Instructor Biographies

Susan Lederer is the Robert Turell Professor of History of Medicine and Bioethics and Chair of the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She is the author of Subjected to Science, Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature, and Flesh and Blood: a Cultural History of Organ Transplantation and Blood Transfusion.

Eve Emshwiller joined the faculty of the Botany Department of UW-Madison as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2006. Prior to that she was an adjunct curator at the Field Museum in Chicago for over 7 years. Her Ph.D. from Cornell University is in systematic botany and ethnobotany. At UW she teaches introductory botany and has also developed a new course on Ethnobotany, a broad field that crosses disciplinary boundaries to study all aspects of the interactions between human cultures and plants.

Dr. Emshwiller’s research concentrates on the evolution and conservation of diversity of crop plants and their wild relatives. She primarily studies an Andean tuber crop called “oca”, or Oxalis tuberosa, by conducting field work in remote areas of the highlands of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, interviewing Native farmers who grow oca, and then using DNA data to study the evolution of the crop.

Mr. Feltz is the leader of the Satellite Nowcasting Aviation APplications (SNAAP) team and the NASA funded Advanced Satellite Aviation-weather Product (ASAP) effort at the UW-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS). He directs a group of researchers/scientists toward the goal of using current derived satellite based meteorological products to improve forecasting of aviation weather hazards through FAA, NOAA, NASA, and military agencies. Mr. Feltz is involved with validation of future meteorological in situ and remote sensing instrumentation and currently has PI, PM, and Co-I responsibilities on five satellite remote sensing related research projects. Research achievements include: development temperature and moisture retrieval algorithms for ground based high resolution fourier transform interferometric radiometer radiance measurements; advancement of satellite derived meteorological field for operation use in detection of aviation weather hazards; development of new meteorological applications for remotely sensed atmospheric temperature, water and wind fields; validation of remotely sensed atmospheric state; surface-based passive remote sensing of clouds; successful participation in a number of field experiments consisting of deployment of Winnebago (AERIBago) with numerous meteorological instruments; and instrument performance analysis.

David Van Sickle, PhD began his career studying asthma among Native Americans in Alaska, Arizona and New Mexico. With funding from the National Science Foundation he then spent several years examining the rising prevalence of asthma and allergy in India. In 2004, David became an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he was assigned to the Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch. As a disease detective, he investigated the health effects of exposure to mold in New Orleans, to chlorine gas in South Carolina, to carbon monoxide in Florida, and to ambient ozone among student athletes in Georgia, and provided scientific support to the National Asthma Control Program. In addition, he helped establish emergency illness and injury surveillance in coastal Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

He left CDC in 2006 to take a position as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholar at the University of Wisconsin. In Madison, he continued to carry out research on the global epidemiology of chronic respiratory disease and became interested in the potential of new technologies to improve population health. Last year, he founded Reciprocal Sciences to develop a variety of new tools for real time public health surveillance.

Terence Barry received his B.S. in Zoology from UW-Madison, his M.S. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii, and his PhD in Endocrinology-Reproductive Physiology from UW-Madison. Prior to joining the staff of the UW Aquaculture Program in 1990, Dr. Barry taught high school biology for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa, and managed a large USAID-funded aquaculture research and development project in the Philippines. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tokyo, and an East-West Center Scholar in Honolulu. He also spent two summers conducting research on reproduction in male sharks at the Mount Desert Island Marine Biological Laboratory in Maine.

From 1996 to 2006, Dr. Barry owned one of Wisconsin’s largest private fish hatcheries. In 2006, he co-founded a start-up technology company called AquaMost to commercialize a patented water purification technology called photoelectrocatalytic oxidation (PECO). The PECO device converts aqueous ammonia directly into nitrogen gas, and is being developed to replace biofilters in recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS).

Walter Block received his BS in Electrical Engineering in 1986 and his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Stanford in 1988. From 1988 – 1993, he worked as a development engineer on some of the early generation MRI systems for General Electric Healthcare in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He returned to Stanford to obtain his doctorate in Electrical Engineering in 1998, with his research concentrating on fast abdominal imaging. He joined the faculty of the Biomedical and Medical Physics faculty in 2000. His research group at UW-Madison develops fast imaging methods that propel MRI into new application areas of healthcare.

Dr. Saupe is a Madison native, having completed both his Bachelors and PhD (Physiology Department) degrees at the University of Wisconsin. Between these two degrees, he completed a Masters of Science in exercise physiology at Penn State University, and worked for the Chicago Fire Department. He conducted his post-doctoral training at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston prior to joining the faculty at Boston University.

Dr. Saupe is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, moving from Boston University to the UW in December of 2001. As a physiologist, his general interest is in using interventions including aging, diet, exercise and injury/disease to investigate the cellular and molecular underpinnings of pathophysiological processes.

Brooke Norsted is the Assistant Director of the UW Geology Museum where she spends her days talking to kids about dinosaurs and rocks (not a hard sell!) and coordinating science outreach events on and off campus. She earned a B.S. in Geology at Gustavus Adolphus College and a M.S. in Geology at UW Madison. Brooke has a keen interest in taking science outreach to non-traditional venues as well as a commitment to introducing young women to science careers. She is the coordinator of outreach efforts tied to a NASA Astrobiology Institute grant, is on the planning committee of annual Darwin Day festivities on the UW-Madison campus, and is the co-chair of Expanding Your Horizons (a one-day conference for middle school girls interested in science). Away from work Brooke enjoys playing with her two dogs, being entertained by her four chickens and is looking forward to learning how to skijor this winter.

Gary Lyons joined the UW School of Medicine in 1991 following postdoctoral research fellowships at Stanford University Medical School and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He is a Professor of Anatomy who teaches first year medical students and does research on mouse stem cells. He is a member of the UW Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center and Chair of the UW Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee. Gary’s research is focused on the potential of embryonic stem cell-derived cardiac progenitors to repopulate the adult mouse heart following myocardial infarction.

Denise M. Ney is Billings Bascom Professor of Nutritional Sciences and a Waisman Center investigator. She received a PhD in nutrition from the University of California-Davis and joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1986. Denise served as Chair, Department of Nutritional Sciences (1997-2003), Director of the campus NIH Training Program in Molecular and Applied Nutrition (1998-2008) and Director, Didactic Program in Dietetics (1989-20080. Denise’s NIH-funded research program addresses two areas: gastrointestinal physiology with emphasis on the neuroendocrine regulation of intestinal adaptation and the nutritional management of phenylketonuria (PKU). The goal of the PKU research is to improve the nutritional management of PKU using glycomacropeptide, a protein in cheese whey that is naturally low in phenylalanine. Studies are being conducted in children and adults with PKU who are cared for in the Waisman Center Biochemical Genetics Clinic.

As a native of Wisconsin, Lynn Gilbertson is proudly entering her second year of graduate study in the field of Communicative Disorders at UW-Madison under the guidance of Professor Robert Lutfi. She received her B.A. in 2008. Her research interest centers around sound preferences and auditory attention of young children with autism spectrum disorder. Her research career was sparked as an undergraduate when she was awarded a Hilldale Award for the Auditory Preferences of Children with Autism project in collaboration with Professors Robert Lutfi and Susan Ellis Weismer.

Michael Corradini is Professor and Chair of the Engineering Physics Department and joint appointment in Mechanical Engineering and Institute of Environmental Studies. He is a mechanical and nuclear engineer with research interests centered primarily in thermal hydraulics and multiphase flow. He especially emphasizes the areas of reactor operation, reactor safety, waste reprocessing, and recycle and risk assessment. He is director of the college's Wisconsin Institute of Nuclear Systems and chair of the UW Energy Institute.

His research focus is in energy policy, nuclear safety with technical focus on multiphase flow is to help students understand basic physical phenomena which they analytically model or experimentally measure.

Catherine Woodward is broadly interested in tropical ecology and conservation and has been working on and off in the neotropics since 1989. Catherine is a research associate at UW-Madison's Center for Biology Education where she is working on the development of online courses for the Wisconsin Teacher Enhancement program.

In collaboration with a former dendrology student, Corey Hart, they have developed a Key to Wisconsin Woody Plants for the iPod, thanks to a grant from UW-Madison's Division of Information Technology. This key is the first of its kind, and uses iPod technology in a ground-breaking way to provide a highly transportable easy-to-use reference for identifying Wisconsin trees and shrubs.

Dr. Bier holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Department of Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has directed the Center for Human Performance and Risk Analysis (formerly the Center for Human Performance in Complex Systems) since 1995. She has more than twenty years of experience in risk analysis for the nuclear power, chemical, petrochemical and aerospace industries. Dr. Bier’s current research focuses on applications of risk analysis and related methods to problems of security and critical infrastructure protection, under support from the Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, the Midwest Regional University Transportation Center and the Department of Homeland Security.

When Professor Wesley Smith came from Columbia University to the University of Wisconsin in 1988, he was leading the research program that measured the charges of the quarks in the proton. At Wisconsin, Professor Smith led the US group on the HERA electron-proton collider in Hamburg Germany. The experiment produced results that have changed our understanding of the strong force—the force that binds the quarks and gluons in the proton. For 16 years, Professor Smith has served as a senior leader of CMS, one of two experiments at the LHC. In this role, he is responsible for all data taken by CMS and kept for offline analysis. Professor Smith has been a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and in 2006 was named the University of Wisconsin Bjorn Wiik Professor of Physics.

Cathy Vrentas is currently the Interim Biotechnology Outreach Specialist for the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center and UW-Extension, Cooperative Extension. She received her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from UW-Madison in 2008 and her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Penn State University in 2003. While in graduate school, she researched how bacteria control the way they turn genes on and off. She also headed up the Biology Outreach Club, a group of students doing science outreach in the community. Cathy has always been interested in the role of helpful microbes in our lives, and in 2006 and 2007, she led Science of Beer and Cheese Tours in Green County for UW alumni with her friend Laurel Norris. In her free time, Cathy enjoys volunteering with kids, following science policy, dancing, and learning to play the bass guitar (slowly).

Sarah Wright coordinates the Adult Role Models in Science (ARMS) program at UW’s Center for Biology Education (CBE). She earned a B.S. in Environmental Science, a B.A. in English from Bradley University and a M.S. in Botany from UW-Madison, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Boosting science literacy for everyone is a central interest of hers. She has worked in outreach at the Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences in Peoria, IL, and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, CO and briefly explored environmental journalism at the western magazine, High Country News. Sarah was herself an ARMS volunteer as a graduate student, prior to working for CBE. Since 2005, she has collaborated with Jeff Maas’ 2nd/3rd graders on ecological research in the Sandburg Woods and has led a Science Club at the Sandburg YMCA program since 2007.

Joseph Salmons holds a BA in Philosophy (UNC–Charlotte, 1978) and a PhD in Germanic Linguistics (University of Texas, 1984). He is Professor of German and Director of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research and teaching focuses on speech sounds and language change, drawing data particularly from Germanic languages, including current Wisconsin English. He is co-author of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Germanic Languages, co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Historical Phonology and executive editor of Diachronica: International Journal for Historical Linguistics.

Mark Staudt is a graduate student in Dr. Christina Hull’s lab in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry. He obtained a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Texas and worked as an engineer for a few years before moving to Wisconsin to learn about the more biological side of science. Currently, he is studying the life cycle of an opportunistic fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans.

Mark would like to thank the following for their funding:

Meyer Jackson received his BA from Brandeis University and his PhD from Yale University. He has held previous positions at NIH and UCLA. Mr. Jackson has taken sabbaticals in Gottingen, Germany; Canberra, Australia and Cambridge, England. He is the author of the textbook Molecular and Cellular Biophysics, and is presently the Kenneth Cole Professor of Physiology and Director of the UW Biophysics PhD program.

Sarah Lloyd is a graduate student in Rural Sociology and a dairy farmer. She farms with her husband and his family on a 300-cow dairy farm outside of Wisconsin Dells. She is currently working on her PhD dissertation, which looks at the changing role of agriculture in rural communities.

Timothy McCulloch received his MS in Physiology and his MD from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, and completed his residency at the University of Washington. He is currently the chairman of the UW-Madison Department of Surgery and is board certified in this field.

Megan Moreno is an adolescent medicine physician and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin. She graduated from George Washington University Medical School and completed her pediatric residency training and a master’s degree in education at the UW Madison, followed by an adolescent medicine fellowship and a master’s degree in public health at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on how to use technology, such as social networking web sites, to improve health care access, education and services to adolescent patients.

Jeff Cherwinka has spent his career designing equipment for Physics Research. Formally trained as a mechanical engineer at the UW-Madison, he has learned a lot about physics working on detector projects at many national and international particle accelerators. For the IceCube project, Jeff served as system engineer for the Enhanced Hot Water Drill and has been involved with the design and production of most parts of this complex machine. He has made five trips to the South Pole. Jeff is still involved in the IceCube project, but he is now also working on the Daya Bay project and is employed by the UW Physical Sciences Lab.

Dr. Michael Notaro is an associate scientist at the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Michael received his PhD at the State University of New York at Albany in 2002 in Atmospheric Sciences, where he studies regional climate modeling of the Northeast United States. Since arriving in Madison, his research topics have included climate change and ecological impacts, along with investigating vegetation-climate interactions.

Professor Anderson received his BS and MA degrees in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater and Johns Hopkins University respectively. Between his MA and Ph.D. degree programs, Dr. Anderson’s education was interrupted by the Vietnam conflict. During this time, he served as an Officer in the Chemical Corp of the US Army and was stationed at Edgewood Arsenal, MD. After returning to civilian life, he completed his Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins and joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 1974. He has had two sabbatical leaves of absence at the Institute of Catalysis at Louvain La Neuve in Belgium, the Institute of Ceramics in Arganda, Spain and was a Fulbright Fellow at CIEMAT in renewable energies in Madrid. His research efforts have focused on production of nanoparticulate oxides, and thin-nanoporous films that are then used in a variety of processes including adsorption, the destruction of toxic chemicals and in energy storage applications. These oxides have high surface areas and are extremely active as catalysts or photocatalysts. These novel materials have led to more than 25 patents and over 160 scientific papers. Dr. Anderson is considered one of the world-class experts in photocatalysis, photoelectrocatalysis and ultracapacitors.

Gary Hoffman is the manager of the Newborn Screening Laboratory at the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. He graduated from UW-Eau Claire in 1970 with a degree in chemistry and has been employed by the State Laboratory since then. His involvement with newborn screening began in 1978 when testing was transferred to the state laboratory. He is actively involved on a local, state, regional and national basis regarding newborn screening issues. On a personal side, he is a huge gardener and an avid muskie fisherman.

Milt was born in Malden, MA. He has earned college degrees at the universities of Maine (B.S.), Massachusetts (M.S.) and Wisconsin (Ph D). Milt entered the wildlife conservation field in 1956 as an assistant waterfowl biologist with the Vermont Fish and Game Department. He has held subsequent positions in this field with the Massachusetts and New York Fish and Game Departments and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). He also developed the concept document for a national wildlife disease center while with the FWS, and in January 1975 was assigned to develop that program on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Milt served as Center Director through 1998, at which time he accepted a special assignment from the Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to develop and lead a science effort to resolve environmental issues at California’s Salton Sea. He retired from active government service in 2003. Milt continues his involvement at the National Wildlife Health Center as an Emeritus Scientist and with teaching at the University of Wisconsin (Adjunct Professor, full professor since 1987; Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences).

Among Milt’s many publications are two award winning books: “Field Guide to Wildlife Diseases” and “Disease Emergence and Resurgence: The Wildlife-Human Connection.”

Cris Marsh is the content manager for the NBII-Wildlife Disease Information Node. She has an undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before returning to UW-Madison for her master’s in library studies, she worked as a veterinary technician for many years. She is a member of the Special Libraries Association. In addition, she is a member of the following professional working groups: NBII-Species Knowledge Management Working Group, NBII-Content Leads working group and the Wildlife Disease Informatics Working Group.

Ed Lyon is the full-time Director for Allen Centennial Gardens, the teaching gardens for the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He held previous positions as Executive Director of Rotary Botanical Gardens, Janesville, WI; Director of Education, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin; and Symposia and Special Events Coordinator, Chicago Botanic Garden. He teaches and lectures across the Midwest for public and professional audiences on topics including plant materials and design. He has written for both green industry and public magazines, including American Nurseryman, Nursery Management Pro, Midwest Gardening, Chicagoland Gardening, and Milwaukee Home. He currently writes a regular regional report for southern Wisconsin for Chicagoland Gardening.