College of Letters & Science
IN FOCUS
July 2021, Vol. 11, No. 7
Learning Language, Forging Friendships UWM’s Hebrew partnership bring language learners and teachers together
UWM researcher elusive mergers o
Contents Feature Stories UWM researchers help find black hole mergers History student tells the story of the Mothman Hebrew program sparks an Israeli partnership Biologist examines genetic causes of autism Chemistry student’s Harvard opportunity Anthropology alum cares through gardening Meet the new head of MKE Drug Discovery Planetarium debuts asteroid shows
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Columns In the Media People in Print Passings Alumni Accomplishments Laurels and Accolades Upcoming Events
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For the first time, researchers have confirmed the detection of a collision between a black hole and a neutron star. In fact, the scientists detected not one but two such events occurring just 10 days apart in January 2020. The extreme events made splashes in space that sent gravitational waves rippling across at least 900 million lightyears to reach Earth. In each case, the neutron star was likely swallowed whole by its black hole partner. The discovery was made by an international team of scientists that includes 22 members of UWM’s Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics. Gravitational waves are disturbances in the curvature of space-time created by massive objects in motion. During the five years since the waves were first measured, a finding that led to the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, researchers have identified more than 50 gravitationalwave signals from the merging of pairs of black holes and of pairs of neutron stars. Both black holes and neutron stars are the corpses of massive stars, with black holes being even more massive than neutron stars. Two detections in 10 days
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In this new study, scientists announced the detection of gravitational waves from two rare events, each involving the collision of a black hole and a neutron star. The gravitational waves were detected by the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and by Italy’s Virgo detector. The first merger, detected on Jan. 5, 2020, involved a black hole about 9 times the mass of our sun, or 9 solar masses, and a 1.9-solar-mass neutron star. The second merger was detected on Jan. 15, and involved a 6-solar-mass black hole and a 1.5-solar-mass neutron star. The results were published June 29 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Astronomers have spent decades searching for neutron stars orbiting black holes in the Milky Way galaxy, but have found none before 2020, said Jolien Creighton, UWM professor of physics who led the group in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration that found the event. “It wasn’t clear if such binaries existed at all,” Creighton said.
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Now, “we can finally begin to understand how many of these systems exist, how often they merge, and why we have not yet seen examples in the Milky Way,” said Astrid Lamberts, a researcher at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in France. Lamberts is a former postdoctoral researcher at UWM’s Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics.
rs take a leading role in finding of black holes with neutron stars Locations not certain The first event, GW200105, was observed by the LIGO Livingston and Virgo detectors. Given the nature of the gravitational waves, the team inferred that the signal was caused by a black hole colliding with a 1.9-solar-mass compact object, later identified as a neutron star. This merger occurred 900 million light-years away. Because the signal was strong in only one detector, the location of the merger remains uncertain, lying somewhere in an area that Some of the members of the UWM team on the paper include (clockwise from back row left) is 34,000 times the size of a full Professor Jolien Creighton, Soichiro Morisaki, Professor Patrick Brady, Brandon Piotrzkowski, Sean Fanning, Pratyusava Baral, Daniel Wysocki, Naresh Adhikari and Anarya Ray. (UWM moon. Photo/Troye Fox)
The second event, GW200115, was detected by both LIGO detectors and the Virgo detector. GW200115 comes from the merger of a black hole with a 1.5-solar mass neutron star that took place roughly 1 billion light-years from Earth in an area almost 3,000 times the size of a full moon. “Both are very large swaths of the sky by astronomical standards,” said Patrick Brady, UWM professor of physics and spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. “But the area on the sky where we think GW200115 happened is one-tenth the size of the area in which we think GW200105 happened.” Not like the Cookie Monster Astronomers were alerted to both events soon after they were detected in gravitational waves and subsequently searched the skies for associated flashes of light. None were found. This is not surprising due to the very large distance to these mergers, which means that any light coming from them, no matter the wavelength, would be very dim and hard to detect with even the most powerful telescopes. Additionally, the mergers likely did not give off a light show in any case because their black holes were big enough that they swallowed the neutron stars whole. “These were not events where the black holes munched on the neutron stars like the Cookie Monster and flung bits and pieces about. That ‘flinging about’ is what would produce light, and we don’t think that happened in these cases,” Brady said.
In addition to Brady and Creighton, 20 others at UWM took part in the discovery. Two UWM graduate students, Anarya Ray and Vinaya Valsan, worked out how frequently such systems merge in the universe. Postdoctoral researcher Soichiro Morisaki was a key contributor in analyzing the data to determine the properties of the system, such as the masses of the two bodies. “This was vital to understanding that this was a neutron star/black hole binary,” Creighton said. “The lighter object was the right mass to be a neutron star, and the heavier object was too heavy to be a neutron star so it must have been a black hole.” Having confidently observed two examples of gravitational waves from black holes merging with neutron stars, researchers now estimate that, within one billion light-years of Earth, roughly one such merger happens per month. “The detector groups at LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA are improving their detectors in preparation for the next observing run, scheduled to begin in summer 2022,” Brady said. “With the improved sensitivity, we hope to detect merger waves up to once per day and to better measure the properties of black holes and super-dense matter that makes up neutron stars.” By Laura Otto, University Relations College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 3
The start of a legend
History stude In mid-November, 1966, in the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, two young couples fled the local woods, claiming they’d seen a terrifying creature. They recounted their story to the sheriff and reported that the entity looked human in most respects – except for its 10foot wings and glowing red eyes. The local paper ran the story of the ‘Mothman.’ Within a day or two, the whole town descended on the location where the creature was reported, toting guns and ready to hunt it down. They didn’t find it, but they did spark a legend. How did the Mothman go from a local myth to an internationally-recognized figure, similar to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster?
Great question. Jonathan Gitter is glad you asked. Gitter just finished his major in history at UWM and graduated in May. His capstone research project tackled the Mothman myth, and he presented his work at UWM’s virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium in late April. Initially, Gitter and his classmates were told their capstone project had to cover “non-human” history. “My first thought was to do something with cryptids or various mythological creatures,” he said. “I looked at, where does this Mothman myth come from?” Unlike Bigfoot, the Mothman myth has a definitive start date and location. After the initial report by the two young couples in West Virginia, newspapers in the area began to run with the story. That was where Gitter began his research. “I looked at … newspaper articles, and then I looked at books that were written on the topic,” he said. “(There was) Ufologist John Keel’s book The Mothman Prophecies, and then I looked into, more recently, the media that’s constructed around the Mothman myth – various documentaries and the Point Pleasant Mothman Festival.” Through his research, Gitter uncovered far more than the cryptid’s origins: He found a snapshot of small-town Americana built into the fabric of the myth. Take, for example, the area of Point Pleasant where the Mothman was first sighted. According to Gitter’s research, that spot was known as the
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The Mothman is an urban legend purported to have glowing red eyes and a 10-foot wingspan. The first sighting of the Mothman was reported in West Virginia in 1966. This rendering is by artist Tim Bertelink.
ent tackles origins of the Mothman myth “TNT area,” so named for the factories that used to produce explosives for use during World War II. After the war, the factories were abandoned and the area grew over, despite the fact that TNT was reportedly still being stored on site and contaminating the local environment. “Once the news came out about possible environmental pollution (people began to speculate) if this thing was irradiated,” Gitter said. “It was more of a retroactive assignment than in the initial sightings.” The myth may have also benefited from the time period’s fascination with aliens and UFOs, which itself was possibly born out of Cold War fears.
UWM history major Jonathan Gitter presented his research on the origins of the Mothman myth at the UWM Undergraduate Research Symposium in April. A video of his presentation is available at https://youtu.be/fLmKDhDSfGQ.
“I definitely do think there’s an element of some Cold War-era watching the skies and looking for UFOs and things of that nature,” Gitter said. “In the article about the first sightings, one of the witnesses says specifically, ‘This wasn’t a UFO.’ So I think that it relates in that sense.” Against that backdrop, the Mothman myth was poised to take flight. “There was a series of sightings by people all over Pt. Pleasant, and then it slowly moved outward. Eventually, there were Mothman sightings in other places in the United States and also internationally. … I heard briefly about some sightings in Russia,” Gitter said. But sightings in Point Pleasant stopped after a tragedy, he added. In 1967, a year after the initial sighting, the Silver Bridge, a major route in and out of the town, collapsed, killing upwards of 40 people. Afterward, people began to claim they had seen the Mothman standing on the bridge the day before, possibly as an omen of the disaster to come. Even so, the town has embraced its legend; the annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant draws in more tourists than the town’s actual population. It also boasts a Mothman Museum, and a statue of the figure stands prominently downtown.
The history of the urban legend was fascinating for Gitter to uncover, but it also made him ponder myths beyond their history. How do people come up with these myths, and what purpose do they serve? “To be clear, I don’t think Mothman is real, but I do think there is a combination of motivators for people who report these sightings. There are people who saw something and it’s unclear what they saw. I’m sure there are people who report seeing these things for the attention, and there are people in between,” Gitter said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the motivators for the spread and incubation of this myth is the small town – everybody knows everybody and hears something interesting. Eventually, following the collapse of the Silver Bridge, it became ‘here’s meaning to why something bad happened.’ Then it eventually became an economic draw for this small town.” The Mothman Festival is Sept. 18-19, 2021. If you go, just try to stay out of the TNT area. You never know what creatures may be lurking. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 5
Speaking each ot
Hebrew program fosters American Dorit Peled and Kristin Siegel have never met to face-to-face, but they’ve cooked together, sung together, and introduced each other to their families. And they did it all in Hebrew. Siegel is a student in UWM’s Hebrew language program. She takes her classes online from her home in Grand Rapids. Across the Atlantic Ocean, Peled is a student at the Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv, Israel, where she is studying to become a Hebrew teacher for non-native speakers. Through a partnership between the Levinsky College and UWM, Peled is earning her student teaching credits by tutoring Siegel. The pair met via Zoom over the course of the spring semester. At first, Peled wasn’t sure how well such a partnership would work, especially online. “How can you connect with someone you can only see from the shoulders and above?” she pointed out. But, to Peled’s surprise, “We enjoyed each other so much. I also learned so much about technology! I learned to be a better teacher.” For her part, Siegel says the Zoom lessons have been invaluable since Hebrew can be a difficult language to learn. “(Peled) helps me with pronunciation. She’s very encouraging at my attempts at speaking, and corrects me very gently. She’s not overly critical. It’s given me confidence as a speaker,” Siegel added. 6 • IN FOCUS • July, 2021
Yael Ben-Yitschak
Hebrew language student Kristin Siegel enjoys food in Jerusalem on a visit to Israel. Photo courtesy of Kristin Siegel.
Forging a partnership
So, Ben-Yitschak, who is from Israel, reached out to a friend at the Levinsky College, Dr. Michal Meishar who is the head of Teaching Hebrew as a Second Language program. Meishar, in turn, was searching for a way to help her own students hone their teaching skills. It’s one thing to teach Hebrew as a second language in Israel where language-learners are immersed in Hebrew every day.
The partnership between UWM and Levinsky College is the brainchild of Yael Ben-Yitschak, a senior lecturer in UWM’s Hebrew language program. She teaches students across the country in online Hebrew classes, through a combination of recorded lessons and meeting once a week to teach them about Hebrew’s unique syntax and vocabulary. “But there’s not enough input. The students don’t speak in a spontaneous way because there’s no day-to-day meetings,” Ben-Yitschak said. “One of the things that I saw was that they were better in reading and writing and less proficient in listening and speaking. They did a lot of writing during the week but not enough speaking. Since they don’t hear enough Hebrew, the pace and the accent were hard for them.”
“She was looking to give them an opportunity to practice teaching a foreign language that (students won’t experience) outside of class. How do you teach that?” Ben-Yitschak recalled. “For me, it was like, it would be great if your students could meet with my students, because they will have more input.” The partnership is now in its third year. The students at both
ther’s language
n-Israeli partnerships, friendships we don’t use the verb ‘to be’ in the present tense.” Like Spanish, Hebrew is a gendered language, so students may also have a tough time learning which nouns take a masculine or feminine article. But the biggest challenge, Peled said, is just there are few opportunities for American students to practice speaking it. There aren’t Hebrew films being shown in theaters, and it’s hard tracking down books written in Hebrew.
Hebrew language tutor Dorit Peled shows off the scenery while hiking in Israel. Photo courtesy of Dorit Peled.
institutions are paired off and meet throughout the semester via Zoom. The Israeli tutors can structure their lessons however they like, though Ben-Yitschak said that they usually focus on an element of Israeli culture as they practice Hebrew with the UWM students. A linguistic challenge That extra support can be crucial for UWM students. As Ben-Yitschak and Peled can attest, Hebrew has several foibles that can make it difficult for non-native speakers. “Unlike the Latin languages, you write it from right to left, instead of left to right, which sometimes people find very peculiar,” Peled noted. “The grammar system is different. Adjectives are after the nouns,” Ben-Yitschak added. “Some of the grammatical structures (in English) don’t exist in Hebrew. For example,
Siegel can attest to that. After a full career as a third-grade teacher and a librarian, she is learning Hebrew so that she can better understand the language when she visits her son, Nathan, who lives in Tel Aviv. It’s also important to her as a Jewish person. “It’s easy if you do the homework and you’re diligent, as with learning any foreign language. The tough thing about learning Hebrew is that you don’t hear it all the time. It’s not a ubiquitous language in the United States,” she said. “Being paired up with a teacher in Israel, where we can work on our Hebrew skills in addition to our once-a-week online class, has just been invaluable.” Tutoring to friendship Peled is a demanding tutor, Siegel said. She conducted their online meetings entirely in Hebrew, but she found ways to make the sessions fun. “There were several lessons that had the same subject, all linked to one another. For example, I taught her a famous Israeli song that speaks about places in Israel,” Peled said. “The first meeting, we spoke about the new words. The second meeting, we
spoke about the places in Israel that this song is talking about, and we showed it on the map. On the third lesson, we spoke about the songwriter or the musician who performed it, and his history.” “Singing together – that was fun. She would create this ‘Wheel of Fortune’ thing and she would spin it. Every color on the wheel had a different topic and I would speak about those topics for as long as I could,” Siegel said. The two even baked together: Siegel and Peled brought their laptops into the kitchen and Siegel walked Peled through a recipe for granola cookies, all in Hebrew. Other pairs have had similar experiences, Ben-Yitschak said. “It came out to be a great program, because some of (the pairs) continued the relationship even after classes ended. Some students went to Israel and met with (their tutors). What else can I ask, as teacher of a foreign language than to hear of my student meeting a native speaker for coffee in the country where the language is spoken?” Peled and Siegel haven’t met yet, but they hope to. When Siegel travels to Israel the next time she visits her son, she and Peled plan to meet at a vegan restaurant – the same one whose menu they studied during one of their online lessons. “I can’t wait to meet her in person,” Siegel said. “She’s a great teacher.” By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 7
Biologist Christopher Quinn is studying how autism begins and unfolds using the brain cells of a tiny worm as a model. (UWM Photo/ Troye Fox)
Biologist takes a genetic look at autism A rare disorder called Timothy syndrome causes severe heart malfunction, and most people diagnosed with it don’t survive beyond childhood. It is caused by a single gene variant that can also cause autism, so it provides a unique window into autism at the genetic level. Autism is a neurological and developmental disorder associated with variants in at least 1,000 genes. But scientists still don’t know how these variants contribute to the development of autism in people. It would help if scientists could peer into the developing human brain, watch its cells form connections and see how autism affects that process. In lieu of that, Christopher Quinn, an associate professor of biological sciences, has found an effective way to study what happens when brain connections go awry. Quinn and his lab team are getting help from a worm called C. elegans. It has about 1,000 cells and 300 neurons – relatively few compared with other animals or with humans – so the team knows exactly how the neurons should connect to one another. Moreover, they can look through a microscope and get a glimpse of the worms’ communication pathways. When those pathways are altered, they can see it right in front of them on a microscope slide. That’s where the unique features of Timothy syndrome take on added importance. Because the syndrome is caused by a variant in a single gene related to autism – called CACNA1C – and C. elegans has so few neurons, scientists can get a
clear cause-and-effect picture when the gene variant is introduced to the worm. Brain cells have axons, which send signals, and dendrites, which receive signals. Quinn’s team found that the gene variant in the worms disrupted axon targeting – and thus affected where neurons were connecting. “An axon is a long structure that makes connections with other neurons,” Quinn says. “What we found is that in the worms carrying the genetic variant, axons connect to the same neurons that they normally do, but in the wrong location.” Their research, published in PLoS Genetics, found that the Timothy syndrome variant also changed the worms’ behavior, and it was measurable. Quinn’s team, which is funded by a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, is also working on how other variants in the CACNA1C gene affect the risk of autism. As many as a third of people have one of the autism-associated variants of this gene, but most don’t develop autism. It’s the interactions of a whole group of genetic variants that determine if a person develops autism. “That’s why we want to understand the genetic interactions,” Quinn says. “If we understand all these interactions, then through whole genome sequencing, you might be able to predict who is most likely to develop autism and provide earlier treatment that will lead to better outcomes for these children.” By Becky Lang, University Relations
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Undergrad’s interest in research leads to opportunity at Harvard Growing up in South Carolina, Seresa McDowell developed an interest in science that led to her starting a premed major in college. While she decided she didn’t like the hospital part of the work, she did really like working as a chemistry lab assistant. Eventually, after earning a chemical technology degree from a community college in North Carolina, she moved to Milwaukee seven years ago to work as a quality analyst at PPG, which makes paints and coatings. When she decided she wanted to advance in the field, she came to UWM to work Seresa McDowell found that what she liked best about science was working in a lab. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey) on a chemistry degree, expanding her interest researchers, McDowell turned to the library and the web, into organic and biochemistry. researching and writing about the issues involved in this She helped design and construct molecules as an area of drug development through the Ronald E. McNair undergraduate researcher in the lab of her mentor, program. Associate Professor Alan Schwabacher of chemistry and biochemistry. The lab is part of UWM’s Milwaukee Institute “That helped me get the bigger picture of what was going on. That ignited my interest even more.” for Drug Discovery. She is now heading to Harvard for a post-baccalaureate research program that will be a bridge Throughout the summer, she kept in close contact with between her UWM work and graduate school. her mentor, who was impressed with her ability to put together and write about the pertinent information she Her interest in research grew out of her major. Students was gathering from her research. One of Schwabacher’s had the option of doing a thesis or research to complete collaborators, Professor Daniel Kahne of Harvard, was their degree. McDowell chose research. also impressed. He asked McDowell, “what would you “Where I wanted to be was in the lab. Luckily, this was think about coming over to Harvard to continue the actual research I liked.” Her work in the lab involved research?” working with a team that is designing molecules that McDowell is excited about heading to Harvard, but also interact with biomolecules in specific ways, and are nervous, she said. However, her UWM experience helping sufficiently soluble to be studied in living organisms, others research gives her confidence. according to Schwabacher. The project is part of a collaboration of Schwabacher’s lab with Harvard University. The goal is to help develop and test new therapeutic drugs and possibly rejuvenate some drugs, like antibiotics, that have lost their effectiveness. In summer 2020, with lab time limited for undergraduate
“I enjoy being a team member in this research and am excited to pursue my aspirations in this avenue of chemistry – in a lab.” By Kathy Quirk, University Relations College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 9
Anthropology alum takes on hunge How do you tackle climate change, ease food insecurity, promote biodiversity, and foster a sense of local community, all at the same time? Daniel Oladokun-Dybowski says to plant a garden. Oladokun-Dybowski is the founder of Isa’s Garden Charities, an online seedexchange and non-profit gardening forum that aims to tackle food insecurity in Pinal County, Arizona, and beyond. The group is working to establish a physical garden in Casa Grande, Arizona, where Oladokun-Dybowski lives with his family. It might seem like a strange endeavor for someone who holds a Master’s in anthropology, but Oladokun-Dybowski, who earned his degree from UWM in 2011, says that he finds ways to use his anthropological skills every day. He sat down to talk about the community garden, community service, and applying his education. Tell me about Isa’s Garden Charities. How did it begin? I realized that one in four children go to school hungry in Pinal County, where I am. I thought that that was a travesty. At Arizona State University Dean Michael Crow at our graduation told all of us graduates that we should go back to our community and be a very positive impact on our communities, that really hit home. (Oladokun-Dybowski earned a Master’s in social work from ASU in 2017.) I built a Facebook group and started to solicit the strengths of all of the local gardeners in our community to build a collaborative where we could 10 • IN FOCUS • July, 2021
meet up and do seed exchanges. We essentially make an effort to turn black thumbs into green thumbs. How does teaching people to garden tackle food insecurity? Learning seed saving, seed harvesting, seed storage, all of that, can help out with people becoming more sustainable outside of the monetary system constraints. We don’t necessarily have to be limited to going to the grocery store. Healthy food stores don’t have to be so expensive. We can undermine that and subvert it by creating these share groups where people are sharing seeds with each other, learning how to grow food. If you teach somebody how to grow their own food, they’re far better off than if we provided handouts. Now you’re working with officials in your city to establish a physical garden for the whole community to use. How did – pun intended – Isa’s Garden Charities grow from a seed exchange to this project? It’s just phenomenal. There are over 600 folks in my group. I think you can gain a tight-knit following to practice methods of getting yourself into a better position and increasing your quality life. Gardening is one method. If we can teach people how to grow their own food in the harshest of climates like the Sonoran Desert, we can do it anywhere. I think it’s important to document it so you can create a model that others can follow throughout the world and reduce climate change and world hunger. That record is in our Isa’s Garden Charities online Facebook group. I focus on trying to reduce food insecurity in my small town, but if you look at it as a microcosm, you might find that this has worldwide potential. But, how do you grow anything in your town? Arizona doesn’t have the most hospitable climate. Luckily, we have sun here, but we don’t have a whole lot of rain. You can grow anything that you want. We can actually grow anything from bananas, mangoes, various palms, to a lot of other subtropical types of edible fruit trees. Apples, mulberries - a lot of things that will take the full brunt and heat of the sun. That’s what you want to start growing in order to build a microclimate. You have to think soil and shade first. We have to dump a lot of woodchips down on the hard soil to condition it. You have to grow your shade and build your soil top-down. This mulch-over-compost idea builds that organic horizon over a period of a year or two. You can start to grow your trees out. If they’re deciduous, they’ll start to naturally drop their leaves after a while and you can build this natural system forest effect, where it becomes sustainable and regenerative.
er and climate, one seed at a time You’ll notice a biodiversity change too. You’ll attract many different kinds of birds to your yard, many kinds of butterflies, which are unfortunately in sharp decline. So you’re tackling environmental concerns in addition to hunger, it seems. Every time we grow plants, we sequester carbon from the atmosphere. That’s actually a part of photosynthesis. Every single seed that we can plant, we’re already doing good for the climate. I know profit is what’s driving the farming industry and agriculture. There’s this constant need to have more land to cultivate. But monocropping is so scary. They use heavy machinery, which is already putting farmers in debt, so they have to make up a certain amount money on their crop in order to pay that past debt off. It’s a very difficult situation for farmers to be in. They have to use pesticides constantly, which is a tremendous detriment to our plant life and pollinators. How do we reverse that mentality? I do it one person at a time. I try to impress it upon everybody who joins my group, and perhaps they’ll turn around and impress a couple of other people. This idea of practicing diffusion – the slow spread of ideas – is hopefully, one day, going to come to fruition. Practicing ‘diffusion’ sounds like an anthropological idea. How else does your education come in handy? It doesn’t seem like anthropology and gardening would really translate. It’s so odd! But if you look back at a lot of the anthropology coursework, especially on complex societies, you’ll see, through what we have learned from archaeology, that complex civilizations in the past were already self-sustainable. They knew how to build irrigation pathways and aqueducts that helped sustain cities in the middle of the desert. I use Pierre Bourdieu’s “practice theory” all of the time. I learned it from (UWM anthropology professor) Kalman Applbaum and others from the UWM faculty. It’s applying misrecognition. People use it all the time, perhaps unknowingly, but it’s economic mechanism that ensures the cooperation of two people. When I give seeds to people, you should see how elated they become. It’s a very felicitous interaction – what (retired UWM anthropology professor) Bernard Perley would refer to as ‘felicitous engagement.’ Linguistic anthropology is tied to this social interaction. I use everything that I learned in my anthropology (classes) in the aspects of this social interaction to lead to positive outcomes in mutual benefit and cooperation.
Daniel Oladokun-Dybowski runs a seed exchange with the goal of reducing food insecurity and combatting climate change. Photo courtesy of Daniel Oladokun-Dybowski.
What’s next for you? When I married into the Oladokun family, who are from Nigeria, I adopted their last name as my first last name. I embraced their Yoruba culture, and I’m trying to learn the language with the longer-term idea of implementing what I do here with my charitable work in Casa Grande, Arizona. I’d like to develop Isa’s Garden Charities into an International NGO. I’m distributing propagated trees, plants, and seeds, while teaching people propagation methods to benefit the community in three towns where relatives are in Nigeria: Ayete, Ibadan, and Igbo ‘Ora. I have already begun this process with friends who work on the family farm in Igbo ‘Ora by teaching air-layering of moringa trees, which is one of the most nutrient dense profile trees on the planet. By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science
College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 11
Arnold named director of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery at UWM Alexander “Leggy” Arnold, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry has been named director of the Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery at UWM. The MIDD was established in 2011 to promote basic research related to new and improved drugs and to advance promising drug candidates to later stages of development. Arnold replaces Douglas Stafford, who recently retired from UWM after serving as MIDD director for the past 10 years. Arnold, who was a founding faculty member of the institute, will continue its mission to secure external funding for Alexander “Leggy” Arnold MIDD projects, round out the institute’s research infrastructure, identify new drug discovery and development projects on campus and with regional and national partners, increase MIDD membership, and support new product commercialization and entrepreneurship. A main focus of Arnold’s research is developing highthroughput screening methods to identify promising drugs and drug targets from large molecular libraries. He also is an internationally recognized vitamin D expert and has contributed several chapters to books on vitamin D. Another research focus of Arnold’s is the development of new treatments for respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. His laboratory discovered MIDD0301, a clinical asthma drug candidate currently under development by Pantherics Incorporated, a UWM spinout company. Arnold has participated in grants from the National Institutes of Health that total more than $5.3 million. His research resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications and three issued patents. UWM faculty members affiliated with the MIDD have the technical expertise and instrumentation necessary 12 • IN FOCUS • July, 2021
for a broad range of drug discovery research. The institute encompasses laboratories in the departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Biological Sciences and Psychology as well as the Shimadzu Laboratory for Advanced and Applied Analytical Chemistry, a state-ofthe-art mass spectroscopy facility, which opened in 2014. Mass spectroscopy equipment reveals where a compound ultimately goes once it enters the body; how fast it is metabolized and is cleared from the body; what amount achieves the desired effect; and how a compound changes when it breaks down in the body. The MIDD also conducts pre-clinical studies, forms collaborations to support later stages of product development, and works with the UWM Research Foundation to patent and license inventions. In the last 10 years, MIDD members have secured more than $20 million in grant funding, produced 21 new or pending patents, and supported five spinoff companies. The MIDD also is an engine for undergraduate research, where each year about 75 students carry out research in MIDD faculty projects. By Laura Otto, University Relations
This chart shows the locations of fireballs reported by U.S. government sensors over the past 33 years. Dark and light blue circles represent those fireballs that sensors recorded as having lower impact energy, while yellow and red measured with higher impact energy. Image courtesy of the UWM Planetarium.
Planetarium presents new program on Earth’s defense against space rocks This summer, the UWM Planetarium presents a new live virtual presentation, Dodging Doom, a sizzling scientific blockbuster aimed at inspiring interest and conversation about Earth’s defenses against potentially cataclysmic asteroid impacts. Last year, as people around the globe were preoccupied with COVID-19, another menace nearly made its destructive presence known. On Aug. 16, 2020, an asteroid known as 2020 QG nearly made contact with our home planet, flying less than 2,000 feet above our heads at its closest approach – enough for Earth’s gravity to alter the space rock’s trajectory. At only 10-20 feet (3-6 meters) in diameter, it’s likely that 2020 QG would have resulted in a fireball as it broke up in our atmosphere, but the scary part is that it was detected after its close encounter. In truth, instances such as these are common. Asteroids the size of 2020 QG pass by Earth a few times every year (though not as close) and, about once a year, the journey of an asteroid this size will end in
several as-yet untested proposals. It wasn’t until 2005 that the U.S. Congress tasked NASA with finding 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids that are 140 meters or larger, and NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office was only established in 2016. The good news is that NASA will soon launch the DART (DoubleAsteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft which travel to the binary near-Earth asteroid, Didymos, to test the kinetic impactor technique – a method in which an object crashes into a threatening asteroid to nudge its a brilliant flash of light and fire as it passes through the atmosphere. Indeed, trajectory in a direction that won’t collide with Earth. on any given night you can gaze up at the sky and, with a little patience, see It is the launch of this mission that streaks of light that signal the ignition of has inspired the UWM Planetarium tiny particles of space rock and debris in program “Dodging Doom”. To find our atmosphere. out more about Earth’s tumultuous history with space rocks, what It’s the larger asteroids, over 25 meters we plan to do about them in the in diameter, that warrant our attention. And it’s not a question of whether Earth future, and how you can become a defender of Earth, visit uwm.edu/ will be hit with a devastating asteroid – planetarium to register for one of it’s when. the two live virtual presentations on Presently, we don’t have a contingency July 14 and 16. plan for if a major threat were to hurdle By Nathaniel Schardin, UWM our way. Scientists have put forth Planetarium College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 13
In the Media and Around the Community Amanda Seligman (History) delivered Northwestern University’s Levy Lecture in May, speaking on the topic of Chicago’s block clubs. What is the difference between police reform and defunding the police? Paru Shah (Political Science) explained these terms for WUWM Radio. Sugar maple trees are an important part of indigenous culture, Margaret Noodin (English and American Indian Studies) explained on WUWM Radio. Tami WIlliams (English and Film Studies) is the co-organizer of a segment within “Women and the Silent Screen - Entr’Acte,” a four-part program on “Women Film Pioneers in Chinese Women Directors, Early Soviet Documentary, Digital Humanities Breakthroughs, and notably, on Transatlantic French-US Cinema.” Williams also co-organized the Kennington Bioscope online film series: “Solax: The House Built by Alice Guy-Blaché” with help from graduate student Allison Farrell, who was one of the program presenters. In addition, Williams spoke about 1920s avant-garde film pioneer Germaine Dulac for the France Culture podcast. Wisconsin Public Radio interviewed Jennifer Haas
(Archaeological Research Laboratory) about her team finding ancient human remains at the site of a proposed golf course in Sheboygan County. Political movements against the teaching of Critical Race Theory are fueled by misinformation, Gladys MitchellWalthour (African and African Diaspora Studies) said in a piece published by KSU: The Sentinel Newspaper. She spoke about the same subject in the Portugueselanguage paper Folha de S. Paulo. In a Yahoo! Life article, Cary Costello (Sociology) explained how the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many closeted people to come out. Rachel Bloom-Pojar (English) delivered a keynote address with Maria Barker (Planned Parenthood of 14 • IN FOCUS • July, 2021
Wisconsin) at the virtual 2021 conference for the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Their talk was entitled, “The Power of Language in Building Confianza with Communities.” Jeffrey Sommers (African and African Diaspora Studies and Global Studies) was interviewed on the podcast Letters Off Paper in an episode titled, “Author and Political Economist Jeffrey Sommers on The Decline of the U.S. Job Market and the Lingering Ghost of Reagan.” Sarah Farhan (‘20, MS Biological Sciences) took a summer job with the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition to help reach Muslims in the community who have not yet received a COVID-19 vaccine. Her efforts were documented in the Wisconsin Muslim Journal. Wisconsin Watch quoted research by Marc Levine (emeritus History) showing that Black people in Wisconsin are financially worse off today than they were 40-50 years ago. The article was reprinted in the U.S. News and World Report.
When three Wisconsin lawmakers used analogies to the Holocaust to decry COVID-19 rules and possible gun restrictions, Joel Berkowitz (Jewish Studies) and faculty and staff from the Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies condemned their language. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported the story. Earlier in June, Berkowitz tweeted that he loved the story of the White House Science advisor being sworn in on a copy of Pirkei Avot, or the “Ethics of Fathers,” and found his tweet quoted in an article on Forward. com.
Richard Grusin (English) gave a keynote lecture, “Pandemic Mediations,” at the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies (NECS) 2021 virtual conference on June 8, and his lecture was published in English and Italian at Fata Morgana.
People in Print In preparation for the partial solar eclipse in mid-June, Jean Creighton (Planetarium) explained the positioning of the Earth, moon, and sun to CBS 58 News. Young Jewish people looking for community can find it in a “Moishe pod,” pioneered by Nicole Gorelick (‘18, BA Journalism, Adertising, and Media Studies and Digital Arts and Culture) and her business partner. The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle reported the story. As the Milwaukee Bucks clawed their way to the NBA Finals, Fox 6 News consulted graduate student Austin Harris (Atmospheric Science) about the reality of a home court advantage. News of the LIGO Observatory’s detection of two black hole-neutron star mergers (see the story on Page 2) was published by the Associated Press and repurposed in media outlets around the globe. Patrick Brady (Physics) was quoted. Kundan Kishor (Economics) explained a rule of thumb in evaluating a fair price for real estate in an article about investment firms buying up homes for sale published by Slate.
Gladys Mitchell-Walthour (African and African Diaspora Studies). 2021. Afro-Descendant Women Social Welfare Beneficiaries and Their Perceptions of Conservative Politicians in Brazil and the United States. Revista Trabalho, Politica e Sociedade (Journal of Labor, Politics and Society), Jan.-June 6: 1-18. https://bit.ly/3pSSF70 Amir Masoud Forati and Rina Ghose (both Geography). 2021. Geospatial analysis of misinformation in COVID-19 related tweets. Applied Geography, 133. https://bit.ly/3woaJZf Amir Masoud Forati, John Mantsch, and Rina Ghose (both Geography). Examining Opioid Overdose Deaths Across Communities Defined by Racial Composition: A Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression Approach. Journal of Urban Health. Maria Novotny (English). 2021. Rhetorical Curation of Patient Art: How Community Literacy Scholars Can Contribute to Healthcare Professions. Community Literacy Journal, 15(2): 8. https://bit.ly/3ysutLV
You can’t tell the story of Milwaukee without beer, so CBS 58 News turned to newly-minted beer historian John Harry (‘21. MA History) to explore the city’s brewing past.
Passings Dr. Gerald “Jerry” Alred, Professor Emeritus in the Department of English, passed away on June 1, 2021. Alred completed his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Dayton and Miami University of Ohio. He taught at UWM for 35 years. During his time at UWM, Jerry advised many graduate students, directed several doctoral dissertations, and reached the rank of full professor in the Department of English. He was a teaching award recipient and retired from UWM as an emeritus professor. He was internationally known as an author of numerous scholarly articles, several standard bibliographies, and many editions of the leading handbooks on business and technical writing used in colleges throughout the United States and abroad. Jerry was Associate Editor of the Journal of Business Communications and a long-time member of several professional societies. He was invited several times as a guest professor at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. He co-founded an institutional partnership between the University of Applied Sciences and Arts at Hannover, Germany, and UWM. For additional information, including details about July 31 services, please see Jerry’s obituary online. Jerry had a lasting impact on many students and will be missed by friends and colleagues. College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 15
Alumni Accomplishments Jonathan Adashek (‘95, BA Political Science) was named one of five new trustees for the Institute for Public Relations, a nonprofit fostering the use of science and research in public relations. Adashek is the Chief Communications Officer at IBM. Kenzie Allen (‘20, PhD English) was named one of four winners of 92Y’s Discovery Poetry Contest, which recognizes
exceptional writers who have not yet published a book. Allen received a $500 prize and her poem will be published on The Paris Review Daily. Scott McComb (‘10, BA Kenzie Allen Geography) started a new job as the southeast Wisconsin aquatic invasive species outreach specialist through the Wisconsin Sea Grant program. He will coordinate and oversee education, outreach, and citizen monitoring programs. Patrick McBride (‘76, BA Zoology) was profiled in the Wisconsin State Journal
in an article highlighting McBride’s upcoming book, The Luckiest Boy in the World, set to release in August. It details McBride’s time working with Milwaukee’s professional sports teams before he began a career in medicine. Tamera Lenz Muente (‘94, BA English) was promoted to the position of curator at the Taft Patrick McBride Museum of Art in Cincinatti, Ohio. Muente has worked at the museum since 2006 and is responsible for curating exhibitions in three of the museum’s galleries. Zhanna Slor (‘08, BA English) was profiled in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle with praise of her book, At the End of the World, Turn Left, for its deft exploration of Jewish-Russian identity.
16 • IN FOCUS • July, 2021
Matthew Streeter (‘03, BA Psychology) joined North Country Healthcare as the organization’s new CFO. North Country Healthcare is nonprofit group of medical facilities in New Hampshire. Willa Richards (‘19, PhD English) discussed her upcoming book, The Comfort of Monsters, in an article published by BookTrib. Richard’s novel is a murder mystery set against the backdrop of Milwaukee’s “Dahmer summer.” The novel is set to release on July 13. John Suess (‘75, BA History) will have his artwork on display in the art Willa Richards gallery at the Wauwatosa Public Libary through July 31. Suess, a retired librarian, has long held a passion for art and discussed his life and work on Patch.com. Richard Lartz II (‘08, BA History and Philosophy; ‘14, MA History) recently took over as the director of the Barton County Historical Society Museum in Great Bend, Kansas. He hopes to increase the museum’s presence in the local community by drawing in more visitors and hosting events. Christina Clancy (‘11, PhD English) debuted her new novel, Shoulder Season, on July 6. The book explores the life of a Playboy Bunny at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva in days gone by. The novel was written up in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Kristen Monaco (‘98, PhD Economics) was hired earlier this year to serve as Christina Clancy the Director of the Bureau of Trade Analysis by the Federal Maritime Commission. She previously worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Laurels and Accolades Claire de la Cova (Biological Sciences) received an National Institutes of Health R03 grant for $152,000 from the National Cancer Institute titled, “Mechanisms of protein degradation that control signal transduction by Ras-Raf-MEK-ERK.” The research uses the animal model C. elegans to identify novel cellular mechanisms that promote destruction of Raf, a protein kinase commonly found to be hyperactive in human melanomas. Karyn Frick (Psychology) was invited to present her research at the Faculty Research Showcase as part of the WiSys SPARK Symposium 2021 Virtual Series. Frick will discuss “Potential Memory-Enhancing Effects of the Novel Estrogen Receptor Beta Agonist EGX358 in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease.” T In addition, Dr. Frick’s company, Estregenix, was named a runner-up in the Life Sciences category of the Wisconsin
Anne Basting’s (English) Creative Care Imagination Kit, made in collaboration with the non-profit Time Slips and people living with dementia, was published by Harper Collins. The kit is meant to help caretakers of loved ones and those suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s play and find joy together. Richa Karmarkar (‘20, BA Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) won a
Anne Basting
2020 Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of
Karyn Frick
Governor’s Business Plan Contest. Estregenix and
its chemical compound reduces hot flashes and the occurences of dementia in women. Tami WIlliams’ (English and Film Studies) book, Germaine Dulac’s What is Cinema?, won the 2020 Prix du Livre de Cinéma from the the Centre national du cinema et de l’image animée.
Professional Journalists contest in the Feature Writing category for the story, “Milwaukee church protests racism through religion,” which was written when Karmarkar was an undergraduate student. In addition, Jodie Filenius (‘20, BA Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) was named a National Finalist in the Online News Reporting Category for the story “In a time when caring more is vital, the UW system chose to care less,” also penned as an undergraduate student. A group of journalism students were named National Finalists in Online Feature Reporting for the story “Rising Waters.” Graduate student Michelle LaBerge (Anthropology) won first prize for a poster on her PhD thesis research at the Iron Age Research Student Symposium, an annual event held in the United Kingdom that allows postgraduate researchers to present their current work and receive feedback from fellow PhD students.
Upcoming Events Planetarium Show: Dodging Doom This summer, NASA’s new planetary defense mission DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) begins its journey towards the near-Earth asteroid, Didymos, where it will attempt to alter the trajectory of the asteroid’s moon. Join the Planetarium in an exploration of Earth’s history with asteroids, then take a glimpse into the future of planetary defense against possible threats and learn how you can become a defender of Earth! Recommended for ages 5 and up. When: July 14 and 16 at 7 p.m. Where: Live via YouTube (link will be sent out) Register at: https://bit.ly/3qNx1ld
Planetarium Show: Shooting Stars & 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! Recommended for ages 5 and up. When: August 6 at 7 p.m. Where: Live via YouTube (link will be sent out) Register at: https://bit.ly/3hfojbX College of Letters & Science • UW–Milwaukee • 17
