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Category: UW-Madison Related

For Jimmy Anderson, call to politics followed life-changing accident

Wisconsin State Journal

Anderson, who won a Democratic primary election and became the overwhelming favorite to be the next representative from Assembly District 47, moved to Wisconsin from California to attend UW-Madison Law School. The fact that the university is a national magnet for young talent underscores why it must be protected from further funding cuts, he said.

Tesla executive to speak in Madison

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: “It used to be that innovations that spawn or destroy entire industries would happen very infrequently,” said Witek, who has an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Now major disruptions that can be life-threatening to industries or companies are emerging almost annually.”

The tree detective

Isthmus

Officials around the globe often seek out the help of Alex Wiedenhoeft, who is the team leader of the Center for Wood Anatomy Research (CWAR) at the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory on the UW-Madison campus and one of the world’s foremost forensic wood anatomists and a secret weapon in the fight against illegal logging.

Stratatech, maker of replacement for skin, to be sold

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Stratatech was founded by University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Lynn Allen-Hoffmann in 2001. After watching a surgeon operate on a farmer who had suffered third-degree burns across 95% of his body, she transformed her research into a company that would focus on developing a skin replacement created with actual human cells.

Wisconsin cheesemaker wins top industry award

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Roelli credits John Jaeggi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Dairy Research with helping him develop and perfect the Little Mountain cheese. He also credits his milk supplier, Cernek dairy farm in Gratiot — “the milk is the star,” he said — for providing a stellar basic ingredient.

Madison woman lands prestigious position on U.S. Senate floor

WKOW-TV 27

Noted: Allison Markoski is a lawyer with a nontraditional career path that includes lots of nonpartisan work. Markoski has served the state of Wisconsin at the Department of Public Instruction, the Department of Corrections, and UW-Madison. Soon, she’ll be serving the nation as one of the few Parliamentarians of the U.S. Senate.

Wisconsin general new commander training Afghan forces

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: A 1983 Racine Park High School graduate, Kaiser attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison on an Air Force ROTC scholarship before transferring after his freshman year to Marquette, where his twin brother, Bob, was an Army ROTC student. One of Kaiser’s favorite instructors was Father Michael Zeps who taught military history at Marquette. Zeps stayed in contact with Kaiser and traveled to Racine to attend the funeral of Kaiser’s father after he returned from Iraq.

Know Your Madisonian: John Mathis leaves the stars for earthly volunteerism

Wisconsin State Journal

Noted: Mathis brought his growing family to Madison in 1959, lured here because Michigan State University did not have an astronomy department and UW-Madison did and it was a very good one, he said. A theoritician, Mathis’ move turned out fruitful, for both sides. Five children and a 36-year career at the university — not counting the extra decade up to 2006 as a research-busy emeritus — later, Mathis heard of a volunteer teaching spot that “sounded like fun.”

Old World Wisconsin still brings history to life after 40 years

WISC-TV 3

Noted: But the site, led by Milwaukee architect and preservationist Richard Perrin and UW-Madison landscape architect Bill Tishler, opened in 1976 in time for the national bicentennial. It has continued to endure despite state budget cuts, a damaging 2011 tornado and competition from other tourist attractions like water parks and amusement rides.

Silatronix raises $8 million, secures new partners

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Silatronix got its start in Venture Investors’ Venture Igniter program, which was formed to encourage and support academic and student-led start-ups from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The company is based on technology developed by chemists at UW-Madison, Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., and Quallion LLC, a Palo Alto, Calif., battery maker.

PGA Champions Tour a big deal for Madison

WISC-TV 3

Noted: Nate Pokrass has logged some 10- to 12-hour days in his job as tournament director for the American Family Insurance Championship. No stranger to event administration, Pokrass worked various jobs in the athletic department at the University of Illinois and was a senior director of development at UW–Madison.

’40: Collages by Kevin Henkes’

Wisconsin State Journal

Noted: “40: Collages by Kevin Henkes” is the first exhibition of its kind for him. Henkes’ need to be productive with his hands between books yielded 40 abstract paper collages in four years. Components of the collages were created from paper he saved from the 1980s when he was an undergraduate at UW-Madison working with Walter Hamady.

Connecting children to nature initiative builds off current city programs

Wisconsin State Journal

A pack of Sherman Middle School students gathered in a circle at Warner Park to share their constructions of cattails, grass, mud and sticks.Anke Keuser, a doctoral candidate in the Nelson Institute’s Environment and Resources program at UW-Madison, pulled out boxes of blue, pink and yellow candy Peeps, saying she thought they made a fitting prize for a bird-nest-building competition.

Growing a beer brand ingredient by ingredient

Wisconsin State Journal

Noted: After graduating from Monroe High School in 2002, and later UW-Madison, Jeremy Beach took a job as a statistician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Portland, Oregon, a region of the country bursting with craft beer. In 2009 he returned to UW-Madison for a master’s degree in rural sociology and then in 2011 returned to the USDA but at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. where he was a survey methodologist.

HealthMyne’s Mark Gehring to receive ‘Seize the Day’ award

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: He also co-founded Sharendipity, a programming environment for non-programmers that failed in the recession in 2009; UltraVisual Medical Systems, a radiology imaging system maker that merged with another start-up and had a $400 million public offering in 2005; and Geometrics, which commercialized radiation treatment planning software Gehring developed at UW-Madison and is now owned by Philips.