Category: UW Experts in the News

Quoted: Michele Hilmes, professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Vang Pao, a revered former general in the Royal Army of Laos who led thousands of Hmong guerrillas in a CIA-backed secret army during the Vietnam War, died Thursday. He was 81. In 2002, Madison dropped a plan to name a park in his honor after a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor cited published sources alleging that Vang Pao had ordered executions of his own followers, of enemy prisoners of war and of his political enemies.

Quoted: ?It?s a tough job. It?s a physically demanding job,? reminded Doug Reinemann, an agricultural engineer from UW-Madison Milking Research and Instruction Lab.

Quoted: According to Ken Mayer, a UW-Madison political science professor, a Voting Rights challenge is the most likely way for Democrats to have the GOP?s map disqualified.

Quoted: “In the old days, they said, ?Sit down, shut up and vote.? But those days in the Senate are long gone,” said Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Former Madison Ald. Noel Radomski,a UW-Madison administrator who served one term on the City Council from 2005-07, has dropped out of the race for mayor.

Noted: A preliminary report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison veterinary lab says the death of a horse in Deerfield last month probably was not caused by an animal attack.

Quoted: “Research shows that when couples are having fun together, it helps them feel positive about each other and improves their relationship satisfaction,” said Linda Roberts, a program specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension and professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: Walker is a Republican. Both the state Senate and Assembly flipped to the GOP in November. That change will make it easier for Walker to manage Wisconsin?s budget, compared to Democrat Doyle, according to John Witte. He?s part of UW-Madison?s La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Noted: David Williamson Shaffer, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the departments of Educational Psychology and Curriculum and Instruction, makes video games that help people learn while they play, called epistemic games.

Quoted: “When you look at the all-time box-office leaders and see how many of them are sequels, theres no sign being sent to Hollywood that audiences have had too much, or at least not in a language that Hollywood cares to understand,” said Dr Jonathan Gray, a professor of cultural studies at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: Richard J. Davidson, director, UW-Madison Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, “practice acts of kindness.”

Quoted: Tim Gattenby, coordinator of adapted fitness and personal training in the UW-Madison kinesiology department.

Quoted: Steven A. Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Quoted: Charles Franklin, a pollster and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he thinks voters understand that Walker can have only a marginal effect on the economy. But if Walker racks up big successes in areas under his control, such as the budget, then voters will understand if the jobs goal isn?t met.

Quoted: “In scientific controversies, fights that challenge existing knowledge take several years to settle, at least,” says scientific communication expert Dominique Brossard of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Planck?s distance from today?s world, filled with battling blogs, turbulent tweets and pugnacious press conferences, doesn?t make his message matter any less, Brossard suggests, as we ponder the latest high-profile hullabaloo in science ?NASA?s arsenic microbe kerfuffle.

Quoted: Robert Lemanske, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, says patients at his pediatric asthma clinic are checked regularly for side effects such as slowed rates of growth. He quizzes parents and young patients on details like where they keep their inhalers to make sure they?re taking their prescribed medicine.

Quoted: PAM HERD, associate professor of public affairs, University of Wisconsin: Scott Walker has made it pretty clear that he wants a very, very limited regulation of plans that participate in the exchange. And the state, it doesn?t look like, at least, will get really involved in terms of negotiating on behalf of citizens for things — for — for benefits and the cost of the plans.

Quoted: “Studies have shown that you are less likely to spend when you pay cash,” says Michael Collins, faculty director at the Center for Financial Security at the University of Wisconsin.

Quoted: ?You don?t get caught up in cheerleading and you don?t get caught up in muting your criticism,? admonished University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Stephen Ward. The media had become the nationalist mouthpiece, he said; it was unbecoming if not worrisome.

Noted: She was reporting on comments made by Dr John Hawks, an anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin, who argues that the fact the size of the human brain is decreasing doesn?t necessarily mean our intelligence is in decline as well.

Quoted: “Any government or any governor has limited impact on employment growth, but that doesn?t mean zero,” said Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “I think it?s more than just rhetoric right now,” said Donald Downs, a professor of political science, law and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of a forthcoming book on the military and universities. “Especially at the administrative level, I think the schools are sincere. The real question is how willing the military might be.”

Quoted: The cosmic event excited scientists and treasure hunters alike. The appeal was understandable, said John Valley, a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “This is no country for young men,” said Timothy Smeeding, a public policy professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who is among a growing legion of social scientists who fret about the fate of working men.

Quoted: To learn more about Doyle?s overall legacy, WUWM?s Ann-Elise Henzl chatted with John Witte, a professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

Quoted: “It?s a very experienced cabinet,” UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said. “There are a lot of people with legislative experience, and there are also at least three people that have experience from the Thompson administration.”

Quoted: Beth Graue, a UW-Madison professor of early childhood education, said the benefits of early childhood programs can?t be limited to test results.

Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin said the hiring made sense. He said idealism only gets a Senator so far in Washington.

Quoted: Joel Rogers, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), says that despite the gains made mostly earlier this year, the cumulative job loss since the recession began is considerable.

Quoted: Wisconsin Innocence Project co-director Keith Findley says that recommendation can be read as a strong indicator that state officials are beginning to realize state law needs to be changed. He says there is a growing awareness that Wisconsin?s compensation statute is simply inadequate.

Quoted: Douglas N. Harris, an economist affiliated with the center at the University of Wisconsin that produces the city?s rankings, called the science behind them promising, and said that they had jump-started a wider effort to come up with better measures of teacher performance, which was long overdue.

Quoted: Donald Downs, a professor of political science, law and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of a forthcoming book on the military and universities.

Quoted: “He?s not going to be around next year or the future to affect green energy in the state,” Charles Franklin, a UW political science professor, said, questioning what a lame-duck governor could accomplish in a trip during his last few weeks in office.

Quoted: Anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, Madison says DNA evidence is changing the way anthropologists work. “It?s so much more than we knew from the fossil record. It?s really like discovering something for the first time,” he says. Hawks says genetic analysis will provide a much richer picture of life in the distant past.

Quoted: Kenneth Mayer is a professor of political science at UW-Madison. He says losing seats can set up a potentially bruising redistricting battle ? one where an incumbent can be literally written off the map, or where two incumbents can be forced to run against each other in a newly drawn district. While the number of seats here will stay the same, Mayer says political lines will almost certainly have to be redrawn based on population changes within Wisconsin.

UW-Madison Political Science Professor David Canon says that will have a big impact on the political landscape over the next decade. Largely because it will allow Republicans to pick up even more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than they would have under the current district lines.

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist David Canon, an expert on redistricting, said Wisconsin probably will keep all eight seats.

Quoted: “An increasing proportion of Wisconsin residents are facing economic hardship,” said the report?s author, Katherine Curtis, a demographic specialist at UW Extension and an assistant professor at UW-Madison.

Quoted: “I don?t recall it coming up in the debates at all,” said David Canon, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, of the war that Obama has made his own. “I don?t really remember seeing any reference to it in any of the ads. So I don?t think it really played a role at all. It was definitely about the economy, about jobs, a little bit about health care, but Afghanistan really didn?t come up. The issue on most people?s mind was the economy.”