting in underrepresented communities and has had some success, Lipski said. Public health efforts The department has also begun taking more of a role in public health efforts, providing gun locks as well as smoke detectors, and working with others on opioid prevention efforts and collection of unused prescription drugs. EMTs have also done training with UWM’s College of Nursing to learn to provide follow-up care and support to try to avoid future emergencies. Lipski is particularly proud of the role the department has played during the pandemic. The department was instrumental in working together with subject matter experts and city and county agencies to form a crisis response team. “Chief Lipski has stepped up in many notable ways during his current leadership of the department,” wrote Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a letter supporting
That became especially apparent during periods of unrest and protest last summer, he said. Firetrucks or ambulances would turn a corner and find the street curb-to-curb with people. “In the midst of probably the most intense protests of my era at least, we were witness to those people who very angry, but they would part like the Red Sea and clap as we drove our ambulances or firetrucks through. “Even with all our warts, and even with our failures, people still trust us and they still think highly of us. There is still a huge a huge amount of trust, a belief that when we’re responding we’re going there to do good.”
By Kathy Quirk, University Relations College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 11
Political Science professor explains when The first woman elected vice president of the United States. A record number of women in Congress. The highest percentage of women in the Wisconsin Legislature. Women are increasingly visible in American politics, a slow but steady climb that kicked off some 30 years ago and has increased incrementally every year since. Women represent 26% of congressional officeholders, while women make up 31% of Wisconsin’s Legislature, which is the average representation in state legislatures across the country. Nobody understands the factors behind these developments better than Kathleen Dolan, distinguished professor of political science. She’s spent much of her career researching issues at the intersection of gender and politics. “Since the beginning,” Dolan says, “I have been intrigued by questions of whether and how and when gender matters to politics.” Dolan’s research has followed two distinct lines of inquiry. The first focuses on female candidates, including the rates at which they run for office, the rates at which they win elections and whether gender matters in determining their success. The second aspect of Dolan’s research focuses on how gender matters when it comes to public opinion surrounding political issues. People had long assumed that the reason there were so few women in office is because voters wouldn’t vote for women. But Dolan’s research disproved that notion. Backed by funding from the National Science Foundation, she conducted
12 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
Kathleen Dolan
a groundbreaking survey in 2010 of 3,000 people across the United States. She asked them about specific candidates in gubernatorial races as well as races for the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. As part of the study, Dolan focused on two categories of elections – one in which women ran against men and one in which two men were running. This allowed her to directly compare races that included women with races that only included men. The results showed that people were just as likely to vote for female candidates as they were for male candidates. In the end, the research found that people voted for the candidate of their preferred party, regardless of whether they were a woman or a man. Dolan found no evidence that voters crossed party lines to vote for a male candidate. “The main reason why there are so few women in office in the U.S. is because there are so few women who run,” Dolan says. “When they run, their rates of winning are at least as high as men, and often higher.”
Moreover, it doesn’t matter whether a female candidate runs as a Democrat or a Republican. Yes, there are many more Democratic women in public office than Republican women, but that’s only because there are many more women on Democratic tickets. “If the goal is to increase the overall number of women in elected office, you have to have more women running in both parties,” Dolan says. “What has to change is that the number of women candidates needs to be more equally represented in both parties.” There are some signs this may be happening. In the last 20 years, Dolan notes, about 70% of the women who ran for office ran as Democrats. In the 2020 election, a historic number of women ran for office, from Congress down to state-level seats. The increase in Republican female candidates outpaced the increase for Democratic ones, partly because the numbers among Republicans were smaller to begin with.
n gender matters in politics “In all of my work on women candidates and the public,” Dolan says, “what it shows is, overwhelmingly, people will vote for the candidate of their political party, regardless of whether it’s a woman or a man.”
Center for 21st Century Studies wants your opinion!
Dolan’s research has also examined the public’s attitudes toward political issues, including the perceived reasons behind those attitudes. One of the most recent examples of this type of work is a paper published in summer 2020 in the journal American Politics Research. Dolan and Michael A. Hansen, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, examined data from a survey called the American National Election Study. They looked at the attitudes of 2,500 people about a confluence of issues – Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, sexual harassment and voting in the 2018 midterm elections. Dolan and Hansen found that the gender-salient issue of sexual harassment wasn’t necessarily a driver in the opinions of women in the study. Kavanaugh was accused of sexual harassment, and many women have experienced sexual harassment, leading to assumptions that it would color their views of Kavanaugh. Research showed that it did, but not as much as partisanship. One key distinction was whether women identified as being sexually harassed. The survey asked women whether they’d been sexually harassed, and several said no, but that doesn’t mean they hadn’t been. They just didn’t identify it. “What that shows us is that there are some number of women who have been harassed and who identify having been harassed,”
UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies supports interdisciplinary research across the humanities, arts, and sciences on campus. A student holds up an “I voted” sticker at the polling location at the UWM Student Union on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Dolan says, “and those are the women for whom that piece of their identity is going to come out in their politics.” But the overarching factor in people’s views came down to partisanship. Simply put: Republican women liked Kavanaugh, and Democratic women didn’t. This shows that women as a demographic group don’t share much of a consciousness about gender issues. “If you can’t get women to stand together around sexual violence,” Dolan says, “how are you going to get them to stand around child care and women’s rights in the workplace, or whatever it is?” Dolan continues to work toward a fuller understanding of issues at the intersection of gender and politics. Her research has provided definitive answers to plenty of questions, but there are plenty more questions to come, especially as women increasingly seek – and gain – public office.
English Professor Anne Basting was named the new director of the Center this year, and she and her team are soliciting input from students, faculty, staff and community members to fuel the post-pandemic next steps for C21. Please share your thoughts here:
https://milwaukee. qualtrics.com/jfe/form/ SV_a3JCVCupOTIsmfc
C21 is also in search of a Deputy Director. Applications can be submitted through Aug. 15. Please see a job description at https://jobs.
uwm.edu/postings/31184.
For more information about the Center for 21st Century Studies, visit https://uwm.edu/c21/.
By Becky Lang, University Relations College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 13
In the Media and Around the Community Dozens of sightings over the past several years reveal the likely path of an enormous comet more than 60 miles across, Jean Creighton (Planetarium) told Mashable. com. The COVID-19 pandemic made housing insecurity even worse for Wisconsin’s LGBTQ+ youth, Cary Costello (Sociology) noted in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article. Federal funding slated for Milwaukee as part of the American Rescue Plan and proposed infrastructure package marks a policy shift that has not been seen in a long time, Marc Levine (emeritus History) told PBS Wisconsin. On Wisconsin Public Radio, he discussed how Black Milwaukeeans are worse off now than they were 50 years ago when the Milwaukee Bucks won their last NBA championship. Finally, Levine remarked on Milwaukee’s black citizens’ historically low wages in a story about the minimum wage by the Associated Press republished on Fox 6 News. In fact, he called out Milwaukee’s segregation as “modern day metropolitan racial apartheid” in a New York Times piece. Civility is important in any discourse. Bill Keith (English) explained why on WUWM’s Lake Effect show. Students of color were feeling unseen and isolated during the 2020 summer of the pandemic and racial protests, so Anika WIlson (African and African Diaspora Studies) and Sara Benesh (Political Science) created the Self Care Club for students of color at UWM. The news was reported in Milwaukee Magazine. The New York Times nodded to Paul Roebber’s
(Atmospheric Sciences) research about Lake Michigan’s historic water levels in an article exploring the future of Chicago as the climate changes. David Herro (‘85, MA Economics), a portfolio manager of Oakmark’s International funds appeared as a guest on Morningstar’s podcast The Long View.
14 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
Jolien Creighton (Physics) discussed scientists’ discovery of a black hole and neutron star merger on Wisconsin Public Radio. Two Milwaukee seniors credited classes taught by Rachel Baum (History) for helping to keep them young in an article in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle. After the president of Haiti was assassinated in July, Patrick Bellegard-Smith (emeritus African and African Diaspora Studies) explained what the consequences might be in an article reprinted in the CT Press. As the NBA finals drew the nation’s eyes to Phoenix and Milwaukee, the Roanoke Times quoted the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee written and maintained by the History Department in an editorial examining the two cities’ economies. Kundan Kishor (Economics) shared his thoughts on the hot housing market driven in part by the pandemic and lack of new construction in an article on GlobeSt.com. He also noted on Wisconsin Public Radio that Wisconsin’s economic recovery depends greatly on how the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to evolve in the coming months. Milwaukeeans see themselves reflected in the championship-winning Milwaukee Bucks players, and the city has a special relationship with its team, Michael Mirer (Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) said in an article by The Guardian. Jean Creighton (Planetarium) discussed some of the methods scientists have developed to track and possibly disrupt the trajectories of asteroids near Earth on WUWM Radio. Rachel Buff (History) explained the history of immigration and asylum in the U.S. in an interview on 88.9 Radio. She also coauthored an essay titled, “Refuge: Denied. Asylum: Pending,” as part of a new series by Public Books titled, “From ‘Crisis’ to Futurity.”
Upcoming Events In 2013, Giannis Antetokounmpo was late to pratice, had no money for a cab, and no coat to shield him from a freezing November day in Milwaukee. He hitched a ride with Jane Gallop (emerita English) who brought him to the Bradley Center and re-told the story in The Athletic this year when the Bucks won the NBA championship. TMJ4 News sat down for a chat with comedian Frank
Caliendo (‘96, BA Mass Communications) to ask, among other questions, who he rooted for in the NBA finals.
Planetarium Show: Shooting Stars and Meteor Showers Many know shooting stars for the striking trails of light they give off, but their name is misleading since they are neither shooting nor stars. These light trails, also known as meteors, are fragments of either comets or asteroids. Find out how to witness these mesmerizing light trails for yourself! Show is recommended for ages 5 and up. When: Aug. 6 at 7 p.m. Where: Live via YouTube (link will be sent out) Register at: https://bit.ly/3qNx1ld
Laurels and Accolades Margo Anderson (emerita History) was named to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Panel to evaluate the quality of the 2020 U.S. Census. The committee will provide an external review of the quality of data gathered from the survey. Philip Chang (Physics), with assistance from Dan Siercks (L&S Web and Data), received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) program for new supercomputing equipment.
Virtual Career Fair – Actuarial Science, Math, Economics, Data, Accounting, Info Tech & Finance majors This Virtual Career Fair will offer employers and students an opportunity to connect. Students majoring in mathematics, data science, economics, accounting, finance, data analytics, information technology, and actuarial science can share their talent and learn about open positions and internships. When: Sept. 28, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Where: Online via Handshake Register at: https://uwm.edu/careerplan/ handshake/
Passings Earl S. Grow, Jr., passed away on July 14, 2021, at the age of 86. Grow was an associate professor of Mass Communication (now called Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) at UWM for 33 years. As a founding member of UWM’s Mass Communication Department, he taught more than 10,000 students in his signature class, “Mass Comm 151.” He also served as department chair for many years and taught for two semesters at the University of London as part of the American Institute for Foreign Study program. When he retired in 1998, his students created “Earlfest,” a celebration of his teaching, and he was also recognized by state and local government officials. Grow will be remembered by his colleagues for his contributions as the consummate academic and educator. His obituary may be viewed at https://legcy.co/3jnsQt5.
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 15
Alumni Accomplishments Britain Welch (‘15, BA Psychology) was hired as the shared school psychologist of Jefferson Middle School and West Elementary School in Jefferson, Wisconsin. Welch is expected to complete his Master’s degree this month through the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Anna Kaminski (‘21, BA Atmospheric Science) was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Father James B. Macelwane Annual Award in Meteorology. It is the most prestigious student research award offered by the American Meteorology Society, and one of the most prestigious such awards in all of the atmospheric and related sciences. Kaminski is UWM’s second consecutive recipient of this award. Helen Rountree (’73, PhD Anthropology) just authored another book focusing on American Indians – this time on the Algonquian-speaking Indians of Northeastern North Carolina. Rountree, who has 40 years of research under her belt and has written several books and papers on primarily indigenous groups in Virginia, Helen Rountree said she was frustrated that no one had yet written books on this particular group. Kevin Hobert (’91, BS Physics) joined the Board of Directors of Asensus Surgical, Inc., a medical device company pioneering digital interfaces for surgeon/patient interactions in Performance Guided Surgery. Hobert is the principal of Beaver Lake Advisors LLC, a consulting firm providing industry and transaction advisory services to private equity funds. Brenda Hicks-Sorensen (’02, MS Urban Studies) is the newly-appointed director of the Economic Development Department of San Antonio, Texas. In charge of a 35-person staff, she will be responsible for fostering the economic growth of the state’s secondlargest city. Hicks-Sorenson was previously the assistant economic development director Brenda Hicks-Sorensen of Fort Worth, Texas. 16 • IN FOCUS • August, 2021
The University of Delaware Library in Newark, Delaware, is home to a brand-new Brian C. Felder Small Press Poetry Archive in its Special Collections Department. Brian Felder (‘71, BS Political Science; ‘75, MLIS) is a working poet whose career began in Brian C. Felder 1969. In his decades of writing, he has seen 409 of his poems published in 348 separate issues of 146 different periodicals and three anthologies, as well as in 40 out 50 states. The archive spotlights the history of the small press movement, which emerged from the antiwar movement of the late 1960s and ‘70s. The core of the archive is one bound volume of every publication in which Felder’s work has appeared over the past 50 years. It also includes correspondence and record-keeping documents related to the publications. These items will be held in perpetuity by the University of Delaware Library and will soon be available for in-person or online research.
Deborah Carroll (’97, ’00, ‘04; BA, MPA, and PhD Political Science) was named the director of the Government Finance Research Center
at the University of Illinois Chicago. An expert in public and nonprofit financial management, Carroll will also serve as an associate professor of public administration. She was previously an associate professor in the School of Public Administration and the director Deborah Carroll of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management at University of Central Florida. Brice D. Smith (‘10, PhD History) was recognized by WUWM Radio in a piece reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the launch of UWM’s Milwaukee Transgender Oral History Project. Smith was the primary researcher of the project.
Hear from UWM students - including several from the College of Letters & Science - reflect on the impact their scholarships had on their experience at UWM and their plans for the future. Whether they intend to continue on to graduate school or work full time, these students agree that the generosity of scholarship donors have helped make their vision a reality. https://youtu.be/mIfYfMDN9I4
People in Print Ian Hayes, Di Wei, T. Metz, Jian Zhang, Yun Suk Eo, Sheng Ran, Shanta Saha, John Collini, Nicholas Butch, Daniel Agterberg (Physics), aharon kapitulnik, and Johnpierre Paglione. 2021. Multicomponent superconducting order parameter in UTe2. Science. Online. https://bit.ly/3zSOyeN Bettina Arnold (Anthropology). 2021 Intersectionality and elite identity in Iron Age west-central European mortuary contexts. In Vix et le phénomène princier (Patrice Brun, Bruno Chaume and Federica Sacchetti eds), Préhistoires de la Méditerranée. Una Éditions, Bordeaux: pp. 299-309. https://bit.ly/3lc2ug0 Craig R. Guilbault, Molly Moran (‘15, PhD Mathematical Sciences), and Kevin Schreve (‘15, PhD Mathematical Sciences). 2021. Compressible spaces and EZ-structures. Fundamenta Mathematicae, 32. https://bit.ly/3x9ONR2
Uk Heo (Political Science) and Seongyi Yun. 2021. US Military Deployment and Its Effects on South Korea’s Politics and Economy. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 56(4): 964-981. https://bit.ly/3C35dhA Uk Heo (Political Science). 2021. Asia in 2020: the COVID-19 Pandemic and the US-China Trade War. Asian Survey, University of California Press, 61(1), 1-10. https://bit.ly/3xfvpSA
Emma F. Bloomfield and Sara C. VanderHaagen (Communication). 2021. Where Women Scientists Belong: Placing Feminist Memory in Biography Collections for Children. Women’s Studies in Communication. Online. https://bit.ly/3zT0KfF John S. Heywood (Economics), Benjamin Artz, and Colin Green. 2021. Does Performance Pay Increase Alcohol and Drug Use? Journal of Population Economics, 34: 969-1002. https://bit.ly/3yiNUHb
John S. Heywood (Economics),Colin Green, and Nikolaos Theodoropoulos. 2021. Hierarchy and the Employer Size Effect on Wages: Evidence from Britain. Economica, 88(351): 671-696. https://bit.ly/3yilAVg John S. Heywood (Economics) and Zheng Wang. 2021. Quality, Location and Collusion under Spatial Price Discrimination. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 21(3), 1173-1183. https://bit.ly/3zPb2xe John W. Jordan (Communication). 2021. Criticism of metaphor. In Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action (3rd edition; Ed. Jim A. Kuypers). Rowman & Littlefield. https://bit.ly/3fc5gxN
Katarzyna Lorencik, Robert Ekiert, Yongtao Zhu, Mark J. McBride (Biological Sciences), Robert B Gennis, Marcin Sarewicz, and Artur Osyczka. 2021. The monoheme c subunit of respiratory alternative complex III is not essential for electron transfer to cytochrome aa3 in Flavobacterium johnsoniae. Microbiology Spectrum, 9, e00135-21. https://bit.ly/3xdS8yv Anastasia Salter and Stuart A. Moulthrop (English). 2021. Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives. Glendale: Amherst College Press. https://bit.ly/3lhgiFR Timothy L. O’Brien (Sociology) and Shiri Noy. 2021. Threatening Morality: Religious and Political Opposition to Science in the United States. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Online. https://bit.ly/3j9tpq2 Richard J. Ward, John D. Pediani, Sara Marsango, Richard Jolly, Michael R. Stoneman, Gabriel Biener, Tracy M. Handel, Valerica Raicu (all Physics), and Graeme Milligan. 2021. Chemokine receptor CXCR4 oligomerization is disrupted selectively by the antagonist ligand IT1t. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 296. https://bit.ly/3rIjH1I College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 17
Each spring, we typically hold a celebratory event to honor our scholarship recipients and donors. This event is always one of the highlights of our year but the pandemic interrupted our usual plans. Despite that, we didn’t want to let our 2020-21 star students and donors go unrecognized. We are pleased to present this video tribute featuring several of our donors and students along with a full list of all of our donors and students. We hope to see you for an extra special event in the Spring of 2022!
Alum at NASA creates scholarship honoring Mom Just a few weeks after Darian Dixon '(15, BS Geosciences) gave the Spring 2021 UWM commencement address, he made a decision to help other UWM students cross the finish line by establishing a scholarship in honor of his mother. Below is the heartfelt message he posted about his gift on Instagram: "In this envelope I hold the greatest honor and gift I've ever given my mother and something I'm so damn elated to announce. "My mom is without a doubt the biggest factor in my success. From day 1 this woman did everything in her power to prepare me for success and show me I deserved it and could earn it. It was those long nights after kindergarten, practicing math and reading because she wanted me to be exceptional at them and not merely adequate. It was the fostering of my interests when she realized I loved science. The zoo and museum trips, hours and hours at the public library, the science books, Discovery World, the science toys, watching any and all science documentaries. It was the home experiments that sometimes she wasn't the most fond of but never thought to thwart because she respected and nurtured my curiosity. The jars full of bugs I tried to adopt and raise, piles of collected rocks, and boxes of old electronics I would take apart hoping to learn about how they worked, she encouraged all that. "And it wasn't just to me she gave her utmost respect, nurturing, and care. She was a fixture in the community. Working for nonprofits and dedicating herself to worthy causes for as long as I can remember. Running after-school programs, toy drives, food drives, school supply drives, organizing food pantries city-wide, community gardening initiatives, offering up hot meals, our couch, and space in our small home to folks when they had nowhere else to stay. She did all that. Constantly. Consistently. Altruistically. While still raising and feeding me mostly alone and never missing a nightly convo about school, my dreams, college plans, or my adolescent struggles. "So in this envelope I have a gift agreement with UWM for the next 4 years, to create the Gloria Dixon Dream and Believe Scholarship in honor of her dedication to selfless giving. To be awarded to a Milwaukee-born Milwaukee Public Schools alum and UWM student majoring in the sciences who has endured financial hardship, barriers to traditional opportunity, and who has shown demonstrated commitment to promoting social justice in our world. "Love you, Mom. This is for you. This is our legacy!" Read how Dixon benefited from scholarships while he was a UWM student.
