College of Letters & Science
IN FOCUS
February 2021, Vol. 11, No.2
Research, Unfiltered Noelle Chesley examines how people do – or don’t – adopt lead water filters Page 6
COVID-19 clouds th
Contents Feature Stories Economist analyzes airlines’ post-COVID futures History alum returns to teach her teachers Sociologist examines barriers to lead H20 filters Anthropology student learns Mixtec NANOgrav finds new gravitational wave info UWM offers new neuroscience major
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Air carriers typically have weathered economic downturns in part by making their operations more efficient. This could mean using smaller aircraft that use less fuel, with cabins that are smaller but filled to capacity. But even the most efficient operations may not help airlines overcome the unprecedented upheaval triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, James Peoples, a professor of economics found in a study published on the Emerald Open Research website. “While this industry has weathered previous economic recessions, the economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic are unique because it creates health risks for passengers,” Peoples and co-authors said in the study. He compared the efficiency and productivity of airlines in the Asia-Pacific region during the Great Recession to the current predicament caused by COVID-19. Peoples focused on the Asia-Pacific region because it is biggest in the global airline industry, and because the region had experience in responding to a health situation with the SARS outbreak in 2003. Pandemic creates great uncertainty
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L&S Dean: Scott Gronert In Focus Editor: Deanna Alba
Efficiency increased during the Great Recession in 200708, the researchers found, and continued to increase in the two to three years following the recession. Productivity declined during the Great Recession before rebounding. Airline productivity is measured by the number of passengers transported relative to the number of employees, amount of fuel consumed and number of airplanes in the company’s fleet. This time, the uncertainty of the pandemic makes it hard to predict the future. Peoples applied the decline in air travel during the pandemic to his Great Recession analysis to simulate what might happen following COVID-19. He found that there would have been declines in both efficiency and productivity both during and after the recession. This means airlines might lose money no matter how much they tried to streamline operations to become more efficient because there wouldn’t be enough demand to fill seats, either because of health and safety restrictions, concerns by would-be travelers or other reasons.
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“Findings suggest, regardless of economic conditions, that social distancing which requires airline companies in the Asia-Pacific region to fly with a significant percentage of unfilled seats weakens the performance of those companies,” the study found.
he skies for airlines’ financial future
Even after the economy bounces back from the pandemic recession, airlines likely will still face economic pain, says James Peoples, a professor of economics at UWM, as social distancing rules and passengers’ fear of infection could hinder airlines from operating efficiently. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey)
Devastation without relief package The trends can be applied to airlines operating in the United States that also have taken a significant financial hit, Peoples said. The new COVID-19 relief package signed into law Dec. 27 helps ease the sting.
“Some airlines may not make it through (the pandemic) and the ones that make it through may merge and create a more concentrated industry,” Peoples said. “If it’s more concentrated, the surviving companies will then have more pricing power. Will fares go up? That’s the concern that I have.”
The package includes $15 billion for airlines to bring back furloughed workers and restore service to cities that lost routes during the pandemic. That provides some relief for airlines.
The study was conducted with NurulHuda Mohd Satar, a faculty member of economics and administration at the University of Malaya. She earned her doctorate at UWM, where she studied under Peoples.
“Without the stimulus package, I would predict devastation in the airline industry,” Peoples said.
By Genaro C. Armas, University Relations
Unclear is how the public will respond to air travel if and when a COVID-19 vaccine is widely distributed. Will travelers still be hesitant to get on planes even with a vaccine? Will business travel remain curtailed as more companies get used to videoconferencing?
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 3
That kind of teacher The student has become the teacher, and a kind one at that. In January, Cate Denial, who earned her Master’s degree in history at UWM in 1996, returned to her alma mater to be the keynote speaker at UWM’s annual Teaching and Learning Symposium. The gathering brings together faculty and staff – some of whom are Denial’s old teachers and colleagues – for sessions and presentations aimed at sharing ideas about pedagogy.
Alum returns to UW
“This was an opportunity to reconnect with a place that had had such a meaningful impact. UWM is the place I discovered I wanted to be a teacher. That was really special to me, to be able to make that connection,” she said. Denial is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History at Knox College as well as a pedagogy coach for teachers of all levels looking to revise their teaching styles. She’s also the author of a forthcoming book titled, A Pedagogy of Kindness (under contract with West Virginia University Press). Kindness is central to Denial’s teaching philosophy, and she’s trying to spread the word. Her keynote address centered on the idea that teachers of all stripes can try to bring empathy into the classroom by working more collaboratively with their students as well as extending them a measure of grace – especially during a school year upended by a global pandemic. “That’s why we invited Cate Denial as the keynote for the 6th annual UWM Teaching and Learning Symposium – because of her advocacy of a pedagogy of 4 • IN FOCUS • February, 2021
UWM alum Cate Denial (‘96, MA History), shown here teaching pre-COVID-19 pandemic, returned to her alma mater to present the keynote address at the annual UWM Teaching and Learning Symposium in January. Photo courtesy of Cate Denial.
kindness. It is the right message at this time,” said Diane Reddy, psychology professor and the director of UWM’s Center for Teaching and Learning. Arriving at kindness Denial originally hails from England and did her undergraduate degree at the University of Nottingham, where she focused on American history. Upon graduating, she entered an exchange program that allowed her to attend UWM to earn her Master’s degree and teach classes. “Suddenly, I’m in front of a class, and I have no idea what I’m doing,” Denial recalled. “What happened was that I repeated the worst offenses of my previous professors. My experience of university in England was incredibly hierarchical, very dismissive, very sexist, and deeply racist too.
“It was clear to me very quickly that that was not going to fly. It just didn’t work. I started experimenting in different ways to figure out how to do this better.” She arrived at concept of kindness in 2017 when she attended the Digital Pedagogy Lab. “The ethos of that conference was to take care of people. I came away from it thinking, I have to change a lot. So I did, massive amounts of things, and immediately saw a difference in the way I felt about teaching and the way my students responded,” Denial said. Teaching in a troubled year If student response to her methods has been positive in the past, it’s been especially welcome this past school year. As the COVID-19
WM to spread a pedagogy of kindness What is a pedagogy of kindness? There’s one thing Cate Denial makes very clear when she talks about her pedagogy of kindness: It’s not nice. “Being kind often means very difficult conversations with people. It means honesty. There’s nothing nice about that,” she said firmly. Instead, she said, a pedagogy of kindness boils down to two fundamental principles: Believing people, and believing in people. It rests on the idea that students are fundamentally honest and interested in learning and doing well in their classes. “I start from a position of always trusting my students, and my students pay that back. I have to show myself to be trustworthy and meet my own goals and my own promises,” Denial explained. That means that when a student says their computer crashed and they need extra time to finish a paper, Denial believes them. When they say they are struggling, she does her best to connect them to the resources they need. She wants her students to be active in their own education as well, so Denial incorporates certain practices into her classroom to facilitate that. For example, instead of going over a syllabus in class at the start of each semester, she has her students annotate it for homework – both so they learn how to annotate, and so they can critique her schedule and policies. “Similarly, when I’m grading, I like to have conversations with my students about their grades, rather than just handing them out,” Denial said. “We talk about where they were strong and what they could do better on the next paper, and come to a collaborative decision about the grade. … They don’t need me to be a towering authority figure who doles out grades without ever explaining why.” Beyond that, a pedagogy of kindness means extending grace – both for her students, and herself. “I also want to reassure people that being kind doesn’t mean that you don’t have standards or that you don’t care what people turn in,” she added. “I want to make it clear that this is about grace, justice, and thinking about equity. How do you make space in your classroom for every single person in there to do the very best they can?”
pandemic forced many classes online, it also took a severe toll on students’ mental and physical health. “Everybody is dealing with trauma – everybody,” she said. “I’ve seen that in every single student that I have. Some don’t have good wi-fi connections. They don’t have food. They’re struggling with housing. They are struggling because they are ill, or someone they love is ill, or they’ve lost someone that they love.”
Denial has said she’s seen the relief in her students’ faces when she agrees to give them a few extra days for a paper, and she’s ready to connect them to resources to support any struggles in their personal life. She’s giving them grace, and that’s exactly what she urged her former teachers to do as well when she addressed the Teaching and Learning Symposium. “The take-aways from Cate’s pedagogy of kindness keynote – justice, believe
students and believe in students – underscore the individual and collective actions undertaken by all of us at UWM during this pandemic,” Reddy said. “The keynote prompted us to take stock of our efforts and reinforced that we are doing right by our students.” And really, you can’t go wrong if you try to be kind. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 5
A water crisis, unfilter
UWM sociologist lo
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Milwaukee was grappling with another public health crisis: Lead pipes were – and still are – an important source of possible lead exposure in homes across the city.
Chesley’s is one of those older Milwaukee houses that has a lead lateral. She was an early adopter of lead water filters, so she knows firsthand that using them day-in and day-out can be a challenge.
Like thousands of municipalities across America, many of Milwaukee’s water pipes are lead laterals, built before building codes and EPA standards prevented their use. In fact, 46 percent of the city’s nearly 170,000 service lines use lead laterals, according to a 2018 report by Milwaukee Water Works.
“You have to know enough to buy … a filter with the ‘NSF 53’ certification. A Brita filter won’t work,” she said. “(Using a filter) is not as easy as it sounds, and that’s for somebody who has a lot of resources, a lot of time, money, education. I started to get skeptical about whether solving this problem will be as easy as simply telling people, go out and get a filter. That spurred me into wanting to research this.”
In addition, internal plumbing in homes can also be a source of potential lead contamination. “So, even if the city could magically replace all the laterals, some residents would still be exposed through the plumbing inside their homes,” Chesley said. The problem truly came to light after the 2014-19 water crisis in Flint, Michigan, brought attention to lead contamination through drinking water. Here in Milwaukee, mayor Tom Barrett encouraged any city residents living in older homes to use over-the-counter filtering systems. Thanks to decades of racial segregation in Milwaukee, many racial and ethnic minorities, as well as lower-income residents, live in older housing with lead plumbing and fixtures.
Chesley is an associate professor of sociology at UWM. Last autumn, she and several UWM coauthors, including Helen Meier (Zilber School of Public Health), Jake Luo (College of Health Sciences), Immaculate Apchemengich (Zilber School of Public Health), and Hobart Davies (Psychology), published a paper examining how people have – or haven’t – adopted lead filters to keep their drinking water safe. The group used survey data to gauge a national sample of people’s understanding of water quality and their use of lead water filters. Chesley was especially interested in how a respondent’s race and socioeconomic status impacted their reasons for adopting filters, and how they use them once they have them.
“That kicked off a lot of discussions here in Wisconsin about the state of water,” Noelle Chesley said, “and we She found several interesting results that could help need to get at some of the social inequalities around this inform officials about how to best mitigate the dangers of problem.” a city’s contaminated water. •
Knowledge is power
The first hurdle in getting people to adopt a lead water filter is helping them figure out if they have a possible means of lead exposure to begin with. “That’s important because we found a strong connection between people who said that they had lead plumbing and were using a filter capable of removing lead, which makes perfect sense,” Chesley said. “But a lot of people in our survey didn’t know one way or the other.”
6 • IN FOCUS • February, 2021
Chesley and her team also asked respondents about their knowledge and attitudes surrounding lead contamination. Were they aware of how lead pipes and plumbing can taint
red
ooks at barriers to lead filter adoption water? Do they know the health effects of lead poisoning? Those who reported a higher level of knowledge about lead issues were those who were more likely to adopt lead filters.
“What we find is that levels of concern about lead in the water are much higher among racial and ethnic minorities than among whites,” she said. “We know that disparities in housing are linked to race and ethnicity, and we know that older housing is where lead plumbing is.”
Finally, the authors also examined how people used their filters. Most people knew to change out their filters every two to three months, but Chelsey still found large gaps in users’ knowledge that could put their health at risk. “People in general reported that they were using the filtered water for drinking. The rates were lower for cooking, and the lowest for hygiene, for things like brushing your teeth, water that you might be consuming in the bathroom where there might not be a filter on the faucet,” she said. •
That’s given rise to a mismatched set of priorities, Chesley has observed. For Milwaukee’s black and other minority residents, lead is a much more urgent issue than it is for many white residents.
Noelle Chesley
Concern matters, but so does income
The more that survey respondents were concerned about lead levels in their water, the more likely they were to purchase a lead water filter. But there’s a caveat. “Level of concern is impacted by income,” Chesley said. “We found that it takes higher levels of concern before a lower-income person will actually go out and purchase a filter.”
“There are people who live in communities that are seeing a lot of kids who seem to be exhibiting the symptoms of lead poisoning, or some of the complications that we would often associate with lead poisoning, and it feels like the sky is falling down – and it is!” Chesley said. “But it doesn’t feel that urgent to other parts of the community, and certainly the pandemic is taking a lot of the oxygen out of the room around that.” •
These results have implications for public policy
Chesley’s results show that higher-income earners are more likely to adopt lead water filters on their own at an “average” level of concern. Therefore, “You want to have a filter program that is very, very targeted, and it would be ideal to support the purchase and the ongoing maintenance of those filters over time for that (lowerincome) community,” she said.
In other words, two people might report the same level of concern about lead in their water, but the person with greater economic means is more likely to use a lead water filter than the person with lower income.
Milwaukee’s efforts to replace lead laterals have run into pandemic headwinds, and there wasn’t much state or federal funding for lead pipe remediation even before that.
“That makes sense; when resources are scarce, it’s going to have to feel like a much more urgent problem before you will go out and put the money and the intention to solving that problem,” Chesley said.
“I think we’re in the same situation that a lot of cities around the country are in, which is that the buck is stopping at the local community on so many issues without a lot of support for state and federal level funding initiatives,” Chesley said.
•
And that’s her unfiltered opinion.
Race is an integral factor
The health effects of lead poisoning don’t discriminate, but society does. Time and again, racial and ethnic minorities are most affected by lead-contaminated water. As such, Chesley noticed a definite racial component in her results.
By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 7
Anthropology student learns Mixtec to conn Cheri Price is determined to put the “human” back into the study of archaeology. Price earned her Master’s in anthropology at UWM in 2016 and is now working toward her PhD. She’s taking an interesting approach to her research in ethnoarchaeology – the study of people and cultures through their material artifacts. To understand how ancient indigenous cultures in Mexico crafted their tools, pots, and other implements, she wants to talk to their modern-day descendants to see what traditions have survived through the years. To do that, Price is determined to learn Mixtec, the language of many of Mexico’s indigenous people. With support from a Foreign Language and
How did you become interested in ethnoarchaeology? It was a little out of necessity. It is extremely difficult to get permissions to do excavations in Mexico. Since I am interested in the traditional crafts down in Mexico, ethnoarchaeology is a way for me to still be able to conduct some type of field work by looking at collections perhaps in museums. Ethnoarchaeology is a way for me to still do the field work and answer some of those archaeological questions by speaking with current artisans who are doing, for example, ceramics, and asking them questions like, why do you do that, where do you get your clay, and what do you have to do to your clay? You’ve traveled to Mexico several times to talk to artisans, in fact.
As a Master’s student at UWM, my thesis dealt with some ceramics that my professor did have from the Area Studies fellowship Valley of Oaxaca. The big thought, granted by UWM’s Center UWM anthropology PhD student Cheri Price (middle) stands with her Mixtec teacher and it hadn’t been 100 percent for Latin American and proven, was that the clay in Oaxaca and her classmate Alex Villegas, a graduate student from the University of New Caribbean Studies, she’s doesn’t require something called Mexico. The trio visited city hall/community museum complex in the village of trying to connect the past ‘temper.’ A lot of cultures had to add Tilantongo in Oaxaca, Mexico. The background shows what are called codices, the and the present with a something like sand or a different written history of the Mixtec people. Photo courtesy of Cheri Price. human touch. type of clay, some kind of binder or temper, that will help you work with it. In Oaxaca, it’s the She recently sat down to talk about her research. opposite; you have to take things out to be able to work the What drew you to archaeology? clay. When I was little, my Papa showed me this book by Reader’s Digest – something like, “World’s Greatest Mysteries.” On the front of it was the Aztec calendar. I was flipping through and thinking it was so neat, all of these really old things. (Papa) explained some people do this thing called ‘archaeology’ and they are, in a way, a keeper of history and the past, bringing things to the front that people have forgotten about or haven’t seen. The dirty, quick definition of anthropology is ‘the study of man’ or the ‘study of people.’ There are so many facets and complexities, and it’s great to pull all of those into my studies. 8 • IN FOCUS • February, 2021
When I had the opportunity to learn the Mixtec language, the family I was staying with in Mexico mentioned that one of their coworkers lived in a town that was known for pottery. One of the woman’s (relatives) was still doing the ceramics by hand. I got to go and just talk to her, and she answered my questions. She said they did have to take stuff out (of the clay). It was my thesis proved! You’ve tried very hard to include actual people in the course of your research. What draws you to this method? There’s something called archaeological ceramic petrography. When we find a little sherd (of ceramic), there is a way to shave a really thin section and put it under a microscope. I did work with that for my Master’s thesis, and
nect past and present I was so literally microscopic that I couldn’t even visualize the whole pot. I really like what I did, don’t get me wrong, but after that experience, I took a step back and wanted to zoom out to put the person back into the process.
People filter through a pottery expo in San Marcos Tlapazola, Tlacolula, Oaxaca. The area is known for red pottery. Photo courtesy of Cheri Price.
That’s where ethnoarchaeology comes in. I can still get those little hints and tips and thoughts from modern artisans who are creating these (pots) in traditional ways. I can step back and say, here’s this type of figurine artifact, and here are people today making figurines. Let’s do a comparison and we can see, maybe they’re using the same techniques or using the same types of tools, and that can answer my questions. And you learned an entirely new language just to ask those questions! Indigenous languages are not easy to learn. You have to lose a little bit of the way you’re thinking and see it through a different set of eyes. Sometimes, it takes a while to grasp. I’m not fluent by any means. But I’ve found, just by attempting, just by trying, the majority of people were so much more open to just having a chat and talking about things. Sometimes, they couldn’t believe that someone from another place would want to come and learn their language. Even though I am doing archaeology, it is important to have those connections to understand why communities named places a certain name, for example. You can still find, for example, areas in Oaxaca where the communities still go by their original names. It sounds like you’ve found many ways to connect the past to the present when you’ve visited Mexico. Oaxaca is amazing for that. A lot of people will talk about the Aztec and how they’re not around anymore, and they’ll talk about the Maya. But Oaxaca has maybe 80 different types of indigenous people who are still alive, still thriving, and still doing their traditions. In the area I was in, the Mixtec are still alive and they’re still carrying on their culture. Yes, the language is sadly dwindling with the native speakers, but there are still speakers who very much care about preserving that part of their culture and traditions. Mexico has something like 68 official languages that are indigenous besides Spanish, and you can go to communities where Spanish is not peoples’ first language.
Continued on page 10
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 9
Ethnoarchaeology Continued from Page 9
NANOGrav finds firs wave background In data gathered and analyzed over 13 years, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has found an intriguing low-frequency signal that may be from gravitational waves, as reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
During her stay in Oaxaca, Cheri Price interviewed this potter to connect today’s crafting methods with historical artifacts. The potter lives in San Bartolo Coyotepec, which is known for black pottery. Photo courtesy of Cheri Price.
How did the Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship help you on your way? I have received the FLAS three times, and I’m so grateful for it. It’s easily the highlight of my PhD career and postacademia. When you go to another country to learn another language, typically you’re surrounded by that language, and the acquisition of that language becomes a little bit easier. Not so much with Mixtec, and with some of the indigenous languages. You do need to have more than one shot at it. There are so many regional variants to Mixtec that it’s hard to become immersed. Why Mexico? What drove you to study artifacts south of the border? That’s a personal question in the sense that my grandma was from Mexico. I did not grow up speaking Spanish. My grandmother only spoke it with her sisters. They were the impetus for me to learn Spanish, because I would hear my name and then I would hear them laughing. I was like, I need to figure out what’s going on here! Later on, I went to college and learned Spanish in Mexico. I figured the best way to learn it would be to be thrown in and completely immersed. It kicked off my love affair with Mexico and wanting to learn more about and talk to as many people as I can. I am fascinated by pre-Hispanic cultures and the material objects they left behind. And, this has been an amazing way to learn about my own family and culture. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science 10 • IN FOCUS • January, 2021
NANOGrav has been able to rule out some effects other than gravitational waves, such as interference from the matter in our own solar system or certain errors in the data collection. These newest findings set up direct detection of gravitational waves as the possible next major step, which would be the first-ever detection of low-frequency David Kaplan gravitational waves. NANOGrav is a collaboration of over 100 U.S. and Canadian astrophysicists, including a UWM group led by astrophysicists David Kaplan and Sarah Vigeland. The paper was led by Joseph Simon, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder and UWM alum (PhD 2017).
Sarah Vigeland
“It is incredibly exciting to see such a strong signal emerge from the data,” Simon said. “However, because the gravitational-wave signal we are searching for spans the entire duration of our observations, we need to carefully understand our noise. This leaves us in an interesting place, where we can strongly rule out some known noise sources, but we cannot say whether the signal is indeed from gravitational waves. For that, we need more data.” Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time caused by the movements of incredibly massive objects, such as black holes or neutron stars. Astronomers cannot observe these waves with a telescope like they do stars and galaxies. Instead, they measure the effects passing gravitational waves have, namely tiny changes to the precise position of objects – including the position of the Earth itself.
st hints of low-frequency gravitational The gravitational waves NANOGrav is searching for likely come from pairs of supermassive black holes – each up to a billion times the mass of the sun – orbiting in galaxies millions of light-years away. Observing waves from these sources will shed light on how supermassive black holes and their host galaxies grow and evolve. NANOGrav studies the signals from pulsars because they serve as detectable, predictable galactic clocks. These small, dense stars – each the size of Milwaukee, but located thousands of light-years away – spin rapidly, sending pulses of radio waves at precise intervals toward Earth. But gravitational waves can interrupt this observed regularity, as the ripples cause space-time to undergo tiny amounts of stretching and shrinking. Those ripples result in extremely small deviations in the expected times for pulsar signals arriving on Earth. “NANOGrav has been building to the first detection of low frequency gravitational waves for over a decade, and today’s announcement shows that they are on track to achieving this goal,” said Pedro Marronetti, National Science Foundation program director for gravitational physics. “The insights that we will gain on cosmology and galaxy formation are truly unparalleled.” Potential next steps In order to confirm direct detection of a signature from gravitational waves, NANOGrav’s researchers will have to find a distinctive pattern in the signals between individual pulsars. At this point, the signal is too weak for such a pattern to be distinguishable. Boosting the signal requires NANOGrav to expand its dataset
In this artist’s rendering, a set of millisecond pulsars spin rapidly, sending pulses of radio waves at precise intervals toward Earth. Passing gravitational waves interrupt this observed regularity the same way across the set of pulsars. By mining 13 years of data from radio telescopes, scientists have found what may be the first hints of low-frequency gravitational waves produced by supermassive black hole binaries. (Illustration by Tonia Klein)
to include more pulsars studied for even longer lengths of time, which will increase the array’s sensitivity. In addition, by pooling NANOGrav’s data with those from other pulsar timing array experiments, a joint effort by the International Pulsar Timing Array may reveal such a pattern.
from colliding black holes. LIGO and its counterparts Virgo in Europe and Kagra in Japan use purpose-built facilities to detect high-frequency gravitational waves. However, unlike the signals detected by LIGO/Virgo/ Kagra, low-frequency gravitational waves require years of data to detect.
“The results we are seeing now are intriguing, but we need more data before we can determine definitively whether we are seeing gravitational waves,” said Sarah Vigeland, assistant professor of physics at UWM. “The next few years are going to be really exciting for NANOGrav as we put together the next data set and search it for gravitational waves.”
Throughout its work, NANOGrav has utilized data from two National Science Foundation-supported instruments: the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. With the recent collapse of the Arecibo Observatory’s 305-meter telescope, NANOGrav will be seeking alternate sources of data and working even more closely with their international colleagues.
In 2015, NSF’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) made the first direct observation of gravitational waves
From UWM University Relations
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 11
Meet two of the newest L&S faculty members
UWM debuts neuroscience major UWM is offering a new neuroscience major for undergraduate students interested in the inner workings of the human brain.
Arun Asok
Caitlin Bowman
Assistant professor, Psychology
Assistant professor, Psychology
PhD 2016, University of Delaware
PhD 2015, Pennsylvania State University
Previously Postdoc at Columbia University
Previously Postdoc at University of Oregon
Research focus: How are learned and innate fears encoded by our brains? How can changes in our innate fear system influence how we learn about and remember new fearful experiences? Our laboratory uses a reductionist approach to decipher which brain networks, circuits, and genes control how we respond to learned and innate fears.
Research focus: The cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory.
Research discoveries: My most recent discovery identified how a novel hard-wired circuit from one of the brain’s emotional memory centers (the ventral hippocampus) to the brain’s major stress center (the hypothalamus) controls the earliest moments of a fear response. Fun fact: I worked in Information Technology (IT), almost completed a bachelor’s degree in finance, and owned a car detailing business prior to obtaining my BS and PhD in Neuroscience/Psychology. 12 • IN FOCUS • February, 2021
Research discoveries: When learning a category, people tend to form a mental average of the category examples they have encountered in the past – for example, an average, perfect dog would represent the category of dogs. I have shown that a region of the brain typically thought to support memory for individual experiences, the hippocampus, also helps to form this category average. Fun fact: I have a cat named Pantoufle, a dog named Grumbledore, and a 6-month old baby named Curran. During my post-doc in Oregon, I also kept backyard chickens.
Neuroscience is the study of the brain and nervous system. The new major draws on expertise of faculty from several departments across the College of Letters & Science and the university at large to expose students to new topics in learning and research. UWM undergraduates can construct a program of study that takes advantage of the many introductory level and graduate/ undergraduate course offerings by our faculty. Each of the participating laboratories also offer opportunities for independent research.Undergraduate training in neuroscience is intended to prepare the student for graduate study or professional school in the life sciences. Research by UWM neuroscience faculty is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, as well as several private foundations and the private sector. Lines of inquiry include behavioral, cellular, cognitive, molecular, and systems neuroscience. Among the faculty teaching in the new program are Arun Asok and Caitlin Bowman, two assistant professors who joined the Psychology Department in January. They and other faculty members will be running and labs and opening up research opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in this major.
Passings Urban Studies alumnus Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi died on Dec. 25, 2020 while mountain climbing in the Sheminarat area of the Alborz Mountains near Tehran, Iran. Along with 11 other climbers, Ashkan was caught in an avalanche. Ashkan completed his PhD in 2016, working under the direction of professor of sociology Jennifer Jordan. Since 2018, he had been an assistant professor in the School of Planning and Design at the University of Tehran. Ashkan is remembered as an extremely bright, engaging, exceptionally kind and generous student, who was immensely popular with both students and faculty. He won multiple awards while at UWM, including an IGHERT fellowship and best graduate paper awards at two Urban Studies Student Research Forums.
Ashkan Rezvani Naraghi
Ashkan was an exceptional scholar who had numerous published book chapters and articles in such journals as Histoire Urbaine, International Journal of Islamic Architecture, International Journal of Arts & Sciences, Iranian Studies, Environment, and Space & Place. In his research and writing he developed novel ways to apply and reimagine western theories of space and place to better fit his native Iran. He was nearing completion of his first book, based off his dissertation, “From Mosques and Coffeehouses to Squares and Cafes: The Production and Transformation of Political Public Spaces and Social Life in Modern Tehran,” for Cambridge University Press. He is survived by his wife, Setareh, who is expecting their second child in a few weeks, and their three-year-old son. There is a memorial site set up for UWM friends and colleagues to share memories with links to the recorded memorial service that took place on Friday, Dec. 30, 2020 at the University of Tehran.
Dr. Francis Xavior “Xave” Baron, Professor Emeritus of English in the College of Letters and Science at UWMilwaukee, passed away on Dec. 18, 2020. Xavier attended St. John Benedictine Seminary school, which helped form the basis for achieving a Doctorate in English Literature from the University of Iowa. He then moved to Wisconsin and joined UWM’s faculty in the English Department. Among his works, he published a three-volume anthology, “London: 1066-1914,” that showed his enthusiasm for the City of London and its cultural history. He also produced work for the Museum of London and taught English literature as a visiting scholar in England and Germany. After a 37 year career teaching at UWM, Xavier retired as an emeritus professor in 2003. Dr. Baron’s obituary is available at https://legcy.co/3j3Dogc.
Alumni Accomplishments Diane House (’86, BA Economics) joined the board of directors of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA). House is currently the economic development director of the Great Lakes InterTribal Council, and she is serving her second term as an Appellate Court judge for the Oneida Judiciary and as a pro tempore judge for Wisconsin Tribal Courts. WHEDA works to provide low-cost financing for housing and small business development within the state. https://bit.ly/35zspWg Chris Henke (’92, BA Sociology) published a book, Repairing Infrastructures (with Ben Sims, published by MIT Press), examining infrastructure repair in modern life. Henke is an associate professor of sociology and environmental studies at Colgate University. https://bit.ly/3pVh9eK Samantha Bomkamp (’20, MS Anthropology) was named the collections manager of the Blackwater Draw Museum and the Eastern New Mexico University Curation Facility. She started her job in January and is responsible for caring for the artifacts housed at the venue. The Blackwater Draw Museum houses items excavated from the Blackwater Draw Locality, a spring-fed lake where archaeologists and historians have found stone tools and other artifacts of early Americans. https://bit.ly/39pAdfI College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 13
Upcoming Events Sun
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February 3 Planetarium Show: Stars, Stories, & Rhythms of Africa. 6 p.m. via Facebook Live. Experience cultural perspectives across Africa and live storytelling with special guest speaker Venice Williams. Sponsored by Sociocultural Programming. Sign up at https://bit. ly/3pNsWfa.
February 10 Planetarium Show: Asian Celebrations. 7 p.m. via YouTube. This presentation is the first of a four-part series exploring celestial celebrations across Asia. This event, with presentation by Hao Wu, examines the Chinese New Year. Register at https://uwm. universitytickets.com/?cid=195.
February 14 Planetarium Show: Cupid’s Constellations. 2 p.m. via YouTube. Enjoy a virtual Valentine’s Day show listening to tales of love told in constellations. Register at https://uwm.universitytickets.com/?cid=195.
February 17 and 19 Planetarium Show: Moving to Mars. 7 p.m. via YouTube. NASA’s Perseverance rover is scheduled to land on Mars on Feb. 18. Explore what we know about the habitability of the Red Planet and what this historic event means for our next great space adventure. Recommended for ages 5 and up. Register at https://uwm.universitytickets.com/?cid=195.
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28 Throughout the spring semester, the College of Letters & Science will host welcome events for new freshmen starting college in Fall 2021. Contact let-sci@uwm.edu if you haven’t received your invitation. In February, these majors will hold hosted events: February 5 @ 2:15 pm Atmospheric Science February 11 @ 2:15 pm Sociology February 15 @ 12:15 pm Film Studies February 15 @12:15 pm Spanish February 25 @ 2:15 pm Art History February 25 @ 2:15 pm International Studies/Global Studies February 25 @ 4:15 pm Psychology February 26 @12:15 pm Political Science February 26 @ 12:15 pm Chinese February 26 @ 12:15 pm Environmental Science/Geography February 26 @ 2:15 pm English February 26 @ 2:15 pm Women’s and Gender Studies February 26 @ 2:15 pm Russian
Noam Chomsky virtually visits UWM Please join us for a very special free webinar event with Noam Chomsky. The event will be held via Zoom and streamed live to our Facebook page. Register at https://bit.ly/3oA5fWv. Widely renowned for his revolutionary work in linguistics, political activism, and international affairs, Dr. Chomsky will reflect on the social change of the longue durée. When: Feb. 5 at 1:30 p.m. Cost: Free! 14 • IN FOCUS • February, 2021
Laurels and Accolades Kay Wells (Art History) received the 2020 SECAC Award for Excellence in Scholarly Research and Publication for her book, “Weaving Modernism: Postwar Tapestry between Paris and New York.” SECAC, formerly the Southeastern College Art Conference, is a nonprofit organization promoting the study and practice of visual arts in higher education. https://bit.ly/2MM0ADy
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Patrick Brady (professor of Physics)
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Mark Dietz (professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
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Dawn Erb (associate professor of Physics)
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John Friedman (distinguished professor emeritus of Physics)
Kimberly Blaeser (English) was one of 12 poets selected by the Academy of American poets to serve as a guest editor for their poem-a-day series in 2021. She will curate a month’s worth of poems that will be featured in November 2021. https://bit.ly/3nAYa7F
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Mike Allen (professor of Communication)
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Peter Sheehan (emeritus adjunct professor of Geosciences)
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Daniel Agterberg (professor of Physics)
In a rankings list by Stanford University, 59 scientists at UW-Milwaukee were ranked among the top 2 percent of scientists in the world, measured by how often their work has been cited over the course of their careers.
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Linda Whittingham (professor of Biological Sciences)
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Mark McBride (distinguished professor of Biological Sciences)
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John Berges (professor of Biological Sciences)
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Robert Greenler (professor emeritus of Physics)
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David Petering (distinguished professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
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David Kaplan (associate professor of Physics)
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Wilfred T. Tysoe (distinguished professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
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Alan Wiseman (associate professor of Physics)
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Jolien Creighton (professor of Physics)
Letters & Science researchers who made the list include: • •
Leonard E. Parker (distinguished professor emeritus of Physics) Mohsen Bahmani-Oskooee (distinguished professor of Economics)
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Scott Gronert (professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Dean of the College of Letters & Science)
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Mark D. Schwartz (distinguished professor of Geography)
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Karyn M. Frick (distinguished professor of Psychology) •
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Michael Weinert (distinguished professor of Physics)
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Fred J. Helmstetter (distinguished professor of Psychology)
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Peter O. Dunn (distinguished professor of Biological Sciences)
Carolyn Aita (distinguished professor emerita of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
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Changshan Wu (professor of Geography)
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George Sosnovsky (professor emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry)
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Richard Grusin (professor of English)
Video Story German and Global Studies major Klaudia Rixmann’s undergrad research analyzes literature that depicts relationships between Germany and Poland after World War II. Listen to her story and learn more about undergraduate research at UWM! https://youtu.be/NSLZvAmtrBE
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 15
In the Media and Around the Community Amy Olen (Translation and Interpreting Studies) translated the poetry of writer Sandro Chiri for publication in World Literature Today. Maria Novotny (English) published a co-edited special issue for Reflections: A Journal of CommunityEngaged Writing and Rhetoric focused on “Rhetorics of Reproductive Justice.” The special issues feature an article by Rachel Bloom-Pojar (English) and design work from graduate student Anna Edwards (English). The New York Times
reported on a bitter archaeological feud concerning the age of the Nebra sky disk, an artifact discovered in Germany. In Bettina Arnold’s (Anthropology) opinion, the disk dates back to the Bronze Age.
Relax – the leisure activities we do to help us relax also help us cope with stress, according to research from Marcellus Merit (Psychology), whose findings were reported on Wisconsin Public Radio. The CARES Act and eviction moratoriums were actions that helped bolster an economy in recession due to coronavirus, but they weren’t enough to get it back on track, Scott Adams (Economics) told WUWM. It’s important to understand the way that social media is designed to mobilize its users, Richard Grusin (English) said on TMJ4 News in the wake of major platforms’ choosing to suspend former President Trump’s accounts. Subsequent experiences can alter some of our long-term memories. Fred Helmstetter (Psychology) shared that fact and others in a WUWM piece exploring memory and recall. By studying pulsars, Philip Chang (Physics) and other scientists have determined the average acceleration of stars within the Milky Way galaxy, Science Daily reported. The pandemic has exacerbated student achievement gaps, so William Holahan (emeritus Economics) endorsed a large-scale tutoring plan in an opinion piece for The Cap Times. 16 • IN FOCUS • February, 2021
Stacey Nye (Psychology) discussed why some people buy into conspiracy theories on CBS 58 News. The U.S. Census Bureau announced it missed its Dec. 31 deadline to present Census results. However, the Bureau did not even have a deadline for much of its history, Margo Anderson (emerita History) said in an AP News article, printed across the country including in the Chicago Tribune. A repeat of the violent mob that marched on the U.S. Capitol could happen in Canada, William Keith (emeritus English) warned in a piece published by the website The Conversation. A dizzying two weeks full of an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol followed by the second impeachment of President Trump made for a confusing time in politics. Kathy Dolan (Political Science) went on WUWM Radio to explain matters. Why did the state’s economy boom when Wisconsin families’ incomes were dropping in 2020? Kundan Kishor (Economics) explained the reason via Wisconsin Public Radio. Martin Luther King would be appalled at the lack of progress at easing poverty in the United States, Jeffrey Sommers (African and African Diaspora Studies and Global Studies) said in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Marc Levine (emeritus History) was cited in the same article for his research showing the poor economic conditions of the city’s black neighborhoods. Peter Sands (English and Honors College) asked students to be understanding of the challenges their professors face trying to teach their classes online. He spoke as part of the EdSurge Podcast. Wisconsin has had a mild winter so far, but that’s not necessarily due to climate change, Paul Roebber (Atmospheric Science) warned on WUWM’s Lake Effect show. In today’s charged atmosphere, it can be tough to educate kids about race. Erin Winkler (African and African Diaspora Studies) gave parents some tips on Mom.com. Carol Hirschmugl and Marija Gajdardziska-Josifovska (both Physics) explained how a new material they developed will increase the storage capacity of lithium ion batteries on WUWM Radio.
People in Print Ashley A. Huggins, Ashleigh M. Harvey, Tara A. Miskovich, Han-Joo Lee, and Christine L. Larson (all Psychology). 2020. Resting-state functional connectivity of supplementary motor area associated with skin-picking symptom severity. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 26. https://bit.ly/3hJxv7d
Abel S. Mathew (Psychology), Taylor P. Davine, Ivar Snorrason, David C. Houghton, Douglas W. Woods, and Han-Joo Lee (Psychology). 2020. Body-focused repetitive behaviors and non-suicidal self-injury: A comparison of clinical characteristics and symptom features. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 124:115-122.
Richard T. Ward, Salahadin Lotfi, Hannah Sallmann, Han-Joo Lee, and Christine L. Larson (all Psychology). 2020. State anxiety reduces working memory capacity but does not impact filtering cost for neutral distracters. Psychophysiology, 57(10).
Stuart A. Moulthrop (English). 2020. In Will Luers (Ed.), Being the Asterisk: Noah Wardrip-Fruin and the Future of Game Studies (Fall, 2020 ed.). electronic book review.
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Salahadin Lotfi, Richard T. Ward, Maryjam Ayazi, Ken P. Bennett, Christine L. Larson, and Han-Joo Lee (all Psychology). 2020. The Effects of Emotional Working Memory Training on Worry Symptoms and ErrorRelated Negativity of Individuals with High Trait Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Study. Cognitive Therapy and Research. https://bit.ly/3rcZcZN Salahadin Lotfi (Psychology), Reza Rostoami, Mohsen Shokoohi-Yekta, Richard T. Ward (Psychology), Negin Motamed-Yeganeh, Abel S. Mathew (Psychology), and Han-Joo Lee (Psychology). 2020. Effects of computerized cognitive training for children with dyslexia: An ERP study. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 55. https://bit.ly/3cyJhRv
Joel S. Rast (Urban Studies). 2020. How Policy Paradigms Change: Lessons from Chicago’s Urban Renewal Program. In How Ideas Shape Urban Political Development (eds. Richardson Dilworth and Timothy P. R. Weaver). University of Pennsylvania Press. Emily K. Latch (Biological Sciences). 2020. Integrating genomics into conservation management. Molecular Ecology Resources, 20(6): 1455-57. https://bit.ly/3pB2PIh
Xueling Yi (Biological Sciences), Deahn M. Donner, Paula E. Marquardt, Jonathan M. Palmer, Michelle A. Jusino, Jacqueline Frair, Daniel L. Lindner, and Emily K. Latch (Biological Sciences). 2020. Major histocompatibility complex variation is similar in little brown bats before and after whitenose syndrome outbreak. Ecology and Evolution, 10, 10031-10043. https://bit.ly/2MKLga8
S. Oyler-McCance, Emily K. Latch (Biological Sciences), and P. Leberg. 2020. Conservation genetics and molecular ecology in wildlife management. In The Wildlife Techniques Manual (Ed. Noah Silvy). Johns Hopkins University Press.
https://bit.ly/3cAa4fU
https://bit.ly/3tggxm6
Blain E. Neufeld (Philosophy). 2020. Political Liberalism, Autonomy, and Education. In The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education (Eds. Andrew Peterson, Garth Stahl, Hannah Soong). Palgrave Macmillan. https://bit.ly/3j5nnX8
Timothy O’Brien (Sociology). 2020. Arresting Confidence: Mass Incarceration and Black–White Differences in Perceptions of Legal Authorities. Social Science Quarterly, 101(5), 1905-1919. https://bit. ly/3takQQ2
Timothy O’Brien (Sociology) and Shiri Noy. 2020. Political Identity and Confidence in Science and Religion in the United States. Sociology of Religion, 81(4), 439461. https://bit.ly/36svFDt Timothy O’Brien (Sociology). 2020. Racing justice: Mass Incarceration and Perceptions of Courts. Social Science Research, 90. https://bit.ly/3aoRVz0 Jeong-Im Han, Hanyong Park (Linguistics), and Zafer Lababidi. 2020. Orthography effects on L2 phonetic categorization and lexical encoding. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 45(3), 703-724. https://bit.ly/3cr4218 Anne Pycha (Linguistics). 2020. Differences in perception and memory for speech fragments in complex versus simple words: Two experiments. The Mental Lexicon, 15(2), 189-222. https://bit.ly/3pFCnNS Lisa Silverman (Jewish Studies). 2020. Hilde Spiel’s Freud: Jews, Exile, and a Viennese Legacy. In Freud and the Émigré: Austrian Émigrés, Exiles and the Legacy of Psychoanalysis in Britain, 1930s-1970s (eds. Elana Shapira and Daniela Finzi): 217-231. Routledge. https://bit.ly/3j5PrcO
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 17
