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Category: UW-Madison Related

UW-Madison grad comedian Hannah Berner talks shop ahead of Wisconsin tour

Wisconsin Public Radio

Hannah Berner never set out to be a comedian.

The 33-year-old stand-up originally had her sights set on tennis. She played all four years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After graduating, Berner gravitated towards making funny videos on social media. From there, she eventually found a passion being on stage and making people laugh.

American astronaut and commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission who dramatically brought the crew back to Earth

The Guardian

Money was tight, so he applied for, and was accepted on, the navy’s Holloway plan, which gave him two years of a free engineering course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, plus flight training, sea duty and a commission. After two years it also led a senior officer to suggest to Lovell that he should renew his application to Annapolis. He was accepted, wrote his thesis on liquid fuelled rocketry, graduated in 1952, and soon afterwards married his childhood sweetheart, Marilyn Gerlach.

New CDC director grew up on Wisconsin dairy farm, has two degrees from UW-Madison

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Susan Monarez, who was confirmed to the role by the U.S. Senate on July 30, grew up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin and holds bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in microbiology and immunology from UW-Madison. She has drawn some attention as the first person to take on the job without a medical degree in more than 70 years, but she has spent her career in the health field.

Can A.I. help revitalize Indigenous languages?

Smithsonian Magazine

Like the Skobot, most new A.I. technologies developed by Native scientists are designed for a specific language community. Jacqueline Brixey, a computer scientist formerly at the University of Southern California and now joining the University of Wisconsin, created a chatbot called “Masheli” that can communicate in Choctaw. Drawing from a collection of animal stories, the chatbot can listen and respond to users in both English and the target language, helping conversational skills.

My Life in Protest I ran from tear gas and was arrested at People’s Park, occupied Wall Street, and wore a pussy hat. At 77, I’m not stopping.

New York Magazine

True, the Tesla Resistance didn’t have the revolutionary romance of yesteryear: running through tear gas at the U of Wisconsin Dow Chemical demo (it made napalm) hand in hand with my then-girlfriend, Judy, who would soon leave me for a history grad student and break my heart. It didn’t have the grit of the People’s Park sieges in Berkeley in ’69, getting kicked in the stomach by Alameda County sheriff’s deputies on the way to the Santa Rita jail, throwing debris at the Northside home of H-bomb avatar Edward Teller. It didn’t even offer the thrill of marching across the Brooklyn Bridge during Occupy Wall Street and seeing the beacon of the 99 percent beamed onto the blank corporate slab of the Verizon Building, proclaiming ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

They attack because we’re strong, not weak

Inside Higher Ed

Universities did great things during the 20th century. Presidents and faculty found strength and legitimacy through relevance. They helped in the all-out effort to win the Second World War. Universities anticipated the needs of the Cold War. Research labs produced products that improved people’s daily lives. The University of Minnesota patented Honeycrisp apples. The University of Wisconsin patented fortifying milk with vitamin D.

‘Invisible Cartographies’ lyrically excavates geographies both material and spiritual

Tone Madison

If there was a word to describe the essence of 2023 UW-Madison MFA graduate Meg Kim’s Invisible Cartographies, it would be lush: in language, in landscape, in memory, in longing. The winner of the 2023-2024 New Delta Review Chapbook Prize, Invisible Cartographies is rooted in place—geographies both physical and psychic made visible only by Kim’s careful practice of excavation, bred by her “mass of wanting.”

Fred Risser’s life is the story of Wisconsin politics

The Cap Times

Among his losing battles was the 1970s fight over merging the University of Wisconsin in Madison with other state campuses to form the UW System. He was against it, as were his constituents on the Madison campus. He fought enacting a state lottery and opposed building the so-called SuperMax prison that Tommy Thompson later admitted was a big mistake.

Study: Tenure doesn’t slow average research output

Inside Higher Ed

Researchers at Northwestern University, Northeastern University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison analyzed the careers of 12,000 U.S.-based faculty across 15 disciplines, including business, sociology and chemistry.

They evaluated publication outcomes over an 11-year span, which includes the five years before and after those scholars got tenure. Last week, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America published the results of that analysis in a peer-reviewed paper, “Tenure and Research Trajectories.”

Columbia and Penn Made Trump Deals. More Universities Could Be Next.

The New York Times

“Two hundred million dollars is not a lot of money when you have billions at stake, and any corporate person will tell you that,” said Donna E. Shalala, who was health secretary under President Bill Clinton and has led four schools, including the University of Miami and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Basically, they’re cutting their losses and ensuring their future — for at least a short period of time.”

How a Madison doctor is trying to help others find affordable housing

The Cap Times

Henderson brushed off the experience, hoping it was a fluke. But after matching into residency at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, she overheard a medical student lamenting about their housing struggles and something clicked.

“The lightbulb went off in my head,” Henderson said. “I realized I think this is a nationwide issue and then really started to look into it from there.”

Wisconsin basketball legend Frank Kaminsky welcomes first child with wife Ashley Brewer

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Earlier this year it was announced that the Wisconsin basketball legend would be honored for his accomplishments on the hardwood as a member of the 2025 University of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. He’ll be back in Madison for the induction ceremony during the weekend of Sept. 5-6.

And Kaminsky will be inducted as a first-time dad. Kaminsky, along with his wife, Ashley Brewer, announced on Sunday, July 20, the birth of their first child, Francis Stanley Kaminsky IV.

U slaps students with $200 fee to help athletics budget as U starts paying athletes

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Luis Hernandez, strategic communications director and associate athletic director for the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said the school has come up with other ways to fund its $198.9 million athletics budget, including new corporate sponsorships, such as adding the Culver’s logo to the Kohl’s Center basketball court.

They’ve also scheduled events like concerts and the chance to play indoor golf at Camp Randall Stadium. The upcoming Morgan Wallen and Coldplay concerts at the stadium are the first to be held there in nearly 28 years, Hernandez said.

UW students don’t pay athletic fees, and the university plans on spending the full $20.5 million on athletes that is allowed, he said.

Local communities with state buildings get boost from Wisconsin budget

Wisconsin Public Radio

Wisconsin’s new budget boosts some of the funding available to local communities, including those that are home to state buildings.

State buildings are exempt from property taxes, but Wisconsin does compensate the cities, villages and townships where those facilities are located. The increased funding will affect hundreds of communities that house state facilities ranging from prisons to universities to office buildings.

Remains of unknown World War I soldier exhumed in Wisconsin for DNA identification

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A grave long marked only as “Unknown Soldier” in a quiet corner of Restlawn Memorial Park in Wausau was opened last month, as part of a statewide effort to identify missing service members through DNA technology.

The exhumation, carried out June 6, is part of the Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Biotechnology Center. That project works to identify remains of service members declared missing in action, many of whom still have living relatives.

Kathleen Gallagher: Wisconsin must seize the moment with fusion energy as power demand soars

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region have all the pieces to build a fusion industry here. UW-Madison is one of the top two fusion energy research universities in the country (MIT is the other). Amazingly, UW-Madison has spun out three of the world’s 45 fusion companies: SHINE Technologies; Type One Energy and Realta Fusion. And UW-Madison alumni work at all the major U.S. fusion companies that use magnetic (as opposed to laser) plasma containment.

Column: Where are the shows about regular people fighting back?

Chicago Tribune

Author Kashana Cauley began her career as an attorney before shifting to writing for TV (including the animated Fox series “The Great North” and “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”) and as a novelist.

“I’m a first-generation college student, so nobody in my family really knew what college was for, how to get there or what it is you might do with such a degree. I don’t think that’s uncommon among Black American families; only two or three generations of us have been going to college. So I did my undergrad in economics and political science at the University of Wisconsin, but I had no idea how you got a job because I didn’t know you were supposed to get jobs through your friends’ parents; my parents sent me to college so I didn’t have to work on the assembly line at General Motors like my dad, so I was completely confused.”

Pat Connaughton bids farewell to Milwaukee in moving Instagram post

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Connaughton included a series of photos from his Bucks tenure, including photos of him with the Larry O’Brien Trophy commemorating the championship; images with his young child, teammates and former coaches; plus even a couple shots from his experience in the NBA slam-dunk competition in 2020, a shot of him delivering a commencement address at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and glimpses of his real-estate and charity work.

Gov. Tony Evers’ re-election decision looms over battleground Wisconsin

NBC News

“Evers got most of what he wanted. He is now in a position to say, ‘I’ve done what I needed to do. I got funding back to UW [the University of Wisconsin system], I got funding for child care, we’ve saved the kids in Wisconsin.’ We’ve got a kids budget — I think that gives him an out,” said Brandon Scholz, a Wisconsin Republican strategist. “He can go out on top.”

Madison architect Kenton Peters dead at 93. Here are some of his best-known projects

Wisconsin State Journal

A UW-Madison alumnus and former Badgers football player, Peters began his career in Madison in the early 1960s and was a prominent figure in the city’s development scene into the 2000s. He designed and built two of the high-rise condominiums now overlooking Lake Monona, including the metallic Marina building, among numerous other distinctive projects Downtown, on the UW-Madison campus and throughout the region. Many are still standing — and standing out — today.

Vigil honors former Rufus King, UW Madison running back Nate White

WISN -- Channel 12 Milwaukee

A balloon release vigil was held at Rufus King High School in Milwaukee to honor Nate White, a former Rufus King and Badger running back who died last week.

After playing at Rufus King High School and then UW Madison, White then transferred to South Dakota State and played there for six months. Throughout his time out of state, family and friends said White kept in close contact with the community in Wisconsin.

Madison musicians, artists collaborate at Next Wave

The Cap Times

On the last weekend in June, artist and recent University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate Ava Albelo organized “Cog in the Machine” at Next Wave Studios, a multimedia production space on Madison’s east side.

Albelo said she funded the project with a grant from the UW-Madison Art Department. She hoped younger people would come to the show “and be interested in the artwork and ask questions and enjoy the music.”

Walter E. Dewey

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

He graduated from Wauwatosa East High School in 1979 and earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Investments and Banking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1983. He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1989.

In the final weeks of Walter’s life, he and his family established a focused strategy to advance pancreatic immunology research at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. In lieu of flowers, the family invites memorial gifts to support this initiative.