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Category: UW-Madison Related

Twin 22-year-old UW-Madison grads lead a growing startup that sells data tracking corporate jets, politicians’ stock trades

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A small Madison startup launched only two years ago to provide free alternative data for investors says it now has 340,000 registered users.

Twin brothers James and Chris Kardatzke debuted Quiver Quantitative in February 2020 while they were students at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying finance, economics, and statistics. They graduated that year and gave their full attention to running the business which now has six full-time employees, with plans to hire a few more soon.

Razzlekhan: The Untold Story Of How A YouTube Rapper Became A Suspect In A $4 Billion Bitcoin Fraud

Forbes

It was a small-scale version of the type of calculating that would shape his career as a self-described hacker. In 2009, Lichtenstein described himself as a “huge geek” who had been the “captain of math team and quiz bowl … and even managed to date a couple girls who were way out of my league.” After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a degree in psychology, Lichtenstein moved to California.

High school students find employers and colleges are trying to recruit them

NPR

RICH KREMER, BYLINE: Public, technical and community colleges have borne the brunt of pandemic enrollment declines. Since fall of 2019, they’ve lost more than 700,000 students. The drop was around 16% among men and 10% among women. In Wisconsin, enrollment at state technical colleges dropped by 34% over the past decade. It’s dropped more than 60% at two-year University of Wisconsin System campuses. That comes as Wisconsin employers say they’re increasingly desperate to hire enough workers.

Alumni Ventures Group to repay $4.7 million and pay $700,000 SEC penalty. The group created Bascom Ventures for UW-Madison alum.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered venture capital fund Alumni Ventures Group to repay $4.7 million to certain funds, and a $700,000 penalty, for making misleading statements about fees and breaching operating agreements.

The New Hampshire-based firm has funds with names pegged to universities, such as Bascom Ventures for University of Wisconsin-Madison alum, but doesn’t have any formal affiliation with the schools.

House slated to vote down masks

POLITICO

We asked what prompted you to wait in line for more than two hours: Suzie Bassi waited in line to purchase a Cabbage patch doll for her daughter “way back in the day.”… Sharon Rosenblum camped out two days for Bruce Springsteen and a day to see Bob Dylan. … Daniel Goldwin: “Any, and I mean any, University of Wisconsin basketball game in the old Field House — this is how I “On Wisconsin-ed” 1989-94.”

Ukraine supporters rally at Wisconsin Capitol

NBC-15

Russian UW Madison PhD Candidate Anton Shirikov does not agree with President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. ”Many Russians stand with Ukraine and many Russians want this war to stop,” Shirikov said. “They want Putin to fail and I’m one of them.”

‘You can’t legislate morality’: Nearly 60 years after Milwaukee’s first stab at fair housing legislation, the city struggles to enforce it

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Vel Phillips was already a woman of many firsts, having become the first Black person to graduate from the University of Wisconsin law school and the first Black woman elected to Milwaukee’s Common Council.

In 1962, she introduced a fair housing ordinance that would make housing discrimination on the basis of race and other protected classes illegal and was much stronger than the state law, which exempted much of Milwaukee’s duplex- and triplex-heavy real estate landscape.

Glorious Malone’s Fine Sausage has been a fixture in Milwaukee. Its legacy continues to grow.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: In 2011, Malone was inducted into the Wisconsin Meat Hall of Fame, joining local legends such as Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcaster Bob Uecker and Oscar G. Mayer who grew his father’s company, Oscar Mayer into a powerhouse brand, and Fred Usinger, who took the Usinger’s family sausage business to new heights in the 20th century.

The Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame resides at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Meat Science Laboratory and recognizes the contributions of individuals who have had a significant impact on the state’s meat industry.

Passing the puck: Olympians, local hockey advocates create pathways for girls to join the sport

Wisconsin Public Radio

Quoted: “Each team, that’s 25 additional roster spots. So there’s more room at the top,” said Carla Pentimone, who played for the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2009-11. Now she’s the owner and founder of Women’s College Hockey Recruiting, helping more than 250 young women navigate the transition to elite-level hockey.

“I have young girls who want to play hockey at Wisconsin or Minnesota, and they wear those sweatshirts. And I think being able to look at those teams that have had so much success and see what can be — the beautiful locker rooms and the amenities and even taking jets to play teams — as females, it’s just, it’s so cool,” Pentimone said.

‘The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert’ by Cecil Taylor Review: Filling in the Blanks of a Jazz Master’s Career

WSJ

Now “The Complete, Legendary, Live Return Concert” (Oblivion), a performance of Taylor’s quartet recorded at New York’s Town Hall in November 1973, is out now on select streaming platforms. In the years leading up to the show, Taylor had been teaching at Antioch College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even though the jazz avant garde, of which he is a founding father, was thriving, Taylor was creating recordings on his own Unit Core label in only limited editions. He released the second half of this concert in 1974 as “Spring of Two Blue-J’s,” pressing only 2,000 copies.

Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, are accused of laundering billions in stolen cryptocurrency.

The Washington Post

Lichtenstein, a tech entrepreneur who goes by the nickname “Dutch,” was born in Russia, and his family emigrated to the United States to avoid religious persecution, settling in suburban Chicago. He studied at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-founded MixRank, a sales firm initially funded by Y Combinator and investors, including Mark Cuban, according to the company’s website. He described himself as a “tech entrepreneur, explorer, and occasional magician” in a 2018 blog post.

UW Veterinary Care Blood Bank offers donor animals free food, vaccinations, & preventatives

NBC-15

About once a month, Carlos the greyhound eagerly walks with UW Veterinary Care Blood Donor Coordinator Emma Doubleday to an examination room, where he does something that could save another dog’s life–he donates blood. Carlos, a retired racing track dog, is one of 29 canines and 14 cats that donate blood regularly at the UW Veterinary Care Blood Bank. The blood is used to treat sick or injured animals in need of transfusions.

Early-stage companies had a record year in Wisconsin. Here’s how some of the top companies did.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Fetch Rewards has offered customers incentives for purchasing products from partner brands like General Mills, Frito Lay and Unilever. Points earned on purchases can be redeemed for gift cards from Amazon, Target and Starbucks.

“We see a huge opportunity in that there’s probably 100 million U.S. households we should be very well plugged into, but today we only have 13 million active monthly users,” said company founder and CEO Wes Schroll.

Schroll started the company in 2013 when he was a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It’s now valued at more than $1 billion, making it part of an elite group of startups called “unicorns.”

Heather Morgan is Razzlekhan, the rapper accused of laundering billions of dollars in bitcoin

The Washington Post

Lichtenstein has a lower online profile than his wife; he described himself as a “tech entrepreneur, explorer, and occasional magician” in a 2018 blog post. According to court documents, the dual Russian and American citizen grew up in Glenview, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. He studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-founded MixRank, a sales firm initially funded by Y Combinator and investors including Mark Cuban, according to the company’s website.

UW-Madison alum, rapper wife caught with $4.5 billion of stolen cryptocurrency

Daily Cardinal

Lichtenstein grew up in Glenview, Illinois and according to university spokesperson Meredith McGlone, he then graduated from UW-Madison in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. During his time as a student, Lichtenstein worked for an internet marketing firm before creating his own tech startup, MixRank, which sought to reveal the ad campaign strategy of different companies’ competitors.

‘Really special’: US goalie Alex Cavallini, 30, makes most of first Olympic start with shutout of Switzerland

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

lex Cavallini’s goaltending career has had several highlights.

Now she has added another milestone.

Before Sunday, Cavallini had an accomplished international career as a member of five world championship teams, most recently serving as the primary goalie during the 2019 title for the U.S. women’s hockey team. As a freshman with the Wisconsin Badgers, she was part of the 2011 national championship team, alongside current national team teammates Hilary Knight and Brianna Decker. Cavallini also holds the distinction of being the first woman drafted by the United States Hockey League (USHL).

World traveling UW-Madison professor shares a new novel and play

Wisconsin State Journal

Author, UW-Madison professor and world traveler Amy Quan Barry says she strives to have depth and range to her writing. Her releases this month of both a novel and play certainly seem to validate that goal. “When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East,” is Barry’s third novel due out Feb. 22. A few days later, her first play, “The Mytilenean Debate,” begins its run at Forward Theatre. She will discuss both works during an upcoming in-person event through the Wisconsin Book Festival.

Health care staff to pitch plan for pandemic help to Dane County Board

The Capital Times

Justin Giebel, 25, is a registered nurse in UW Health’s COVID ICU. Recently he’s had to work five night shifts in a row and then stay on for a day shift because the hospital was short-staffed by seven nurses. Many nurses Giebel works with have panic attacks at work, have needed to take leaves of absence or just left nursing altogether, he said.

The health care workers have partnered with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a national think-tank housed on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, which works to build and support worker-centered partnerships, said director of the center Joel Rogers.

Sculpture of UW-Madison art professor brings message of ‘shared humanity’

The Capital Times

When Faisal Abdu’Allah first strolled through a pathway of stone slabs at Quarra Stone, the Madison company that would help create a sculpture of him, he felt like the materials had souls … A year-and-a-half later, the material has been crafted into a 7-foot statue of the University of Wisconsin-Madison art professor for his upcoming DARK MATTER exhibition at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, which opens Sept. 17. Titled “Blu³eprint,” the art will be installed this fall in front of MMoCA, on the corner of Henry and State streets, pending permits from the city.

Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Greg Gard to wear special shoes to honor his mother

Wisconsin State Journal

Greg and his wife, Michelle, have raised more than $5 million through their Garding Against Cancer initiative. The Gards, inspired by the loss of Greg’s father, have been dedicated to fighting cancer across Wisconsin. His knowledge of cancer didn’t make anything easier when his mother, Connie, recently was diagnosed with breast cancer.

‘Lorraine Hansberry,’ by Charles J. Shields book review

The Washington Post

The glaring disconnect between her family’s civil rights activism and their fortune, made by exploiting other Black people, likely played a role in Lorraine’s move towards Marxist politics, but Shields doesn’t explore it. By contrast, his depiction of her intellectual development is substantive, from her teenage readings in Harlem Renaissance literature through her discovery at the University of Wisconsin of theater, in particular Sean O’Casey’s Irish folk dramas. He also revisits a summer workshop in Mexico that cemented her commitment to social realism in art and her tenure as a journalist at the radical monthly Freedom after she dropped out of college.

PBS Wisconsin Education’s ‘Kindness in the Classroom’ in action

PBS Wisconsin

Noted: One of the CELC’s most successful programs for students is based on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Healthy Minds’ Kindness curriculum, supported by PBS Wisconsin Education with a series of instructional videos to help educators learn how to use it. The curriculum is a series of lessons developed and researched by the Center for Healthy Minds that has been shown to have a positive impact on academic performance, peer relationships and teacher-perceived social competence.

UW-Madison profs condemn racist gesture and see learning opportunity

The Capital Times

When Cindy Cheng first saw the TikTok video of a Badgers fan taunting Asian American students at Northwestern University with a slant eyes gesture, she hoped it would turn into a learning opportunity. UW Athletics has since barred the person, who is not a University of Wisconsin-Madison student, from purchasing tickets for athletics events on its platform. But Cheng, a history and Asian American studies professor at UW-Madison, said the racist act should additionally serve as a teaching moment on the gesture’s harm — not necessarily a personal condemnation of the person.

Tiny Love Stories: ‘Be Grateful We Have Different Last Names’

The New York Times

My father, Henry, from Kauai, Hawaii, and my mother, Thordis, from the West Side of Chicago, met at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, at the popular cafeteria in the student union. My father, just back from Europe, where he served in World War II, came in with his buddies. He saw my mother sitting with her friends. Walking over to her, he said, “Stand up, and if you’re not taller than I am, I’ll take you to a movie.” She stood; she was a half-inch taller. They went to the movie anyway, and that’s how I came to be.

The Many Visions of Lorraine Hansberry

The New Yorker

As she grew up, she drifted away from the politics of her parents, who remained committed Republicans even as most Black voters were shifting their party allegiance; at the University of Wisconsin, she began campaigning for Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party.

In the Race for Batteries, One Scientist Has Seen It All

Wall Street Journal

Ms. Babinec’s first close encounter with electricity occurred when she stuck a scissors in a light socket when she was a child. She was briefly knocked unconscious and awoke on the other side of the room. She blacked out her house but was uninjured. She joined Dow Chemical in 1979 after earning a degree in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and became the chemical giant’s first female corporate fellow, the highest level scientist at the company, in 1998. She also worked for Dow’s venture capital group, where she gained experience developing new businesses.

Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt, Pewaukee native and former Wisconsin Badgers star, ties single-season NFL sack record vs. Ravens

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Pewaukee native T.J. Watt has entered rare NFL company. His name is now at the top of the NFL single-season sack list.

The Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker and former University of Wisconsin star tied Michael Strahan’s mark of 22½ sacks in a season when he wrapped up Baltimore quarterback Tyler Huntley for a loss on  a 1st-and goal from the 3-yard line with 23 seconds left in the second quarter Sunday in Baltimore.

Q&A: University Research Park director grows science with real estate

The Capital Times

Aaron Olver is managing director of the nonprofit UW-Madison affiliate, which is designed to provide a space for commercializing discoveries made on campus. “At our core, we’re a real estate operation,” Olver said. “Our job is basically to create homes where innovation companies, particularly (ones) affiliated with the university, can get started and can grow and can thrive.” 

People are ditching traditional jobs for social media careers. Here’s how five Wisconsinites did it themselves.

Appleton Post-Crescent

Noted: If you’re an aspiring content creator and you want to learn how to make YouTube video thumbnails, attract sponsorships or gain more followers, then Muaaz Shakeel is your guy.

As Shakeel’s freshman year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was approaching, he decided he wanted to give content creation another try. This time, he took it seriously, he said, and taught himself everything he needed to know about being a YouTuber.