Summer 2016 in PDF Format

FOR UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ALUMNI AND FRIENDS SUMMER 2016

Muslim Advocate Naheed Qureshi ’94 on the front lines of civil rights Page 22 Vision A family of great horned owls soaks up the springtime sun near the Lakeshore Path. This photo was captured in April 2015, but the birds returned in 2016. UW-Madison is home to a surprising variety of wildlife. In recent years, students and staff have spotted foxes, hawks, muskrats, turkeys, and turtles on campus. Photo by Jeff Miller On Wisconsin 3 Meeting Spaces • Event Rooms Conference Packages • Guest Rooms

*Subject to restrictions. Please call for more information. 4 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Contents Summer 2016, Volume 117, Number 2

A young girl prays with her father at the Muslim American Society in Brooklyn, New York, in 2010. ROBERT GERHARDT DEPARTMENTS

2 Vision 7 Communications 9 Observation

OnCampus

11 News 13 Byg one Campaign Roadshow 14 Calculation Decibels 17 Conversation Paul Robbins 18 Exhibition Musical Theater Performance 20 Contender Gwen Jorgensen 21 Sports

FEATURES OnAlumni 22 Unbowed Naheed Qureshi ’94 is working for justice and equality 48 News for American Muslims, who face discrimination, vio-

49 Exhibition Ws Around lence, and hateful rhetoric. By Andrew Faught JEFF MILLER the World 50 Tradition SOAR 26 Greyson’s Anatomy 51 Class Notes When her mother died of Huntington’s, Shana Martin 60 Diversions Verstegen ’02 didn’t want to know if she’d get it, too — 66 Destination Goodspeed until deciding to become a mom herself. By John Allen Family Pier 30 Love is Not a Mystery What makes for a healthy relationship? John Gottman MA’67 PhD’71 has mastered the science of helping couples stay together. By Maggie Ginsberg ’97 38 Flights and Flurries SHUTTERSTOCK Less than a decade after graduation, Lauren Groff MFA’06 is the author of President Barack Obama’s favorite book of the year. By Kate Dixon ’01, MA’07 40 In Memory of Lou UW researchers are studying families like Lou Hol- Cover Naheed Qureshi ’94 Listen up: a UW audiologist works to land ’65’s to learn why people of color are more likely is deputy director prevent hearing damage among rural to get Alzheimer’s. By Denise Thornton ’82, MA’08 and founding board residents. See page 14. member of Oakland, 44 Physician, Heal Thyself California–based Burnout and depression are common for medical Muslim Advocates. students, but a UW course offers them tools to stay Photo by Timothy healthy, along with their patients. By David Lewellen Archibald.

On Wisconsin 5 WHEN ENTOMOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE WORK TOGETHER, WE ARE BOUNDLESS.

WISC.EDU | #BOUNDLESSTOGETHER 6 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Communications #THEREALUW

COURTESY OF JAMES BELL UW-Madison students of color used Twitter to share accounts of their experiences on campus after several racial incidents were reported during spring semester. Chancellor Rebecca Blank called the acts “completely unacceptable” and announced new initiatives, including piloting cultural competency and community-building activities for new students beginning in fall 2016 and investigating how peer insti- tutions support students. Blank also called for innovative propos- als for improving campus climate; Pioneering Athletes MS’97) around a crackling camp- “History in Their Own Words” fire as we gathered with friends as of press time, more than one [Sports, Spring 2016 On Wiscon- for an evening of guitar playing hundred had been submitted for sin] drew my attention since I’m and song. It truly is a magical consideration. a 1961 African American alum- spot, and the UW is so lucky to @aarriagalex nus who earned aW letter. [His- have it as one of the many jewels We belong here, we earned our schol- torians Gregory Bond and Troy that make it the most beautiful arships we earned our spots and we’re Reeves] may want to note the campus around! earning our degrees. #therealUW photo (above) of the 1958 UW Stephanie Rane Alpha Phi Alpha chapter, which Chamberlain ’92 @TangibleTangi includes nine W Club members. Denver, Colorado Being told I should drop a class Sidney Williams (top row, third when a white student said she didn’t from right) was the first starting War Anthems feel comfortable talking about race black Big Ten quarterback. I’m in [Regarding “War Anthems,” around “colored people” #therealUW the first row, third from right. Spring 2016 On Campus:] Jimi @KennethRCole James Bell ’61 Hendrix played to a less-than- #TheRealUW is the place where Port Jervis, New York sold-out Dane County Coliseum my professor jokes about water in in May 1970. I sat near the stage flint Michigan and students actually Proposal Point with my high school girlfriend. laughed. Thank you for the wonderful His set included his version of article on the history of Picnic the “Star-Spangled Banner.” The @MoonsAtDusk Point [“Sacred Ground,” Spring opening act, a band from Detroit, I’ve sat in classrooms and listened to 2016]. Picnic Point holds a spe- played “All Along the Watchtow- white professors refer to the Atlantic cial meaning for me. In August er.” Hendrix should have played slave trade as “immigration” of 1971, I took a walk with my it, but he wrapped up with “Pur- @UWMadison #TheRealUW then-girlfriend [Dianna Stear- ple Haze,” number five on the @DJayMando man] to the tip of the point and “War Anthems” list of songs. #TheRealUW “So are you on the bas- asked her to marry me. She said James Neupert ’75, MBA’78 ketball team?” yes, and thus began the best Atherton, California forty-three years of my life until @cdo_uwmadison her passing in June of 2014. Seventies Grad Avail- Tell me about your experience as a Bob Lawrence ’69, MBA’71 able for Shrooms Study UW-Madison student. Be real with Waukesha, Wisconsin Your Spring 2016 News Feed me so we can work toward real mentions a UW psilocybin study change at #TheRealUW. #therealuw Picnic Point was where I hiked with the first stage of testing on @LoriBerquam as a Girl Scout, a destination for healthy people. As an early sev- It takes ALL of us to be the change. exploration with my friends, a enties alum in good health, I feel #enoughisenoughUW harbor of safety from a wicked I am well qualified to volunteer The time is now. summer storm while my family for the study. Please have ’em was sailing, a coveted place for a send me a year’s supply of daily @munizalbert2 run in college, and most import- doses, and I will report back. #therealUW Feels like we need some ant, the place where I met my Daniel Schlender ’75 light in the darkness right now. Hop- husband (Richard Chamberlain Springfield, Oregon ing we find the answers.

On Wisconsin 7 8 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Observation NICHOLE SOBECKI

Summer 2016

PUBLISHER Wisconsin Alumni Association 650 North Lake Street, Madison, WI 53706 Voice: 608-262-2551 Toll-free: 888-WIS-ALUM (947-2586) Email: [email protected] Web: onwisconsin.uwalumni.com

CO-EDITORS Niki Denison, Wisconsin Alumni Association Jenny Price ’96, University Communications

SENIOR EDITOR John Allen, Wisconsin Alumni Association

ART DIRECTOR On Wisconsin first brought readers the story — and the arresting Nancy Rinehart, University Marketing images — of Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario ’95 in summer 2011. PRODUCTION EDITOR Eileen Fitzgerald ’79, University Marketing Just a few months earlier, she had been kidnapped for six days while on assignment for the New York Times in Libya. After her harrowing DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND PRODUCTION ordeal, the London-based Addario returned to the field, continuing to Toni Good ’76, MA ’89, Kent Hamele ’78, capture stories around the world, from the plight of Syrian refugees to Danielle Lawry, Preston Schmitt ’14, University Marketing the civil war in South Sudan. She wrote a best-selling memoir — It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War — which director PHOTOGRAPHERS Steven Spielberg is adapting for the big screen. And American Photo Jeff Miller, University Communications magazine named her one of the five most influential photographers of Bryce Richter, University Communications the last twenty-five years. CLASS NOTES/DIVERSIONS EDITOR At the UW, Addario earned a bachelor’s degree in Italian and inter- Paula Apfelbach ’83, Wisconsin Alumni national studies. This spring, she returned to campus for commence- Association ment, receiving an honorary UW degree, along with William J. Rut- ter, a leader in the field of biotechnology, and Tommy Thompson ’63, EDITORIAL INTERN Daniel McKay ’16 JD’66, former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Wisconsin’s governor from 1987 to 2001. ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES It’s a distinction reserved for people of extraordinary accomplish- Madison Magazine: 608-270-3600 ments whose work exhibits the university’s values, and Addario fits ALUMNI ADDRESS CHANGES AND them to a T. DEATH NOTICES She has spent her career documenting both unthinkable human Toll-free: 888-947-2586 or 608-308-5420 suffering and the daily lives of ordinary people in faraway places. Her Email: [email protected] images reveal the common threads of the human experience across Quarterly production of On Wisconsin is cultures and political boundaries, and they demand attention — and supported by financial gifts from alumni action. and friends. To make a gift to UW-Madison, “Journalists can sound grandiose when they talk about their pro- please visit supportuw.org. fession,” Addario writes in her book. “Under it all, however, are the

Printed on recycled paper. things that sustain us and bring us together: the privilege of witnessing Please remember to recycle this magazine. things that others do not; an idealistic belief that a photograph might affect people’s souls; the thrill of creating art and contributing to the world’s database of knowledge.”

Jenny Price ’96 Co-editor

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10 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnCampusNews from UW-Madison

BRAIN GAMES The Race to Stop Zika As a graduate student, Jihae Shin found procrastination to UW scientists hope that quickly sharing be a boon for her creativity. Her professor asked her to prove it — results will generate answers about the virus. so she did. Shin, now an assistant professor in the Wisconsin School of Business who studies the dynamics of work motivation and performance, challenged a group of people to come up with new business ideas. Some were UW scientists first given five minutes to play studying the Zika Minesweeper or Solitaire, while virus are sharing the rest immediately proceeded results in real with the task. An independent time, an unusual ISTOCK move aimed at panel rated their ideas for orig- speeding up inality, and the results showed progress on tests, what Shin believed was true all David O’Connor is doing something extraordinary for a scientist: the treatments, or along: ideas from the procras- UW pathology professor is sharing his results daily. vaccines. tinators were 28 percent more His lab is studying the Zika virus, and he’s hoping that posting data creative. online in real time will allow public health policymakers and other re-

searchers to work on tests, treatments, or vaccines much sooner. If the JED JACOBSOHN/THEPLAYERS’ TRIBUNE results followed the traditional route, they would take months or years to become public via scientific journals. Instead, O’Connor’s lab posts results on a blog and updates followers via its Twitter feed, @dho_lab. The effort began in October, when O’Connor last visited Brazil, where babies born with underdeveloped brains and small heads were the relatively quiet beginning of worry over the spread of the mosqui- to-borne virus. One of his Brazilian collaborators asked whether tech- nologies developed on their decade-long research program studying drug-resistant strains of HIV could be used to look for new viruses that might explain some unusual cases of a birth defect, microcephaly, in the northern part of the country. “At the time, we didn’t know it would explode into the public con- Russell Returns sciousness like it did,” O’Connor says. “But we did start planning.” A familiar face traded his football That culminated in some of the first experiments studying Zika vi- pads and helmet for a cap and rus in monkeys, conducted by a broad UW-Madison team that includes gown in May. Russell Wilson the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and expertise in in- MSx’11, the Super Bowl–win- fectious disease, pregnancy, and neurology. ning quarterback of the Seattle Until recently, Zika was an understudied virus expected to cause Seahawks, spoke to UW-Madi- little more than flu-like symptoms — the Centers for Disease Control son graduates during the spring and Prevention lists fever, joint pain, and headaches — in about 20 commencement ceremony at percent of the people it infected. But the rapid spread of the virus and Camp Randall Stadium. Wilson its connection to an otherwise rare birth defect have drawn plenty of led the Badgers to the 2012 Rose attention from the public and government officials. Bowl. Many questions remain about the virus, and their answers are hotly anticipated, says Thomas Friedrich ’97, PhD’03, a UW associate- professor of pathobiological sciences, adding, “There are a lot of countries in the tropics right now saying, ‘Don’t get pregnant until 2018.’ That’s not a sustainable public-health recommendation.” CHRIS BARNCARD

On Wisconsin 11 OnCampus

GETTY Climate Change to Last Millennia

The changes that are altering Earth’s DJ PERRY/ISTOCK climate will have much longer-lasting effects than previously realized, according to a study released in February. Look- ing at climate and oceanography models, the study’s authors believe that it could take as long as 1 million years before all of the carbon currently being released into the atmosphere is completely removed. “It’s really a perspective piece,” says Shaun Marcott, an assistant professor of geoscience and one of the contributing researchers. “When most people look at “But the rising sea levels — we can’t climate change, they’re looking at a per- adapt to water. We can’t stop it. We can’t spective of how things will be in 2100. mitigate it.” It’s All Relative If they’re looking long term, they might Marcott and his colleagues forecast One hundred years ago, Albert mean 2300. But we’re looking at climate that the sea level will rise about forty Einstein hypothesized that change on a geological scale — how things meters during the next ten thousand gravitational waves produce will be in ten thousand years or more.” years, enough to flood New York, Tokyo, ripples through space and The effects of burning fossil fuels, the Shanghai, Cairo, most of Florida, and time. Earlier this year, an study contends, will not be fully realized much of Bangladesh. “This will mean international team of scien- for several decades, nor will they dissi- that the populations of whole countries tists announced that they had pate soon after the use of carbon-based will have to move into other countries,” unlocked this final door to fuels ends. Carbon in the atmosphere he says. “The conflict in Syria has dis- the famed physicist’s theory will cause temperatures to warm, ice located 5 million people. What happens of relativity. The New York caps to melt, and sea levels to rise. when it’s 60 million to 70 million Bangla- Times noted: “Scientists have “Temperature is actually the lesser deshis who no longer have a home? That finally tapped into the deepest effect. We have some ability to adapt will cause a lot of conflict.” register of physical reality, to higher temperatures,” says Marcott. JOHN ALLEN where the weirdest and wild- est implications of Einstein’s NASA universe become manifest.” During the past three decades, UW researchers led by Miron Livny, a computer sciences professor, pioneered technology that was at the core of the effort. And since 2004, their humble software program — called HTCondor — has churned away in the background, harnessing the power of tens of thousands of networked computers to help detect gravitational waves caused 1.3 billion years ago by a collision of two black holes thirty times as massive as our sun.

LET’S EAT OUTAt this year’s Oscars, The Martian was nominated for seven awards (including best picture), in part for its realistic portrayal of an effort to grow extraterrestrial crops. How realistic was it? The UW’s Simon Gilroy told Madison’s WISC-TV that The Martian “is an awesome movie” with “really good and accurate science.” And he’d know. His lab has helped NASA grow plants in space. Astronauts on the International Space Station even ate some of his lettuce, which they grew in orbit. “We’re right at the dawn of space agriculture,” he says.

12 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Bygone Campaign Roadshow UW-MADISON ARCHIVES S08042

UW-Madison loves politics and, from the Red Gym, where Wil- In the last 100 UW administrators and faculty. from time to time, politicians son addressed a crowd of Wis- years, campus has He’d corresponded with Thomas even return that love. consin Democrats. been a popular Chamberlin when the latter was During this campaign year, Wilson had come to the UW stop for presiden- UW president in the 1890s. And tial candidates. we look back to one of the first to speak at a national conference Presidents Hoover, Van Hise sought Wilson’s advice occasions when a presidential called Civic and Social Center De- Truman, Eisen- when the Wisconsin Union was candidate visited campus. velopment. hower, Kennedy, first proposed at the beginning of In October 1911, Woodrow “The best treatment for bad Clinton, and the twentieth century. Wilson (seated at right with politics is the same as that for Obama all came When it came to politics, how- blanket) came to Madison while tuberculosis,” he told the assem- to the UW while ever, Wilson and Van Hise were testing the waters for a White bled crowd, “and that is exposure seeking election less mutually supportive. Van House run. He was then the in the open air.” or re-election. Hise was a friend and adviser to newly sworn-in governor of New We’ve since learned that the Theodore Roosevelt, who would Jersey and former president of best treatment for tuberculosis is become Wilson’s chief rival in the Princeton University. UW pres- antibiotics, but as politics seems election of 1912. Wilson ended up ident Charles Van Hise 1879, to be a drug-resistant disease, winning the vote in Wisconsin 1880, MS1882, PhD1892 is open air is the best we can do. and across the country, but he in the driver’s seat, and presum- As Princeton’s leader, Wilson didn’t visit campus again. ably they’re on their way to or had developed a relationship with JOHN ALLEN

On Wisconsin 13 Calculation Decibels TRACTOR IMAGE, SHUTTERSTOCK; ALL OTHER IMAGES, ISTOCK; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY NANCY RINEHART

Sounds exceeding 100 decibels can cause hearing damage.

100

40 80 60 20

dB dB dB

dB dB

60 40 20

100

COMMON DECIBEL LEVELS

20dB 40dB 60dB 85dB 90dB 105dB 115dB 120dB 140dB Leaves Raindrops Normal Busy Hair Rock iPod at Jackhammer Fireworks Rustling Conversation Traffic Dryer Concert Peak Level Level at which sustained exposure (15 minutes or more) may result in hearing loss, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Horsepower vs. Hearing Growing up on a dairy farm in federal occupational health and Buhr-Lawler. Viroqua, Wisconsin, Melanie safety regulations that protect The project, funded by a State- Buhr-Lawler ’00 heard her employees in noisy urban work wide Outreach Incentive Grant dad’s tractors and other loud settings don’t cover farmers. from the UW, aims to create a equipment every day. Now, as To raise awareness, Buhr- model program that can be used a clinical associate professor of Lawler and students from the at other loud events in rural areas. audiology at UW-Madison, she UW’s Department of Communi- When she started the effort promotes hearing conservation to cation Sciences and Disorders three years ago, Buhr-Lawler felt those with little to no information attend the Tomah Tractor Pull, Melanie some trepidation about passing about these noisy risks. an annual Wisconsin event that Buhr-Lawler out earplugs to a crowd that was Most rural residents over draws sixty thousand spectators. says her father, a clearly up for some noise. “We age forty experience substantial They talk about options to pro- farmer, told her a wanted to be a positive force, not hearing impairment, studies have tect hearing and offer free ear- tractor pull would the university coming in to ‘nag’ found. On a farm, tractors and plugs to block out the deafening be the ideal everyone,” she says. other heavy equipment each can roar of turbocharged, three-thou- place to educate But the crowds have wel- people about the exceed one hundred decibels or sand-horsepower machines. dangers of rural comed her with open ears: so far, higher — enough to cause per- “A tractor pull is one of the noise. her team has passed out thou- manent hearing damage after fif- loudest places on earth — as loud SARAH MORTON sands of earplugs. teen minutes of exposure. Yet, the as a jet plane at takeoff,” says MARY ELLEN GABRIEL

14 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnCampus Famous Fungus WISCONSIN STATE HERBARIUM

These Boots Were Made for Chargin’ There’s a new energy source right under your nose — or perhaps under your toes. The Bubbler is a technology that enables people to generate electricity by walking. Devel- oped by a group of UW-Madi- son researchers that includes engineering associate professor Tom Krupenkin, Tsung-Hsing Hsu, Supone Manakasettharn

SHUTTERSTOCK PhD’13, and J. Ashley Taylor, Earlier this year, staffers at the Wisconsin State Herbarium were transferring specimens into newly Bubbler technology fits in the expanded space, when they discovered something unexpected: examples of fungi collected by George insole of a shoe. When people Washington Carver. The prominent botanist, who walk in Bubbler-enabled shoes, had been born a slave and rose to lead the agricultural department at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute their steps cause tiny bubbles for forty-seven years, collected specimens of fungi to expand and collapse. This that infect plants, and he shared at least twenty-five of them with the UW (including these hibiscus action generates electricity — leaves, which are infected with rust). The herbar- George Wash- ington Carver about one watt per shoe. That’s ium has a grant from the National Science Founda- studied plant dis- tion to create a digital database of its fungi. With eases and shared enough, says Krupenkin, to 120,000 specimens of microfungi, it has the coun- specimens with try’s second-largest collection. the UW. power a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.

news feed

Tributes to journalism When the National Endow- UW-Madison will professor James Baugh- ment for the Humanities cel- share in a $5 million man poured in on social ebrated its fiftieth anniversary, National Science media from colleagues and it highlighted projects that Foundation grant to former students following “have enriched and shaped establish a Center his death from lung cancer American lives.” Two of them for Trustworthy in March. Many recalled are housed at UW-Madison: Scientific Cyberin- Baughman’s advice follow- History of Cartography and frastructure — a ing difficult or tragic events: the Dictionary of American center to protect

JEFF MILLER; OSHER MAP LIBRARY AND AND LIBRARY MAP OSHER MILLER; JEFF EDUCATION CARTOGRAPHIC FOR CENTER SMITH “Write about it.” Regional English. scientific data.

On Wisconsin 15 OnCampus

HAVE A HEART

A group of UW scientists has successfully reprogrammed cells from con- nective tissue to become master heart cells, a development that may open the way to advances in stem cell research and new approaches for therapy of failing hearts. The group, which includes nineteen researchers at the UW, used cells called fibroblasts from mice and reprogrammed them to become induced

MATTEL cardiac progenitor cells (iCPCs), which can develop the major types of “We have to understand [that] we are still talking about Barbie, and we’re still talking cells found in the about her appearance. We’re not talking about women’s education and accomplish- heart. Tim Kamp, ments. The other thing we’re not talking about is gender equality. I would love to come one of the lead on [Channel 3] once more when Mattel releases a Ken doll pushing a vacuum cleaner.” researchers, notes that creating Christine Whelan, a faculty associate in the Department of Consumer Science, speaking to Madison’s WISC-TV about the iCPCs in mice new “curvy, tall, and petite” Barbie dolls isn’t the same as creating them BRYCE RICHTER What UW-Madison spent last in humans, but year on research support ($8 that’s the next million) and raises ($726,436) goal. Having iCPCs to keep forty top faculty mem- could prove useful $8.7 million in testing drugs, bers on staff after they received modeling how job offers from other universi- heart disease ties, including Cornell, Duke, works, and even in Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, regenerating heart Oxford, and Princeton. tissue.

news feed HOOFER RIDING CLUB; BRYCE RICHTER The Wisconsin Union has decid- Education Week named School of The Wisconsin Alumni Research ed to close the Hoofers Eques- Education professor Gloria Lad- Foundation (WARF) has named trian Center due to its expense. son-Billings number five on its list of Erik Iverson as its new managing The 40-acre facility the top 200 most influential scholars director. Iverson was previously outside of Belleville, in the field of education policy. Lad- the president of business and Wisconsin, hosted the son-Billings holds the Kellner Family operations for the Infectious Dis- COURTESY OF Hoofer Riding Club and Chair in Urban Education and wrote ease Research Institute in Seattle, Wisconsin Equestrian the textbook The Dreamkeepers: Suc- Washington. WARF secures and Team, both of which now cessful Teachers of African American manages patents on behalf of UW

board at a new location. Children. researchers.

SUMMER 2016 Conversation Paul Robbins ’89

The grass may be greener on when we’d interview them, “You Why do people still try to the other side of the fence. But know what’s going on inside a achieve this ideal? is that a good thing? By surface house by what you see outside We surveyed people all over the area, lawns — including golf the house.” country. We asked them wheth- courses — could be consider they think lawn chemicals ered the single largest irrigated What are the main ecologi- are bad for water quality, for crop in the United States. Paul cal effects of the quest for the their children, for their health. Robbins, director of the Nelson perfect lawn? People who say they use lawn Institute for Environmental People use [chemicals] in chemicals are more likely to Studies and author of Lawn quantities ten times more per say that they’re bad than people People: How Grasses, Weeds, and square area in a lawn than they who don’t use lawn chemicals. Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, do out in the countryside. And If they had a choice, they would has studied America’s fixation so the impacts are pretty high; do something else, [but] they with them — and the ecological you see these chemicals in urban feel like their neighbors will look fallout. waterways. The big [impact] now down on them, their property is water demand. In Las Vegas, values will fall, it’ll be a sign of When did you first become they’re buying back lawns. In Los being a bad community member. interested in people’s atti- Angeles, the city pays you per tudes about their lawns? square yard that you surrender Short of letting a residen- It was when I first bought a of your yard. tial lawn revert to a natural house — 1999 — in Clintonville prairie, how can people (Ohio). My neighbor leaned reduce the environmental over my fence one day and said, impact? “What are you going to do about Have your lawn where your kids that creeping charlie?” I realized can play soccer, but don’t worry it’s a common property problem. as much about the weeds and If people let their lawns go in one dandelions. Relax your aesthetic part of the neighborhood, the and appreciate the diversity. other part of the neighborhood gets upset about it. Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Greg Bump. Where did the idea of a lawn Photo by Bryce Richter being a symbol of a well-kept neighborhood get started? Lawns don’t actually appear in a big way in the United States until the 1950s. It’s an old idea that well-cultivated, tidy landscapes make for tidy citizens, but it lives on. People would tell me

On Wisconsin 17 Exhibition Musical Theater Performance JEFFMILLER (4)

The rules are the same for every audition. Enter the Tony-winning get nervous, you’re going to forget. You should know room when called. Hand your sheet music to the actress Karen this in your sleep.” accompanist and hum a few bars to set the tempo. Olivo (top) teach- It’s pure tough love. State your name. Sing. es UW students, The UW doesn’t offer a musical theater major, knows these rules inside and out. including Kaleigh but the class teaches hard-earned lessons about how Karen Olivo Sullivan (above She is a bona fide Broadway star who won a 2009 left in green) and to be a consummate professional, on or off stage. Tony Award for playing Anita in West Side Story. In Alyssa Beasley “She doesn’t baby us,” says Kaleigh Sullivan 2013, she left New York to join her then-fiancé (now (above center), ’16, a kinesiology major. “She’s just putting us into husband) in Madison and began teaching musical the mechanics this and saying, ‘If you went to Chicago or New York, theater performance classes at the UW. This spring and the magic this is what you’d be doing.’ ” she put nineteen students in her Theatre and Drama of putting on a Olivo’s connections secured Sullivan and class- 440 course through the paces of putting on a show: Broadway show. mate Alyssa Beasley x’18 — a civil and environ- auditioning, getting cast, and learning choreography mental engineering major — the chance to audition and songs. for the twentieth-anniversary national tour of Rent. “When we start staging things, if you don’t know While doing so, Beasley says, they marveled, “Karen your lyrics, you are going to get killed,” Olivo warns was so right. It’s the same thing. We’re just in New during an intense mid-semester rehearsal lab, when York.” the focus shifted to dance steps. “The moment you JENNY PRICE ’96

18 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnCampus

M.P. KING/WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL COOL COMMUTE A team of UW engineering students took third place in a contest sponsored by the COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING private aerospace firm SpaceX to design a rapid transit system called a hyperloop. The team competed against more than 100 student groups to design its “BadgerLoop,” which uses magnets to levitate above a rail.

PhD in Heroism The university awarded a rare posthumous degree to Craig Schuff MS’12, PhD’16, whose parents accepted a doctorate in electrical engineering on his behalf in Empty Stomachs May. A 2011 diving acci- Stress for many college students can mean pulling an all-nighter Samantha Arrio- dent on Lake Monona left to finish a paper. But for others, it can mean not having food to eat. zola (above) is a Schuff a quadriplegic, but Food insecurity is a reality at the UW. To help combat the volunteer for The he continued to pursue his problem, a food pantry opened in February inside campus’s Stu- Open Seat, the research, which involved dent Activity Center. The pantry received funding from student new food pantry creating a device to screen inside the UW’s packages for suspicious segregated fees to cover staff and operational costs. But it relies Student Activity on donation bins at locations around campus — including resi- Center. substances such as chemi- dence halls and offices — since rules prohibit student organiza- cals or nuclear materials. tions from using these fees to purchase food. Schuff earned a master’s “When people get to a Big Ten university like the UW, they in nuclear engineering and assume everybody automatically turns middle class once they’re was preparing to defend his here, which is not the case,” says Samantha Arriozola x’17, a doctoral dissertation when food pantry volunteer. “Being food insecure means that you still he died in October 2015. have to worry about your meals, if you’re going to eat, what you’re UW-Madison has awarded going to eat on a daily basis.” only one other posthumous DANIEL MCKAY ’16 graduate degree, in 1999.

news feed

Evolutionary biol- In March, the UW Lorna Jorgenson Wendt ’65 Agronomy professor Bill Tracy ogist Sean Carroll lost its longtime vice passed away in February. The now holds the first endowed has been awarded chancellor for finance School of Music alumna was chair in the country focused on the Lewis Thomas and administration — known as an advocate for plant breeding for organics, creat- Prize from Rocke- essentially, its chief financial equality for women ed with gifts from Organic Valley feller University. financial officer — and men. She founded a pro- and Clif Bar & Company, The prize honors when Darrell Bazzell gram, housed at UW-Madison’s along with a matching gift his work writing ’84 departed for the School of Human Ecology, to from UW alumni John ’55

JEFF MILLER; JUDITH BURSTYN JUDITH MILLER; JEFF about science. University of Texas. explore the topic. and Tashia ’55 Morgridge. Contender Gwen Jorgensen

Gwen Jorgensen ’08, MAcc’09 Triathlete Gwen swimming, cycling, and running. has taken a roundabout way to Jorgensen ’08, Jorgensen did so well in her first Rio that began in Madison. an All-American race in 2010 that she achieved for the UW track The Waukesha South High elite status, putting her among team, is headed School standout runner and to the Sum- the best in the world. In sub- swimmer didn’t plan to at- mer Olympics. sequent events, she qualified tend UW-Madison — think- for the 2012 Olympics. A flat ing that it was too close to tire during the cycling stage home — until she visited dropped her to thirty-eighth campus and fell in love place, but when she crossed the with the atmosphere. finish line in London that year, Though she had more raw talent she set a goal of winning gold in as a runner, she followed her Rio this summer. passion by walking on with the Jorgensen committed to swim team. training abroad, but two years Left behind when team- later, after another discour- mates competed in an aging finish — this time in NCAA swim meet, Auckland, New Zealand — she felt discouraged. she wanted to abandon Her high school track the sport. Her fiancé coach suggested that — now husband — she switch to running Patrick Lemieux, urged for the UW. She told her to persevere. him no. “I knew what it Jorgensen did took to get to the next exactly that, going level and didn’t think I on to conquer the could,” she says. competition by He arranged a winning twelve mid-season tryout consecutive for her anyway. “I events in the was on the team Internation- the next week,” she al Triathlon recalls. The 5’9” Union’s phenom went on to World All-America honors Triathlon in track and cross Series. country in 2008. Her progress After finishing is astonishing: her master’s degree she has become the in accounting, most dominant triathlete since Jorgensen began working at the sport became an Olympic Ernst & Young in Milwaukee event sixteen years ago. and considered her days of elite She looks forward to once competition behind her. But then again representing the United a recruiter from USA Triathlon States on a world stage, but headquarters called with a the woman who used to race life-changing question: Ever with Bucky Badger painted on consider triathlons? her cheek says she has not Jorgensen hadn’t. “I didn’t forgotten her roots: even own a bike,” she says. “I’ll always be a Badger.” Realizing that she missed JOHN ROSENGREN competition, she decided to try PHOTO BY FELIX the grueling sport that combines SANCHEZ ARRAZOLA

20 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnCampus Sports RON SELLERS ticker

The Athletic Department hired Jonathan Tsipis to coach the women’s basketball team. Tsipis comes to Madison from George Washington University, where he coached for four years and led the Colonials to a 92-38 record. Tsipis succeeds Bobbie Kelsey, the UW’s head coach from 2011 to 2016.

When the men’s basketball team takes the floor this fall, its bench will have a familiar face. Joe Krabbenhoft ’09, who played for the Badgers from 2005 to 2009 and was a team captain in his senior season, will return as an assistant coach.

Track star Morgan McDonald x’18 set a new Disc Jocks UW-Madison indoor record for running the mile when he finished in 3:57.83, a For the Madison Radicals, competing tenth of a second faster is the ultimate experience. than the previous record, set by Austin Mudd ’16 in 2013. McDonald was run- Just before midnight in the middle of Jan- The city will host the league’s cham- ning in the Armory Track Invitational in New York City, where he finished fourth. uary, more than ninety young men dressed pionship on August 6 and 7. DeByl cred- in a colorful mix of basketball shorts, its the team’s success to Madison’s histo- Tony Granato x’87 is coming home. T-shirts, and jerseys arrived at an indoor ry with the game: the Hodags, the UW’s In March, the UW announced Grana- sports complex with one goal: to be a Mad- club team, was started in 1977 and has to will be the new head coach of the ison Radical. won three national championships since Badger men’s ice hockey team. Granato The Radicals, an ultimate Frisbee team, 2000. starred for the UW from feature fifteen UW alumni and two PhD When DeByl started the team, he 1983 to 1987 before students, but plenty of others hope for the didn’t contemplate success. For him, the entering the NHL. chance to join them. priority was simply encouraging people to He played for and coached several Started in 2013 by coach and co-own- accept the game as a legitimate spectator professional er Tim DeByl ’96, the ultimate Frisbee sport. “Nobody knows what ultimate Fris- teams. Granato team competes in the American Ultimate bee is. That was the first step,” he says. succeeds Mike Disc League, playing home games at the “When you mention the word Frisbee, Eaves ’78, who historic Breese Stevens Field on Madison’s [people] immediately think it’s some sort coached the Bad- near east side. Ultimate Frisbee mixes el- of either throwing game [you play with gers from 2002 to ements of football, basketball, and soccer. a dog] or something non-athletic. Then, 2016 and led them to It combines extreme athleticism — players when they watch it, I think they learn oth- a national championship in 2006. leap and dive for catches — and technical erwise, so part of it is just getting them in ability to create an exciting game for play- the stadium.” ers and fans. For Patrick Shriwise MS’13, The Radicals — the league’s smallest PhDx’17, a nuclear engineering PhD stu- franchise by city size — quickly won big. dent and a Radical from the start, having to The team reached the championship last turn people away from tryouts means the WISCONSINATHLETICS (3) season, falling to the San Jose Spiders. A team is doing something right. handful of diehard Radicals fans grew to an “The success we’ve had as a team average of 1,200 per game in Madison, and means drawing in players from other plac- the team has been featured in the New York es,” he says. “Every year I’ve become more CREDITS Times and has appeared on ESPN3 as part and more of a believer.” of the league’s television deal. DANIEL MCKAY ’16

On Wisconsin 21 22 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Unbowed In the face of rising hate and fear, Naheed Qureshi ’94 fights for justice and equality for American Muslims.

BY ANDREW FAUGHT

On Wisconsin 23 killed fourteen public employees in San Bernardino, wo days after last year’s Paris terror- California, hate crimes against Muslims in the Unit- ist attacks, professional football teams ed States more than tripled, according to the Center around the United States flew French for the Study of Hate and Extremism in California. flags and observed a pregame moment There were eighty offenses in the four months fol- of silence for the 130 victims. At Green lowing the Paris attacks, ranging from death threats Bay’s Lambeau Field, the tribute was broken by one and physical violence, to vandalism and arson at- Previous pages: T fan’s bellicose outburst: “Muslims suck!” tacks on mosques. a student reads the Koran before Social media users also reported hearing chants Fear has gripped Muslim communities, where par- Friday afternoon of “Death to Muslims.” And for Kenosha native Na- ents have complained their children have been called prayers at the heed Qureshi ’94, a Muslim and diehard Packers fan, “terrorists” or “Osama bin Laden” by classmates, Islamic Society of the words cut deep. Qureshi says. The same parents have vocally fretted Wichita in Wich- “They were talking to me,” says Qureshi, who about their children’s college and job prospects. ita, Kansas, in was not at the November 15 game. The commen- “The immediate aftermath of 9/11 is quite differ- 2013. The photo tary, however, was clearly audible to millions of fans ent from what we’re dealing with today,” Qureshi is from the proj- watching the nationally televised broadcast. says. “There were hate crimes and it was quite ect Muslim/Amer- ican, American/ “The words were talking to my family and my challenging, but there were also lots of Americans Muslim by Robert parents, who spent fifty years of their lives educat- coming together and supporting each other. There Gerhardt. ing generations of nurses who contribute to Wiscon- was a feeling that we were all in this together. I don’t sin to this day,” she adds. “It’s really hard to hear think it registered with very many people that there those things. Football is something I do to take a are Muslims here. They didn’t speak about a Muslim break, so it was painful.” problem.” The incident was a trenchant reminder of the Fifteen years later, she laments that today’s cli- challenges that Qureshi, the daughter of Pakistani mate “is beyond the bounds of my imagination.” immigrants, faces as deputy director of Oakland, Cal- But Qureshi is unbowed. Her legal aspirations ifornia–based Muslim Advocates. The legal advocacy were shaped by a different time, when television fed and educational organization works on the front lines the notion that justice always prevails. “I first want- of civil rights to guarantee freedom and justice for ed to be a lawyer because of Perry Mason,” she says Americans of all faiths through high-impact lawsuits, with a laugh. “I used to watch repeats with my mom.” community education, and policy advocacy. But her commitment to fairness and justice can’t Muslim Advocates focuses on ending racial pro- be summed up by a nearly sixty-year-old TV show. It filing, strengthening the nation’s network of more was at UW-Madison where the political science ma- than 1,300 Muslim charities — including soup kitch- jor experienced an intellectual coming of age. Taking ens, homeless shelters, and medical clinics — and a pair of constitutional law classes from noted profes- countering hate. Notably, the nonprofit filed a law- sor Donald Downs was particularly influential. “He suit in 2012 — later joined by the Center for Con- pushed me to think about things from every different stitutional Rights — against the City of New York, angle, even going to places that were uncomfortable,” accusing police of spying on Muslims at home, work, Qureshi says. “He challenged my views in a way that school, and at mosques. The case is pending. forced me to question everything I took for grant- Qureshi helped found Muslim Advocates in ed. He challenged my basic ideas of what’s right and 2005, when she was an organizer for the legisla- wrong with our system, and what do rights mean ver- tive office of the American Civil Liberties Union sus what does right and wrong mean? That taught me in Washington, DC. There, she worked on matters to become a different kind of thinker.” related to racial profiling, voting rights, the Patriot Just as she is now, Qureshi was very much the Act, and post-9/11 civil rights violations. political operative during her days at the UW. She Prior to that, Qureshi was recruited — after organized a coalition of disparate student groups earning her law degree at Georgetown University — that sponsored educational events on the Bosnian to join the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights War and genocide that was raging half a world away. Division, where she helped shape the Initiative to “That experience contributed to my education Combat Post-9/11 Discriminatory Backlash. In that about justice and informing people about issues,” role, she organized community forums around the she says. “It was powerful to see all sorts of unusual country, fielded discrimination complaints, and was partners come together to speak out against a great a liaison to Muslim, Arab, and South Asian American injustice. When you get together and start working communities. on a common cause, you start to focus on how much The challenges haven’t abated, and Muslim Ad- more you have in common.” vocates’ stature in the national zeitgeist has become It’s the same ethos that Qureshi brings to her only more pronounced in recent months. work today at Muslim Advocates, which involves After Paris, and a subsequent attack last De- managing program staff and fostering relationships cember in which an extremist husband-wife tandem with other groups fighting to maintain civil rights.

24 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 TIMOTHY ARCHIBALD

Muslim Advocates also has aligned with the NAACP in pushing support for the End Racial Pro- filing Act. The proposed legislation, which would affect local law-enforcement agencies, has yet to gain traction in Congress. The organizations did, however, help sway the U.S. Justice Department in 2014 to expand rules preventing FBI agents from consider- ing national origin and religion, among other cate- “This isn’t a Mus- lim problem. This gories, when deciding whether to open a case. is an American “Naheed played a major role in helping us frame problem. This is that,” says Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s a question of our Washington, DC, bureau. “She works in a respectful values and who and noncombative way. She’s assertive and thought- we are,” says ful and very diplomatic in her approach. She’s been Naheed Qureshi a fantastic asset and ally. She has a gift of being able ’94. “It’s become to see, almost immediately, the similarities between completely the various communities she’s speaking with, and acceptable to say the most vile, big- that makes a huge difference.” oted things about Qureshi’s collaborations extend to what, in the Muslims.” wider world, doesn’t always make for easy alliances. She works closely with Bend the Arc, a New York– Even Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron based Jewish nonprofit that advocates and organiz- Rodgers draws plaudits from Qureshi. During a es for a more just and equal society. Arielle Gingold, postgame news conference on the day of the fan’s the group’s associate director, calls Qureshi “one of intemperate catcall, Rodgers, unbidden by reporter my closest colleagues and most trusted partners in questioning, volunteered that the comment “disap- the work that we do. She teaches me constantly. We pointed” him and “it’s that kind of prejudicial ideolo- have a great dialogue about our different religions, gy that … puts us in the position we’re in today.” and I learn from her and she learns from me.” Qureshi says these are some of the people who Bend the Arc was among nearly fifty civil rights, give her hope. “It’s not the kind of society they want interfaith, community, and advocacy groups that their children to grow up in. This isn’t a Muslim joined Muslim Advocates last September to urge problem. This is an American problem. This is a Republican and Democratic party leadership to hold question of our values and who we are. We shouldn’t party members and candidates accountable for pro- have an environment where it’s okay to talk about moting religious bigotry. Muslims that way.” “In the U.S., there is a lot of common ground She chides a political system in which elected and a lot of really great and important work being officials and political hopefuls have made anti-Mus- done between the Muslim and Jewish communities, lim remarks, with no accountability. While Repub- and the Christian community as well,” Gingold says, lican presidential candidate Donald Trump has pro- praising Qureshi for her “contagious passion for the posed blocking all Muslims from entering the United work that she does.” States, along with shutting down mosques and sur- “We have a strong interfaith partnership advo- veilling Muslims, former candidate Ben Carson as- cating for the rights of our communities as a whole, serted the United States should not elect a Muslim and defending each other’s rights when they are at- president. tacked,” she says. “I have moments when I’m very afraid of what’s Qureshi derives many of her sensibilities from her happening and what I see right in front of me,” parents. “They told my sister and me that we were Qureshi says. “A lot of people get really discouraged. Muslims, but that we should cherish and value ev- They’ll say there’s no point to what we’re doing, be- eryone’s background and faith,” she says. Her moth- cause this is so overwhelming and we can’t make er and father met at the University of Idaho, where any progress. It’s become completely acceptable to both were pursuing their doctorates. They went on to say the most vile, bigoted things about Muslims.” teach biology and chemistry in the nursing program But, Qureshi notes optimistically, such behav- at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. iors have riled non-Muslims as much as members of Qureshi also draws inspiration from the late her own faith. anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela, and “This has crossed the line for a lot of people, musicians such as Peter Gabriel and U2 frontman and they have made the decision that they can’t Bono, who, after the 2005 bombings of London stay silent.” • trains and buses, pointed to a headband emblazoned with the word “Coexist,” and uttered: “Jesus, Jew, Andrew Faught is a California-based freelance writer. He has Mohammed — it’s true. All sons of Abraham.” written widely on issues and ideas of higher education.

On Wisconsin 25 26 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Greyson’s Anatomy After three decades of living in the shadow of Huntington’s disease, Shana Martin Verstegen found marriage, motherhood, and a new life. BY JOHN ALLEN PHOTOS BY JEFF MILLER

Clap. Clap-clap. A toothless grin splits Greyson’s large, round face, their families. Huntington’s is a genetic disease — and the seven-month-old looks around the room in it’s degenerative and incurable. It kills more than 90 search of applause for his latest accomplishment: percent of the people who carry the Huntington’s applauding. gene. Most of the rest commit suicide. His eyes fix on me — we share a common hair- Shana’s mother, Deborah Martin, had Hunting- line, and perhaps he thinks that makes us simpatico. ton’s, and so Shana knew she had a fifty-fifty chance I smile and nod. 5 out of that she had the gene. She didn’t want to bring a He turns to his mother. 100,000 child into the world who would watch a mother suf- “Look at him go,” says Shana Martin Verstegen Americans have fer the way Deborah had or bear a child who might ’02. “He just clapped for the first time yesterday. the Huntington’s develop the disease. Who’s a happy boy? Who’s a happy boy?” gene, studies But many things have changed in the last five Grey is, obviously, a very happy boy, but in that estimate. years. And one of them is Grey. he isn’t unusual. His mother’s beaming pride, the living room cluttered with toys, a car seat, an Exer- Deborah saucer, and all the paraphernalia that accrue around Huntington’s is a particularly cruel genetic disease a modern infant — this could be the environment of in a couple of respects. First, it runs along a dom- any middle-class, Midwestern American baby. inant gene, the IT15 (“interesting transcript” 15) What makes Grey different is that his clapping gene. There are no recessive carriers. If you have might never have been heard — not by me, not by the Huntington’s gene, you will have the disease, and Shana, not by anyone. A year before I visited him, if you have children, there’s a 50 percent chance that there was a 50 percent chance that Grey would they’ll develop it, too. never be. Five and a half years earlier, when I first Second, those who have Huntington’s don’t met Shana, those odds were even lower. exhibit signs until they’re in their thirties, typically In 2011, I wrote a profile of Shana for On Wis- in the later child-bearing years. consin Magazine called “Rules to Roll By.” Shana Huntington’s is a neurodegenerative disease. was then a world-class lumberjack athlete — she Patients usually first show problems with mood and had competed in the log-rolling and boom-running cognition, then coordination. They develop a shuf- championships in Hayward, Wisconsin, and won fling gait and jerky body movements, and ultimately several times. She was also a speaker and advocate they lose all ability to move or communicate. Debo- on behalf of the victims of Huntington’s Chorea and rah Martin first learned she had the disease in 1986,

On Wisconsin 27 when Shana was five years old. Deborah had been Shana Martin you’re never going to get it.” adopted, and she never knew her birth parents. She Verstegen holds So Shana threw herself into her career as a had no idea that one of them had Huntington’s and a photo of her log-roller, and she became a spokesperson in the that she might, too. mother, Deborah Huntington’s community. But in spite of her ada- But from that day, Shana knew that her life rested Martin, long be- mant position, she knew even then that there were fore she showed on the flip of a coin: heads, she didn’t have the gene signs of Hunting- situations that would motivate her to take the test: and would likely live a long life; tails, she had the ton’s. Deborah if she was tempted to marry or have children. If she gene and like her mother, would enter an unstoppa- passed away married, she wanted her husband to be prepared ble decline shortly after reaching adulthood. in 2014. Shana for what might happen to her, as her father, George The Huntington’s gene was discovered in 1993, didn’t inherit Martin MS’74, PhD’78, hadn’t been. And she didn’t and scientists soon developed a test for it. But as the Huntington’s want to have a child if there was any risk of perpet- there’s no cure, or really much in the way of treat- gene, and so nei- uating the disease. ment, Shana had been determined not to take the ther will her son, And that’s where Peter Verstegen enters the pic- test. Greyson, shown ture. Peter and Shana had known each other since opposite with “I’m adamant about not learning whether [I Shana and her high school. He knew Deborah, and so he knew the have the gene],” Shana told me in 2011. “If I found husband, Peter risks. They didn’t deter him. out I had it — or that I didn’t — I don’t know how Verstegen. “[Huntington’s] didn’t scare me,” he says. “Not my life would change. Basically, you have to prepare really. That’s not who Shana is.” as if you’re going to get [Huntington’s], but live as if He proposed in March 2013, and Shana accepted. They told her mother, and according to Shana, Deb- orah made eye contact for the first time in years. “We took that as her knowing I was going to be okay,” Shana says. Two weeks later, Deborah passed away. Shana and Peter celebrated Deborah’s life. They celebrated their engagement. And, later, in Novem- ber, they celebrated their marriage. Then the couple began to think about babies. “There are really three ways you can go about having children if you’re at risk for Huntington’s,” Shana says. “You can cross your fingers and hope for the best. I didn’t want to do that. You can have in vitro fertilization, so that doctors test your eggs and only implant ones that don’t have the gene. But that’s really expensive. Or you can take the test yourself. I didn’t love it, but that’s the route we chose.”

Clumsy When I first met Shana, she was thirty and had been living with the fear of Huntington’s for five-sixths of her life. She was trying to live like she was never going to get Huntington’s, but while the sentiment was brave, it wasn’t always practical. The shadow of the disease was never far from her. “Every time I had a clumsy day,” she says, “every time I cut myself or stumbled or couldn’t think of the word I was looking for, I wondered: ‘Is this the first sign?’ ” But if wondering about Huntington’s was stress- ful, actually facing the test was terrifying. And expensive. And lengthy. She would have to see a genetic counselor, who would judge whether she was emotionally ready for the test. Before the Affordable Care Act came along, Shana says, a positive test “would have been health insurance suicide.” In February 2014, Shana applied to her insurance to pay for the test. In March, she began meeting with Jody Haun ’75, MS’85, a counselor with the UW Waisman Center’s Medical Genetics Clinic.

28 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 They talked about what would happen if the test was positive: if she had the gene. They talked — considerably less — about what would happen if the test was negative. “It was very scary,” Shana says — not the meetings themselves, but merely deciding to confront this question with finality. Eventually, in March, the clinic drew her blood and sent it off to a lab, which examined Shana’s fourth chromosome for evidence of IT15. In a section of that chromosome, cytosine, adenine, and gua- nine are repeated many times. Normal genes have twenty-six or fewer repeats; the Huntington’s gene has forty or more. But Shana could do nothing but wait, “so I kind of put it away in my mind and didn’t think about it,” she says. Or at least she tried, until the news arrived. On Tuesday, June 24, 2014, Shana returned to Haun’s office to get the results. “I came in, and she had tears in her eyes,” Shana says. Her heart dropped. But the tears were joy rather than sorrow — after two decades of watching her mother die, of wondering daily if she was doomed to the same fate, Shana found that her burden was gone. She didn’t have the gene. For her, Hunting- ton’s had died with her mother and would never affect her or any children she might have. That night, she told her father. George said he had been certain her results would show no Hun- tington’s. “He said he knew,” Shana says. “He said I was too old, that I hadn’t shown any signs. But I could tell he was relieved.” The next day, she shared the news with the rest of her family, her friends, and the Huntington’s Dis- ease Society of America. Eleven months later, on May 23, 2015, Greyson group. And I’m still working for the same purpose. Verstegen was born. We still need to support research; we still need to find a cure for this.” When clumsy days come, she still has a moment “I’m still working for the same of doubt. “It still hits me,” she says. “I’ll start to think is this — and then remember that it isn’t. I can’t help smiling.” purpose. We still need to support And she continues to pursue her career and her sport. In 2010, she had just lost the title she’d held research; we still need to find a for two years and was scheming to get it back, and in 2012, she won the women’s world log-rolling cham- cure for this.” pionship. A month after Grey was born, Shana was in Hay- On a Roll ward, competing at the 2015 Lumberjack Games. When Shana thought she might develop Hunting- “I didn’t do well,” she says. “I fell in the standings ton’s, she tried to live as though she’d never get it. a lot last year.” Now that she knows she won’t, she tries to maintain But she’ll be back again in June, hoping to regain the same gratitude for every moment. her title. She’s now thirty-six, and if she wins this She continues to work with the Huntington’s year, she’ll be the oldest woman ever to be a log- Disease Society of America, making speeches and rolling world champion. raising money for research. “I have some survivor’s And if so, then clap-clap-clap: Grey will get to guilt,” she says. “Many friends, people I’ve known show everyone his latest talent.• for so long, will get the disease. But I won’t. That’s really tough. But they’re also my biggest cheer John Allen is senior editor of On Wisconsin.

On Wisconsin 29 30 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 ILLUSTRATIONS BY GIACOMO BAGNARA

LOVE IS NOT A MYSTERY

There’s a science to determining if a couple will go the distance, and John Gottman MA’67, PhD’71 has refined it to unlock the secrets to making a relationship last.

BY MAGGIE GINSBERG ’97

On Wisconsin 31 ontempt, criticism, defensiveness, the University of Washington observed couples in a and stonewalling. Seattle apartment laboratory, but it was definitely These are the simple, measurable educational and useful. behaviors that statistically destroy The lead therapist suggested we read Gottman’s your chances of a successful re- The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Clationship, and what renowned psychologist John after observing our interactions behind two-way Gottman MA’67, PhD’71 calls the “Four Horsemen.” mirrored glass. Like my mother, I’m more emotion- Gottman should know: he’s spent more than four al, intuitive, and creative. Like Dad, my husband is decades studying couples. When he looks at a mar- an analytical, systematic thinker, and a pragmatic riage and predicts whether it will or won’t end in problem-solver. The two of us burned through Gott- divorce, he’s right 94 percent of the time. His life’s man’s book in one weekend, and we very quickly work remains wildly popular at the consumer level gleaned that my tendencies lean toward defensive- — and with good reason: if half of today’s marriages ness and stonewalling, and his toward criticism. end in divorce, who wouldn’t grab onto the comfort More importantly, we learned how we inadvertently and promise of an easy, evidence-based antidote? damage our relationship when we give in to those Long before Gottman became one of the world’s weaknesses. foremost researchers of marriage and divorce — But most valuable of all was the fact that Gott- before appearances on Oprah and Good Morning man’s work was based on decades of longitudinal America, four National Institute of Mental Health data tracking thousands of couples. I’m a pretty easy awards, and forty-some books, including the New self-help sell, but for my husband, this emphasis on York Times bestseller The Seven Principles for Mak- scientific research proved critically validating. He ing Marriage Work — he was a mildly awkward, found the knowledge comforting, its tools useful unlucky-in-love, Brooklyn-raised MIT mathematics and practical. We were able to get on the same page graduate drawn to UW-Madison by a burgeoning interest in psychology. It was 1966, and unbeknownst to Gottman, another shy, Jewish math geek from New York was schlepping around campus — my father. The two men never met, but I wonder if they unwittingly passed each other coming in and out of Sterling Hall, or rubbed knobby elbows at an anti-war protest. Or perhaps Gottman happened to be walking by the chemistry building the moment my father met my mother, a barefoot hippie art major balancing a stack of textbooks on her head. Dad was love-struck on the spot and, uncharacteristically, managed to squeak out a hello. “Huh?” she replied. Forty-five years later, they remain on the winning side of the divorce ratio. My own stats aren’t as successful. I already had a Gottman book on the shelf when my editor called to assign this story, and another of his bestselling books, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, had just arrived in the mail that very day. I’d recently remarried at the age of forty, and my new husband and I — each with a failed marriage under our belts — were participating in a free couples’ clinic at UW Health to make sure we got it right this go- round. It wasn’t quite the same thing as Gottman’s famous Love Lab, in which he and his colleagues at

32 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 THE GOTTMAN INSTITUTE

without having to feel or think the same way first. John and Julie Jim Powell ’73, both see clients individually and We started to recognize our patterns and used Gott- Gottman have together. The husband-and-wife team has been ap- man’s tools for tempering defensiveness, de-escalat- been together for plying Gottman’s concepts since first discovering ing conflict, and working toward solutions. 40 years. his work in the early 1980s. Many times, they say, “It has really normalized some of what couples couples come in during a crisis and eventually leave deal with, and taken this idea that you have to have with more than hope — they learn a shared lan- perfect harmony and perfect compatibility to make guage and realize their relationship is a puzzle that a marriage work long-term and kind of turned it on can be solved. its head,” says Beth Wortzel ’70, a Madison-based Powell particularly likes Gottman’s concept of psychotherapist. She and her husband, counselor the Sound Relationship House theory, developed in 1994, which identifies the key components of healthy relationships, visualized as a house built up I’m a pretty easy from the foundation to the roof (with commitment and trust as load-bearing walls): • Build love maps self-help sell, but for my • Share fondness and admiration • Turn toward instead of away • The positive perspective husband, this emphasis • Manage conflict • Make life dreams come true on scientific research • Create shared meaning Within that model, critically helpful concepts are detailed, such as the “emotional bank account” or proved critically the concept of “flooding” — in which a physiological emotional reaction makes a rational one nearly impossible. validating. As for the Four Horsemen that are the death

On Wisconsin 33 knell for a relationship, Powell keeps a handout for his clients detailing each of them, along with HOW TO KEEP THE “FOUR suggested alternate behaviors. The Gottman Meth- HORSEMEN” AT BAY od is not the only one they use, but it’s a tool they find both accessible and intuitive. And there’s a Psychologist John Gottman has identified four bonus. behaviors that are the death knell for most relation- “It’s helped me be mindful myself in my own re- ships, but it’s possible to fight them off and preserve lationship, too, with Beth,” says Powell. “I think it’s a healthy union. quite revolutionary, what the Gottmans have done.”

Criticism name-calling, eye rolling, SIXTY FIRST DATES A complaint focuses on sneering, mockery, and That’s Gottmans, plural, because John Gottman fi- a specific behavior, while hostile humor. Contempt is nally met his match in 1986 in Seattle. a criticism attacks the the greatest predictor of di- After earning a master’s degree in mathemat- character of the person. The vorce and must be eliminat- ics at MIT in 1964, Gottman had every intention of antidote for criticism is to ed. The antidote is building continuing his studies with a PhD, until he found his complain without blame. a culture of appreciation roommate’s psychology books “a lot more interest- Talk about your feelings us- and respect. ing.” Gottman was more “turned on” by the softer ing “I” statements and then curves of human relationships, and excited by the express a positive need. Contempt: “You’re an idiot.” idea they could be scientifically measured. After a brief period as a computer programmer and mathe- Criticism: “You always talk Antidote: “I’m proud of the matician at the Lawrence Radiation Lab in Berkeley, about yourself. You are so way you handled that teach- California, Gottman decided to point his sails in the selfish.” er conference.” direction of psychology — and he liked the way the wind was blowing in Madison. Antidote: “I’m feeling left out Stonewalling “I picked Wisconsin because Harry Harlow was by our talk tonight. Can we One partner withdraws there,” says Gottman of the controversial psycholo- please talk about my day?” from an interaction. He or gist who was methodically measuring baby rhesus she stops responding and monkeys’ need for their mother’s touch by depriving Defensiveness shuts down when feeling them of it. Another draw was the statistics depart- Many people become de- overwhelmed by a fight or ment, home to “giants” in a mathematics field called fensive when they are being conflict discussion. time series analysis, a method of measurement that criticized, but that never Gottman eventually applied to measure change solves the problem at hand. Antidote: Practice physio- within people for his PhD thesis. Gottman had also Defensiveness is a way of logical self-soothing and become actively opposed to the Vietnam War during blaming your partner and stop the conflict discussion. his time at Berkeley, and was pleasantly surprised saying, in effect, “the prob- Let your partner know that to find the Committee to End the Vietnam War was lem isn’t me, it’s you.” As a you’re feeling flooded and based in Madison. It wasn’t that he was anti-war result, the conflict esca- need to take a break for per se — just anti-this one. “I would have fought in lates further. The antidote at least twenty minutes, World War II,” he says. is to accept responsibility, since it will be that long Gottman, classified 1A, gained conscientious even if only for part of the before your body physio- objector status. He finished up his PhD in clinical conflict. logically calms down. It’s psychology at the UW after two years of alterna- crucial during this time to tive service, directing a Wisconsin program for mi- Defensiveness: “It’s not my avoid thoughts of righteous grant workers who’d dropped out of high school. fault that we’re always late, indignation (“I don’t have to From there, he began teaching at Indiana Universi- it’s your fault.” take this anymore”) and in- ty, where he famously teamed up with psychologist nocent victimhood (“Why is Robert Levenson and launched the first of seven Antidote: “Well, part of this he always picking on me?”). longitudinal studies that spanned and defined his is my problem, I need to Spend time doing something career. think more about time.” soothing and distracting, In the lab, Gottman and his colleagues measured like listening to music or physiological arousal using markers such as heart Contempt exercising. rate, skin conductance, gross motor activity, and Displays of contempt blood velocity, and drew direct correlations with include sarcasm, cynicism, marital satisfaction. Over the years, they studied couples of all kinds (old, young, married, unmarried, gay, straight, college students, rural, and urban) and Source: The Gottman Institute identified patterns that Gottman later coined as “masters” and “disasters” of relationships.

34 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGES How is John Gottman able to predict with more than 90 percent accuracy whether a couple will make it or not? He uses empiri- cal evidence drawn from multiple longitudinal studies of married couples over the last four decades. That work began in 1986, in an apartment laboratory at the University of Washington known as the “Love Lab.” There, Gottman discovered how couples create and maintain friendship and intimacy and how it’s related to conflict. In happy marriages, partners turn toward bids for emotional connec- Their research allowed them to assess — with tion in everyday life twenty times more than 94 percent accuracy — whether a couple would eventually divorce. Beyond scientific journals, Gott- couples in distress. Couples that divorced six man made his findings accessible to a general public years after their wedding turned toward bids that was hungry for such guidance. Love had always seemed such a mystery, and here was a scientist for attention from their partner only one-third saying it wasn’t the ultimate outlaw — which sur- of the time, while those who stayed together prised even him, at first. Meanwhile, Gottman was experiencing less turned toward bids for attention 86 percent of promising results in his own relationships. By the the time. Another of Gottman’s studies found time he got to Indiana, he’d been married and divorced, and struggled to meet women his own age. a link between change in marital satisfaction After moving on to the University of Illinois, he took and physiological measures, including heart a job as a professor of psychology at the University of Washington. That changed everything. rate. The more physiologically aroused couples He arrived in May, four months before the start were, the more the happiness of their marriag- of the semester, and decided to finally take a scientific approach to his love life. With characteristic es deteriorated over a three-year period. precision, he embarked on an experiment. He an- swered every personal ad and went on sixty dates in about studying all those couples that informed or six weeks. comforted him? “Julie,” he says, “was sixty-one.” Falling in love with Julie “wasn’t so much an in- Julie Schwartz — who would become Julie tellectual decision based on research,” he says. “It Schwartz Gottman within the year — was also a was just more, really, an emotional decision.” clinical psychologist. In a dizzying whir of hormones and neurotransmitters, John and Julie connected MASTERS OF LOVE instantly. It was love at first sight, and it was thrill- The couple settled in Seattle and founded the Gott- ing. It was also terrifying. man Institute, where they masterfully honed the “It was kind of like your father,” he says, refer- practical applications that make their findings ac- ring to my own parents’ fateful meeting at the UW. cessible. Over the past thirty years, they’ve amassed But as he explained the fear that accompanied such a an impressive body of research, publications, train- powerful connection between two already-divorced ing sessions for professionals like Powell and Wort- forty-somethings, I thought of my own second mar- zel, and tools for couples like my husband and me. riage instead, and those heady, scary early days. We The Gottmans host packed couples’ seminars knew our union was incredible, good and right — in- in which they sit together on the stage and reenact evitable. But we also each carried intimidating data any one of their ongoing private arguments, putting points of our own. So I asked, was there anything their own marriage on display, warts and all. That

On Wisconsin 35 The Four Horsemen (criticism, YEARS contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling) predict an early AFTER THE divorce 5.6 WEDDING

Emotional withdrawal and the absence YEARS of all marriages of positive affect during conflict 1 that end do so in discussions (shared humor, affection, AFTER THE the first seven empathy) predict an eventual divorce 16.2 WEDDING 2 years

of stonewallers of the time, women in heterosexual bring up issues in relationships heterosexual 85% are men 80% relationships

Stonewalling occurs when the listener experiences a of conflict in relationships “fight or flight” response is about unresolvable, and heart rate exceeds 100 perpetual problems beats per minute 69%

Gottman is able which couples will divorce to predict with 94% ACCURACY and which will stay together

In twelve longitudinal studies, Gottman has studied more than three thousand couples, The average couple waits following some of them for as long as 6 YEARS 20 YEARS before seeking help for marital problems

Gottman reports that stable marriages have a 5:1 ratio of positivity to negativity during conflict; in 5:1 unstable marriages the ratio is 0.8:1 0.8:1 Source: The Gottman Institute

36 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 addresses one of the biggest misconceptions about this work, says Gottman: that successful relationships are those with no conflict whatsoever. “We need conflict in order to keep learning THE GOTTMAN METHOD FOR how to love each other better as we grow older and change,” he says. The Gottmans are not some uber- HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS evolved gurus levitating upon the marital mountain- top — they are a real live couple committed to the Build love maps person to talk honestly hard work of progress, not perfection. How well do you know about his or her hopes, The real work of marriage takes the willingness your partner’s inner values, convictions, and and unwavering commitment of both partners, and psychological world, his aspirations. not every relationship is worth saving. Gottman or her history, worries, does not claim his methods work for everybody, stresses, joys, and hopes? Create shared meaning but they are 75 percent effective for moderately dis- Understand important tressed couples. In the future, the Gottmans want to Share fondness visions, narratives, myths, study other factors that affect relationships, includ- and admiration and metaphors about your ing substance abuse, domestic violence, infidelity, The antidote for con- relationship. and past traumatic experiences. tempt, this level focuses “I’d say we’re maybe 40 percent there in under- on the amount of affection Trust standing relationships,” Gottman says. “Sixty per- and respect within a re- A person needs to know cent is still a mystery, and requires more research.” lationship. (To strengthen that his or her partner Take mate selection, for example. Although my fondness and admiration, acts and thinks to max- husband and I are a Match.com success story (a express appreciation and imize that person’s best modern version of Gottman’s classified-ad experi- respect.) interests and benefits, ment), Gottman says the algorithms used by modern not just the partner’s own data sites are faulty because they’re based on finding Turn towards interests and benefits. In someone just like you. “So that’s part of the prob- State your needs, be other words, this means, lem, I think, is that people are pairing up with the aware of bids for connec- “my partner has my back wrong person,” says Gottman. “And not bailing out tion and respond to (turn and is there for me.” soon enough.” toward) them. The small Although Julie turned sixty-five this year and moments of everyday life Commitment John is now seventy-four, the Gottmans show no are actually the building Believe (and act on the signs of slowing down. Both still see patients clin- blocks of a relationship. belief) that your relation- ically, fund research, and publish books, including ship is your lifelong jour- The Man’s Guide to Women, released earlier this The positive perspective ney, for better or for worse. year. The presence of a pos- (If it gets worse. you will Despite the comfort of having the Gottmans’ sci- itive approach to prob- both work to improve it.) entific findings at my fingertips, I still feel baffled lem-solving and the suc- It implies cherishing your sometimes, when my husband and I are in the thick cess of repair attempts. partner’s positive qual- of it — when I’m “flooded,” as the Gottmans say, and ities and nurturing grat- all my best tools and good intentions go right out the Manage conflict itude by comparing the window. I look at my parents and how different they Relationship conflict is partner favorably with real are — and their relationship still, at times, feels like natural and has func- or imagined others, rather a magical mystery to me. But I’ve never once doubt- tional, positive aspects. than trashing the partner ed that they’re on the same side, nor have I doubted Understand that there is a by magnifying negative this with my husband — something Gottman says is critical difference in han- qualities, and nurturing key to the whole deal. dling perpetual problems resentment by comparing And so I can’t help but ask him: if you had to dis- and solvable problems. unfavorably with real or till four decades of findings into one piece of advice, imagined others. what would it be? Make life dreams Don’t get defensive, he says. “If I was going to come true summarize it all in one thing, I would say that, in Create an atmosphere great relationships, they operate as if they have the that encourages each motto, ‘Baby, when you’re in pain, when you’re hurt- ing, the world stops and I listen.’ ”•

Source: The Gottman Institute Maggie Ginsberg ’97 is a Madison-based freelance writer.

On Wisconsin 37 LLOYD BISHOP/NBC/NBCU PHOTO BANK VIA GETTY IMAGES

For Lauren Groff MFA’06, the last year has been marvelous. Unexpectedly thrilling. And exhausting. The humble novelist, who tries not to read re- views and prefers to write at home, has spent FLIGHTS months on a national tour: book signings, literary festivals, awards banquets, and numerous inter- and views, even matching wits with comedian Seth Mey- ers on his late-night talk show. And in early 2016, she was off again, this time with stops in Amster- dam and Australia, packing what she calls her event persona. FLURRIES “Trying to be charming and clever — it’s awful- ly difficult,” Groff says. “I know that it’s going to be many, many years until I have another tour, if I ever The success of Lauren Groff’s novel has put Lauren Groff have another tour again, so I’m just trying to real- her at the heart of a whirlwind. discussed her latest bestseller ly, really love what’s happening and be appreciative on Late Night of it.” KATE KAIL DIXON ’01, MA’07 with Seth Meyers Groff is much in demand due to the success of last fall. her latest book. Fates and Furies, a duo of perspec- tives on a fiery marriage, has earned a legion of honors. The accolades include a nomination for the National Book Award for Fiction; the number-one

38 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 spot on Amazon’s list of Best Books of 2015; and the LAUREN GROFF ON MADISON endorsement of President Barack Obama, who re- vealed in a People magazine interview that it was his favorite book of 2015. Recommended Reading: Like her previous best-sellers — 2008’s The Groff recalls her two-year MFA program as Monsters of Templeton and 2012’s Arcadia — Fates a “hermit phase,” when she crafted short and Furies showcases the lyrical prose Groff pol- ished while earning her master of fine arts from stories from the apartment near the Capitol UW-Madison’s English department. She chose the Square she shared with her husband, Clay. UW to study creative writing with one of her all- “I spent almost every waking hour working,” time favorite authors, the award-winning Lorrie Moore, who was on the faculty at the time. she says. “We had this little cocoon for two In her earliest writing, Groff says she was trying years of quiet and calm.” Most of the stories to replicate Moore’s style. “I was trying for her wry, she wrote there became 2009’s little-read hilarious voice, and I was trying for her devastating wit, and failing so terribly,” she says. “So I kind of Delicate Edible Birds, a collection that went in the opposite direction.” She developed a remains her favorite. “The book that almost narrative that led to a big break: Groff sold a short nobody has read,” she calls it. “I don’t think story, “L. Debard and Aliette,” to Atlantic Monthly while in her first semester. even my parents have a copy of that one.” She treasures her connections with her UW professors, including Jesse Lee Kercheval, Judith Claire City Escapes: Mitchell, and Moore, who now teaches at Vanderbilt University. “They’re the kind of incredible human Music and dinners at the Orpheum Theater beings you know are there no matter what,” Groff on State Street, mornings at the Dane Coun- says. ty Farmers’ Market (“my favorite thing”), and Although Groff said she’d retire after the leader of the free world praised her novel, her schedule jogs around the lakes (“my happy place”): “It proves she was joking. Her Twitter account often was an idyllic time in our lives, and I miss it.” previews her next tour stops for Fates and Furies; she mentors an eleventh-grade writing apprentice; she teaches a residency at the MFA Program for Fateful Day: Writers at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, A blustery March campus tour crystallized North Carolina; and she says, with a bit of mystery, Groff’s future as a Badger: “The lake had that in between her travels, more writing is in the works. whitecaps, and then you could see a bit of “I can only say that I’ve been working on three the ice forming as the water came crashing separate things, and one of them may end up work- over onto the lawns. It was just so majes- ing, or all three of them won’t,” she says. Groff does most of her writing at home in Gaines- tic and beautiful. ... I made the decision to ville, Florida, where she and her husband, Clay Kall- come to Madison, and I never regretted it for man, live with their young sons, Beckett and Heath. a second.” She often bestows thoughtful nicknames upon her Fates and Furies characters, such as a lead subject in Fates and Fu- is Groff’s fourth book. The New ries — Lancelot, known as “Lotto” — whom she’s York Times Book Badger Spirit: described as a personification of Florida’s grandeur. Review, which Groff is taking a long-planned hiatus this “I wasn’t trying to go for subtlety,” she says. calls her “a writer “Names are really important — a micronarrative of of rare gifts,” says summer to attend the Olympics in Rio de who the person is.” So what of a character reflecting it is “an unabash- Janeiro and cheer on her sister, triathlete Madison? edly ambitious “Ooh, I don’t know. ... I have yet to do that,” novel that delivers Sarah True, and her teammates, including Groff says. “I would think about the lakes … be- — with comedy, world champion and fellow Badger Gwen tragedy, well-de- cause that’s what sort of haunts me now, and that’s ployed erudition, Jorgensen ’08, MAcc’09 (see Contender, what I miss the most. The lakes, and the spicy and unmistakable page 20): “Badgers are amazing.” cheese bread at the Farmers’ Market. And just the glimmers of bril- overwhelming sense of kindness and helpfulness liance throughout.” that I felt there.”•

Kate Kail Dixon ’01, MA’07 is an independent writer and editor.

On Wisconsin 39 HAYLEY MURPHY

40 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 In Memory of Lou Alzheimer’s disease looms as an approaching health crisis for America’s black and Hispanic families.

BY DENISE THORNTON ’82, MA’08

ou Holland ’65 was a UW-Madison success Lou Holland, Sr., that, but I have three kids. I want this thing to be story. A Badger Hall of Fame halfback who left, became a stopped or slowed down in my generation.” traded his jersey for a business suit after grad- familiar face Holland is helping to accomplish this by partic- L to many from uation, he went on to stardom in a new arena as an ipating as a research subject in the Wisconsin Reg- investment professional. Holland created a success- regular appear- istry for Alzheimer’s Prevention study, or WRAP. ful institutional management firm and became a reg- ances on PBS As an African American, Holland’s participation is television’s Wall ular guest on the PBS program Wall Street Week. Street Week. critical. In the United States, Alzheimer’s is twice as But there was ultimately one challenge Holland common among blacks as it is among whites, and one could not overcome: Alzheimer’s disease. He passed and a half times as common among Hispanics. It is away in February. often diagnosed at later stages among these groups, “My dad was competitive,” says his son Lou and later diagnosis limits the effectiveness of treat- Holland, Jr. ’86, himself a former tailback who let- ments that depend on early intervention. Some 50 tered for the Badgers. “He wanted to win, but right percent of people who have been diagnosed with the now there is no way to fight or cure Alzheimer’s disease are not treated appropriately, and this figure disease.” 50% may be higher in minority communities. of people with Alz- Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease can also be both heimer’s disease Recognizing the approaching health crisis that difficult and emotionally painful for family mem- are not diagnosed. Alzheimer’s disease will impose on communities of bers. “It’s the little things that you don’t want to see,” color, the UW Alzheimer’s Institute, with the sup- says Holland. “You want to say it’s stress or he didn’t port of Bader Philanthropies and the UW School get enough sleep and deny what you are seeing. But of Medicine and Public Health, has developed a things start to add up. My old college roommate who statewide outreach program centered in Milwaukee he’d known for years saw him on a plane, and Pop Alzheimer’s to recruit African Americans for WRAP. Milwau- didn’t remember him. There were times when he disease is the kee County is home to more than 240,000 African couldn’t find his way back from someplace.” sixth Americans, nearly 70 percent of Wisconsin’s Afri- When his father’s reading skills started to fail, leading can American population. Holland couldn’t deny the signs any longer. “My cause of WRAP, a long-term study of adult children of dad would read countless papers very quickly every people with Alzheimer’s disease that launched in weekend,” he says. “Then he started cutting out of death 2001, stands out as the largest and longest-lived in this country. family events earlier and earlier to take his papers study of its kind in the nation. Its focus is to deter- upstairs to read. That just was not him. That’s when mine who is at risk for Alzheimer’s. Researchers we knew we had to step in.” are compiling a wide range of information on more As the U.S. population ages, Alzheimer’s has be- than 1,500 participants, assessing their background, come the sixth leading cause of death. And research medical history, and lifestyle, including exercise shows that people who have relatives with the dis- and diet. The study also collects vital signs, con- ease are at a higher risk of developing it themselves. ducts brain imaging, and tests cerebral spinal fluid, Holland’s grandmother and aunt also died of compli- searching for biomarkers that may be present long cations associated with the illness. before the disease expresses itself. Researchers also “I’m going on fifty-two,” Holland says. “It’s al- collect blood samples to look for genetic risk factors. ready in my system, if I am going to get it. This dis- “When I saw what we had at the university, it ease takes a foothold before it can be diagnosed. It made perfect sense for [my family] to get involved,” may be too late for me. I’ve made my peace with says Holland, whose older sister, Jeanette, is also

On Wisconsin 41 WISCONSIN ATHLETICS

researchers hope this will provide the ground- work for early diagnosis and possible treatment. One example: last year JAMA Neurology pub- lished early findings that give scientists a better understanding of how insulin resistance or pre- diabetes changes the way the brain uses sugar, and suggests a possible link between high blood sugar and Alzheimer’s. Within twenty-four hours of announcing the study on television, WRAP had almost six hundred volunteers. But unfortunately, they did not initially include a representative number of people of color — a problem that plagues Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials around the country, according to Consuelo Wilkins, the executive director of the Meharry-Van- derbilt Alliance, a partnership between Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University Medical Center that develops initiatives to integrate biomed- ical research and community engagement. “Nation- ally, less than 5 percent of participants in Alzhei- mer’s disease clinical trials are nonwhite,” she told an audience during a recent campus visit. Speaking later to a community group on Madi- son’s south side, Wilkins said that as the American population is graying, members of minority groups, who previously had lower life expectancies, are also living longer. “For some of us who might not have seen Alzheimer’s disease in our families, we are going to start to see it,” she says. “Eventually, today’s minorities are going to be the majority. Are we going to have the treatments and strategies in place to ad- participating in the study. “I’ve been poked and Lou Holland, Sr., dress this?” prodded through my second or third round of test- was a Badger Hall Fabu Carter MA’86, MA’81, outreach specialist ing so far.” of Fame halfback for the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Holland, who is also a national board member of who led the Big Center, attributes the difficulty in recruiting African the Alzheimer’s Association, is so invested in find- Ten in scoring in American volunteers partly to instances of abuse in 1962 and 1963. ing a cure that he and his family have endowed the clinical studies in the past. “Most people are very Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute Holland Research aware of the Tuskegee experiments and of Henrietta Fund. But he is also commited to removing the em- Lacks’s treatment,” she says. barrassment that Alzheimer’s patients and their The infamous Tuskegee University study, con- families feel. ducted from 1932 to 1972 in conjunction with the “I know there is a stigma about being in pub- U.S. Public Health Service, observed the progres- lic with a person who is hanging on your arm, and sion of untreated syphilis using six hundred rural you can’t turn your back from them, or they are The 8number of African American men as subjects. None of the men drooling down their chin, but every Alzheimer’s years patients were told they had the disease or treated with peni- patient has a story,” he says. In the early stages live, on average, cillin, even after the antibiotic became the standard of the disease, he adds, patients know what’s hap- after their symp- treatment for syphilis. pening, and they feel the stigma their condition toms become Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman can carry. “We need to get past that,” Holland con- noticeable. who was treated with radiation for a tumor, had two tinues. “There are prominent people today, from samples of her cervix removed without her permis- entertainment to sports to Fortune 500 compa- sion. These cells were ultimately commercialized nies, dealing with Alzheimer’s, and I wish their into the valuable HeLa immortal cell line without in- families would speak up.” forming or compensating her family. Scientists have grown twenty tons of tissue from her cell line, and y definition, a long-term study of people they have generated almost eleven thousand patents. who are at risk requires waiting years un- Carter cites other barriers to participation. Btil symptoms appear. But the UW study Lower-income Milwaukee residents may have is beginning to identify cognitive changes that less access to health care in general. And, because may be early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, and African American culture has a tradition of rever-

42 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 UW HEALTHEMOTIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

ing its elders, she says, it can be difficult for family Lou Holland, Jr., Stephanie Houston, who enables the program to members to admit that their loved ones are losing left, and his sister stay connected with the families who participate in their faculties. Jeanette Holland the study. But staff in the Milwaukee Outreach Program are participating “We knew we could not just come into the have made significant inroads. Gina Green-Harris, in a UW research community and say ‘You should participate in re- study to combat director of the program, calls WRAP a microcosm Alzheimer’s search,’ ” says Houston. “First we listened to what of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute. Since 2008, disease, which the community was saying.” To accomplish this, the number of African Americans enrolled in the claimed the life of Houston developed an advisory board made up of study increased from seven to 158. Researchers their father, Lou legal experts, social workers, caregivers, and pro- want to include up to 500 within the next five years. Holland, Sr., right. fessionals from local organizations. The Milwaukee outreach effort includes the The board learned that what the community Chorus Project, a choir led by professional musi- wanted was information. The Wisconsin Alzhei- cians and made up of both Alzheimer’s patients and mer’s Institute now hosts workshops on requested their caregivers. The chorus provides both a sup- topics such as finances, dealing with challenging port network and an environment that stimulates behaviors, and establishing power of attorney. “We social engagement. The participants suggest songs also hold workshops within our faith communities,” that remind them of good experiences, such as sing- says Green-Harris. “The church is a valuable social ing in church or falling in love. The singers rehearse network that helps us let people know what is hap- for thirteen weeks before presenting a concert to pening with aging.” family and community that works to raise public This outreach to people in their churches and awareness and help reduce the stigma associated community support groups is crucial, says Houston. with memory loss. “We have to reach them where they are. … Our goal Other programs include Breaking the Silence, is to be a community resource as well as responsi- a community dialogue started two years ago to ad- ble researchers because at the end of the day, we dress Alzheimer’s and communities of color. “We know we are going to be accountable, and we see the identify well-known people from across the country need.” who have dealt with Alzheimer’s disease directly to Meanwhile, Holland will continue the fight. come and talk,” says Green-Harris. The first event Watching his father struggle has given him a keen drew 250 people, and one held last year in Milwau- appreciation of the ravages of Alzheimer’s. “The kee and Racine attracted more than 500. “It tells us cost is immeasurable to your being as you watch that people want to hear more about this,” she says. your parent become a child. When you have to help Unique to the Milwaukee program is an outreach him go to the bathroom, the effort is emotional. It specialist who goes into people’s homes and helps challenges your faith and your family. … It pulls on them get started with the diagnostic clinic. “We do your heart,” he says. “Research is playing catch-up not charge for this,” says Green-Harris. “That helps with a disease that is an Olympic gold-medal cham- build credibility with providers and helps families pion. Alzheimer’s has never lost. We are behind for accept the diagnosis. Then as they transition to now, but we are gaining on it.” • care services, we have a support person to under- gird them.” Denise Thornton is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin’s That support person is outreach specialist Driftless area.

On Wisconsin 43 JINGTSONG JING

44 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Physician, Heal Thyself A growing number of medical schools — including the UW’s — are putting humanity into health care by encouraging students to look inward.

BY DAVID LEWELLEN

n a nondescript classroom in the Brogden Psy- Nearly half of for thirteen years as an associate professor of family chology Building, David Rakel tells about fifty medical school medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public UW medical students to take a deep breath and students expe- Health. Before saying anything, he tells his students, slow down. Feet on the ground, eyes closed, rience burnout. a physician must be present with a patient, fully en- Ibreathe in, let it go. Focus on a time of grief and loss. Wellness pro- gaged, and sympathetic. “Most people’s intentions gramming such Think about a person who made you feel better. as the Healer’s are good,” he says. “But remember this when you Now focus on a person who, probably unwittingly, Art course offers have to go and tell someone their loved one has just made you feel worse. one option to help died.” Rakel then asks, “What helped?” Hands are them cope. The course, now offered at some ninety medical raised, answers are offered. “A hug.” “No words, just schools in the country, is helping to create a gener- presence.” “They listened to me talk.” ation of more reflective physicians. Knowing them- What didn’t help? “Trying to relate their own selves better can help physicians to understand story.” “Minimizing the situation.” “Trying to fix the their patients better — going beyond the symptoms problem, telling you what to do or think.” to explore hopes and fears. And that, in turn, can What’s the difference, he asks, between the help- lead to improved health and longer lives. ful responses and the hurtful ones? Discussion flows “Where do you carry your stress?” Rakel asks as during The Healer’s Art, a course that Rakel has led he continues to push his students to be more aware.

On Wisconsin 45 Carlson sees The Healer’s Art as a critical counterpoint to the hierarchical, high-tech model of medicine that developed over the past century. ... The class “put names on the reason I had been drawn to medicine in the first place,” she says. “I felt like I had a place, like I belonged in medicine.”

“In your neck? In your head? Turn toward it. Don’t Care Act, Rakel says. Since Medicare and Medicaid ignore it. Turn toward it. This is evidence-based are beginning to pay health care providers based on medicine. This process improves fibromyalgia by results, rather than on services rendered, the indus- about 35 percent. Learn from your symptoms. Don’t try has had to reassess how it delivers care and how just take an ibuprofen to mask the pain.” best to measure wellness rather than illness. For Rakel, a long-term goal for the class is pro- When Rakel was a medical student in the 1980s, ducing “healthier physicians, less burnout, less sui- he felt that something was lacking. After a full day cide, and stronger relationships.” of filling his brain with random facts, he remembers, The course “has shaped most of the ethics in my he turned on the TV and found The Sound of Music. career,” says Jensena Carlson ’06, MD’10, an assis- 11%of medical school “I had seen it like thirteen times,” he says, “but this tant professor of family medicine who now teaches students have had time, when the von Trapp family got over the moun- the class with Rakel. Being exposed to these concepts suicidal thoughts. tain at the end, I was crying like a blubbering idiot. I as a first-year student “put names on the reasons I was out of balance.” had been drawn to medicine in the first place … I felt Being in balance, for a doctor, still means a large like I had a place, like I belonged in medicine.” main course of science and rigor, but awareness is Each year, about one-third to one-fourth of the growing that the humanities and other disciplines Medical students entering class signs up for the course. There have with burnout are are an important side dish. Rakel believes that in been periodic discussions about making it mandato- more likely to have recent decades, medical schools have improved at ry, but faculty have concluded that the class means • suicidal thoughts acknowledging self-care and holistic well-being, more when students choose to participate in it. • serious thoughts but that the profession as a whole still needs to do As she works with patients, Carlson keeps an of dropping out a better job of recognizing emotional intelligence. If eye out for other physicians wearing a small gold la- • lower empathy practitioners are aware of their patients’ emotions, pel pin with a heart on it that signifies they’ve com- for instance, they might notice when a patient is • lower profes- pleted the course, knowing they will share her focus sionalism withdrawn or scared and alter their words and tone on the bigger picture. Physicians can also continue • a higher risk of accordingly. class discussions through an informal national net- alcohol abuse Part of wellness rests in patients becoming ac- work, allowing them to reinforce the concepts they and dependence. tive participants in their health care. Along with learned in the course. the typical approaches of improving diet and exer- This community of practitioners is a relatively cise, nurturing a healthy emotional state — such as new movement, says Christina Puchalski, director forgiving someone who hurt you — has also been of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality shown to lengthen patients’ lives. and Health in Washington, DC. Although she has Physicians have Yet, Rakel notes, “It’s harder to reimburse better been teaching about spirituality in medicine since more burnout than health. It’s not black and white; there are no wid- other U.S. working the early 1990s, she says the topic gained nation- adults — a finding gets to count.” Eventually, he says, the profession al momentum in only the last five years or so. The that persists after must figure out how to treat people as “bio-psycho- Healer’s Art course is one instance of a broader controlling for social-spiritual beings.” movement to form more self-aware, integrated phy- work hours. Carlson, for one, sees The Healer’s Art as a criti- sicians and to build a community around the shared cal counterpoint to the hierarchical, high-tech mod- values of being in a service profession. el of medicine that developed over the past centu- “A lot of patients feel very lonely,” Puchalski ry. Every year, hundreds of the course’s graduates says. “We take care of their physical needs, but do across the country receive MDs or move from res- nothing for their spiritual or existential distress.” idency into private practice. But changing the U.S. Physicians who are attuned to that distress can help health care system is considerably slower and hard- patients to better cope with their illnesses, she says. er than, say, turning around an aircraft carrier. The growing interest in integrated care for the Back in the classroom, Rakel asks students to whole person is also connected to the Affordable consider, Why do you want to be healthy? If you

46 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 have your health, what are the most important THE DARK SIDE OF MEDICAL SCHOOL things that will enable you to do? Nearly half of medical school students experience burn- That sense of meaning and purpose in their lives is their spirituality — an idea that is clinically sep- out, and 11 percent have had suicidal thoughts, accord- arate from religion. Some people find fulfillment in ing to Liselotte Dyrbye MD’96, a physician at the Mayo church or prayer, some in family, and others in nature or in a hobby. Having a purpose “is what gets Clinic and the primary investigator on a longitudinal people to get up and move,” Rakel says. “You can’t study of quality of life and depression among future phy- do health without that. You can do disease. Health unites; disease segregates.” sicians. Dyrbye also found that as rates of burnout in- Kristin Brown Lipanot MDx’18, a second-year crease, professionalism and empathy for patients drop. student who took the class last year and is now a teaching assistant, says the class helped her answer “Really, for medical students, it’s a constellation of be- a critical question: What are the things in life that ing emotionally exhausted — ‘I feel like I’m at the end of keep me going when things get hard? For her — aside from helping others — the list includes family, my rope’ — and then what’s called depersonalization,” she nature, exercise, and a sense of balance in life. says. “It’s like being callous or detached toward patients.” “It’s very easy, in a busy medical student’s sched- Dyrbye believes that the stress of medical school has ule, to not take time to reflect on what brought me to medical school, and the parts of me that are not sci- gotten worse than when she was a student. In addition ence- and medicine-driven,” she says. Those parts to the sheer volume of academic material that must be of the psyche are fully engaged in a class session on mystery and awe, which concentrates on “what mastered and tough competition for residencies, stu- science can’t explain,” she says. “Honor that, and be dents also have a lot more debt. “Over the last decade, okay with it. Some things just happen.” That is an important lesson when a patient the average cost of attending a public medical school doesn’t respond to treatment. It’s easy for a physi- has increased by 286 percent,” she says, “and this debt cian to get frustrated in that situation, possibly even to the point of wanting to avoid the patient, Carlson load is contributing to burnout.” says. Remembering mystery, in more prosaic terms, Would-be physicians enter medical school with bet- may help a doctor to say, “Here’s what could be go- ter mental health profiles and quality of life than other ing on, but it’s possible I’m missing something.” Medical education can be dehumanizing, says U.S. college graduates, Dyrbye says. But after they’re en- medical student Katharine Kelly MDx’17, who also rolled, the prevalence of burnout and depression is much is a teaching assistant in the class. The Healer’s Art gives students a chance to explore their emotions higher when compared with peers in their age group. and “maintain a sense of wholeness and humanity Many medical students are aware of tools for coping alongside our newfound clinical medical knowledge.” Kelly particularly values the small-group dis- with stress, such as meditation or exercise, Dyrbye says, cussions that conclude every session. When a few “but nonetheless, courses like The Healer’s Art help re- students and a faculty member or community physician talk in a confidential setting, “you’re not trying mind them of some of those self-care skills. It also helps to fix other people, but you listen and support your remind them of why they went to medical school, and peers,” she says. “It’s a warm environment. It’s real- helps them to keep their eye on the ball and really main- ly welcoming.” Away from class, as students go about their tain a patient-centered, empathetic sort of viewpoint.” days, learning to become healers, they carry At the same time, Dyrbye says medical schools with them tangible reminders of the concepts they are learning. When they reach into the should pair wellness programming with a critical look at pockets of their white coats, they find a small the curricular pressures that are driving the high rate of stone — what Rakel calls “a meanings anchor” — passed out during the first class session to burnout. She suggests that schools consider adopting remind them of what gives them strength in the measures such as converting to a pass-fail grading sys- face of difficulty. They also find a colorful plush heart that nudges them to remember what to call tem in the first two years, evaluating courses to see how upon as they greet the next patient: empathy.• they can be improved, and optimizing faculty support and supervision of students. David Lewellen is a writer in Glendale, Wisconsin, who often covers health and spirituality. NIKI DENISON

On Wisconsin 47 OnAlumniAlumni News at Home and Abroad

DANA CRARY Building Badger Leaders Could you use new tools to enhance your personal and professional life? Return to campus October 27–29 for Building Badger Leaders. F. King Alexander PhD’96, president of Louisiana State University, will 1,400 be the conference’s keynote Attendees expect- speaker. Visit uwalumni.com/ ed for Grandpar- events/badger-leaders-confer- ents University this year ence for more information.

1,032 CHRISHOWARD Grandparents University guests Thank a Badger Day who are repeat Students send shout-outs to their favorite alumni. attendees this year Students don’t always get a chance to thank the alumni who fund scholarships and help keep the university running. So WAA, the UW Foundation, and six campus partners recently set up thirteen stations where students could write postcards to thank donors who gave $100 or less. The students downed some two hundred gallons 29Number of states, of free coffee and recorded their gratitude on more than 3,500 post- plus 297 towns cards. Some of them included drawings on their notes, such as the and 5 countries, undergrad who used a heart for a signature, writing simply, “Thank represented by GPU attendees you so much for investing in my dreams!”

Thank you for supporting our At a time when so many have so wonderful university. Your little, it is so wonderful to know 923 Babcock ice cream contributions create opportuni- that there are generous people sundaes, along ties for many students such as out there willing to support with 427 root beer myself. Basically, you’re like a higher education! Thank you for floats, consumed San Francisco Treat superhero. your generosity. at last year’s Chill More than 300 alumni celebrat- Proud to be a Badger! Adam Lieberman with Bucky GPU ed the All Ways Forward cam- Nathaniel Boehler social paign at San Francisco’s historic Rather than spend all my time Palace Hotel in March, enjoying Thank you so much for all that working to support myself, a strolling supper, interactive you do for our school. I am see- my scholarship allowed me to exhibits (including the robot ing my dreams come true before become involved in research, station shown above), and the my eyes. I appreciate your sup- tutor, and take an active role chance to pose for a photo in port of my education and hope I, within the student community, front of a Bascom Hill backdrop. too, can pay it forward one day. as well as studying abroad. John ’55 and Tashia ’55 Mor- Jordan Colin Korlesky gridge kicked off the program. The event also featured William UW-Madison is a special place. Thank you very much for your Cronon ’76, professor of history; Thanks to alumni and their gifts, gift. I am proud to be part of the Richard Davidson, founder of the I will be the first in my family to UW community and realize the Center for Healthy Minds; and graduate from college next year. tremendous importance of the Chancellor Rebecca Blank, who I thank you sincerely and wish generosity of good people like announced that the university is you well. you! If I ever finish this PhD, I nearly halfway to its campaign Meg Volgren will be happy to pay it forward. goal of $3.2 billion. Anonymous

48 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Exhibition Ws Around the World

1 2 3 1 Rome, Italy 2 Quito, Ecuador OnAlumni 3 Brisbane, Australia 4 Shanghai, China 5 Lima, Peru 6 Seville, Spain 7 Delhi, India 8 Legon, Ghana 9 Sydney, Australia 10 Budapest, Hungary 11 Paris, France 12 London, England

Source: International Academic Programs 4 5 6 social media accounts

7 8 9

10 11 12

It’s become a signature display of UW pride: Badgers hold Bielema had the idea to change the U into a W. “When we up both hands with thumbs touching and index fingers won that game, the kids flashed the W all over the place,” pointing outward to form a W. Jubilant fans “throw up the he says. The symbol took off after Bielema used it in a Big W” for TV cameras or while posing for photos. Former UW Ten Network commercial and popular defensive end J.J. football coach Bret Bielema takes credit for popularizing Watt x’12 made it a regular habit for the cameras. Now the the gesture when the Badgers played Miami in a bowl game familiar hand sign can be seen around the world, thanks to in 2009. While Miami fans formed a U for university, study-abroad students and other far-flung Badgers.

On Wisconsin 49 Tradition SOAR BRYCE RICHTER

For most Badgers, it’s the first WHAT’S YOUR SOAR started when the UW climbing wall, or play air hockey time to meet other new stu- FAVORITE UW ended in-person registration in inside The Sett. dents. It’s the first chance to TRADITION? the late 1980s. The program saw Parents of new students can schedule classes. And it’s the Tell On Wisconsin big changes in 2012, expanding attend sessions tailored special- first opportunity to learn the at onwisconsin@ academic advising across two ly for them that discuss campus lyrics to “Varsity.” uwalumni.com, days to give students more time safety and how relationships Each summer, Student and we’ll find out to process new information. with their students may change Orientation, Advising, and if it’s just a fond Freshmen, transfer students, during the next four years. Registration — better known as memory or if it’s and international students For still part of cam- Aaron Nichols ’16, SOAR — introduces incoming pus life today. attend sessions at Union South leading SOAR sessions has students to university life. that cover academic and extra- given him the chance to get “We want students feeling curricular opportunities, guided students excited about being like they’re coming to an insti- by student leaders from CFYE. Badgers. “I just like to see the tution where they can really Campus departments also set up potential that a new student see themselves fitting in and shop to inform new students of has to succeed at this university having an impact,” says Carren their services. and the person that they can Martin, director of the Center During evening sessions, become,” he says. for the First-Year Experience students gather in small groups, “On a really large campus (CFYE), which runs the pro- meeting people who will live like this,” says Martin, “some gram. “SOAR has a concrete, in their residence halls, and common experiences and practical nature. But it also starting conversations about something that students can use needs to inspire a connection to topics including alcohol, sexual to relate to one another on a campus that’s comforting and assault, and diversity issues. The real basic level make it a really engaging and encouraging active night wraps up with the chance important tradition.” participation.” to bowl, scale Union South’s DANIEL MCKAY ’16

50 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnAlumni Class Notes

Early Years Behavior, and Communication which debuted in December and Belated happy-birthday wishes Center to work with children, will be rebroadcast eight more go out to two Badgers — Paul carry out research, and serve as times during 2016. Why does Weber ’39 of West Grove, BOOK NEWS a worldwide institute on savant he merit his own documentary? Pennsylvania; and Marvin After authors syndrome. “The challenge,” he Nyiri has made a name for him- Creamer MS’53 of Pine or publicists told the Fond du Lac Reporter, self — obviously! — as the San Knoll Shores, North Carolina — complete and “is how to tap into the potential Diego Zoo’s beloved, longtime who became centenarians in submit our book- and hidden talent within all of art instructor extraordinaire; news form at January. Weber was a longtime uwalumni.com/ us.” Treffert is currently focus- a teacher and art consultant for DuPont engineer and a dedi- go/bookshelf, ing on acquired savants: ordi- the San Diego Unified School cated leader of the Wisconsin we post the sub- nary people who become sudden District; and the creator of Alumni Association’s Delaware missions to the geniuses following an injury or inventive, Modernist sculptures. Valley chapter. Robert Kohn Wisconsin-alumni central nervous system event. “Better late than never” ’56, also of West Grove; and section of the The new Fruzen Intermedi- is how Milwaukeean (Andrew) Richard Brown ’79 of Garnet book website ate School — which opened in Andreas Wesserle MS’59 Valley, Pennsylvania, teamed up Goodreads at Beloit, Wisconsin, this fall — sums up his submission. Start- to share Weber’s birthday news. goodreads.com/ is a “work of art,” according to ing in 1986, he taught courses wisalumni. Creamer put his substantial A handful of the its namesake, Francis Fruzen on American politics and the long-distance-sailing experience books posted MA’58. It honors his career history of U.S. foreign policy to the test when, in December there also appear as an army veteran, teacher, in the political science college 1982, he embarked on a journey in each issue Wisconsin Education Assoca- of Ludwig-Maximilians-Univer- to circumnavigate the globe us- of this print tion president, principal, and sität in Munich. He recollects ing no navigational instruments magazine. school district administrator. that, while lecturing, he rarely — and returned triumphantly “It’s a fulfillment of the Ameri- missed the chance to describe in May 1984. His adventure is can dream to come to Beloit to the goings-on at Badger foot- chronicled at globestar.org. CLASS NOTES teach, doing my job,” he told the ball games and to sing — “to a SUBMISSIONS Catholic Herald. “Then fifty-five stunned or fascinated student 50s classnotes@ years later, [to] be recognized audience — [a] rip-roaring “I may be the oldest active uwalumni.com by the school district and the ‘On, Wisconsin!’ ” He continues [scuba] diver, averaging two Class Notes, community — and get a school to write and publish, mostly to four dives per month,” wrote Wisconsin Alumni named after me.” in German. eighty-eight-year-old Wilton Association, Milwaukee business attorney in November. 650 North Lake is having a Nelson ’54 Street, Madison, John Galanis ’59 60s “On the Indonesian live-abroad WI 53706-1476 whirlwind year as president of Joan Baier Peterson ’61, trip I just returned from, I did the American Hellenic Edu- MS’72, PhD’75 and her Eat twenty-one dives. … I have cational Progressive Associa- Smart Culinary Tours are bound logged 2,106 dives to date.” DEATH NOTICES tion (AHEPA). In January, for for Indonesia in August and A General Motors safety engi- AND NAME, example, he was part of a Greek Turkey in September. As the neer, sheriff’s department depu- ADDRESS, American and Jewish Amer- creator of the Eat Smart series ty, and deputy medical examiner TELEPHONE, ican delegation that met with of culinary travel guidebooks in Michigan before retiring in AND EMAIL the prime ministers of Greece and the author of many, she Leesburg, Florida, Nelson dives UPDATES and Israel and the president of worked closely with her Indone- in his state and worldwide. “It’s alumnichanges@ Cyprus. AHEPA was founded in sia-trip coleader — chef, restau- like you’re floating on a cloud,” uwalumni.com 1922 in Atlanta to help Greek rateur, TV host, and Indonesian he explains. He’s also a longtime Alumni Changes, Americans assimilate at a time “national treasure” William painter who incorporates some Wisconsin Alumni when immigrants were threat- Wongso — while researching of the underwater creatures he’s Association, ened by the Ku Klux Klan. Today her guide about that country. photographed into his canvases. 650 North Lake the mission of its five hundred– Peterson is also the president Psychiatrist and world- Street, Madison, plus chapters, says Galanis, is of Madison’s Ginkgo Press. WI 53706-1476 renowned autism and savant- to “promote Hellenism (ancient Seattle King County Realtors syndrome expert Darold 608-308-5420 Greek ideals and culture), (SKCR) has presented its 2015 Treffert ’55, MD’58 was or toll free education, philanthropy, civic Lifetime Achievement Award to delighted to announce the spring 888-WIS-ALUM responsibility, [and] individual Bellevue, Washington, attorney (947-2586) 2016 opening of the Treffert and family excellence.” and writer Alan Tonnon ’63, Center in Fond du Lac, Wiscon- From Joe Nyiri ’59, MS’61 JD’66 for his “myriad contribu- sin. It houses an autism/savant came the good news that KPBS tions to the real estate industry” library with state-of-the-art in San Diego has commissioned since his initial involvement technology, a children’s acade- a half-hour documentary about with SKCR in 1977. Tonnon’s my, and the Agnesian Autism, him called The Art of Seeing, many leadership roles include

On Wisconsin 51 Recognition Thomas Kalil ’85 JAMES KEGLEY creating the Washington Center for Real Estate Research, the Commercial Brokers Associa- tion, and the Washington Real- tors’ Legal Hotline. Jay Ross ’64 — a longtime Chicago entertainment attorney who’s represented some big names in the biz and calls himself the city’s “oldest rappin’ lawyer” — doesn’t need On Wis- consin to do his talking for him! See what we mean in his You- Tube video, “Rappin’ Lawyer.” Like other students of the late sixties, Josephine Dono- van MA’67, PhD’71 will never THE NEXT BIG BET forget those turbulent times on When you ask Thomas Kalil ’85 the customary Washington, DC, question the UW campus, and she’s now — “What do you do?” — the simple answer is that he advises the presi- captured them in a fictional, dent and his senior advisers on issues related to science and technology. short-story account of the anti- Some days that means welcoming kids to the White House Science Fair, war movement based in part on and other days it means visiting the nation’s newest innovation center. her experiences and viewpoint But the reality is much larger than that: as deputy director for policy as a TA at the time. Her piece, for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Kalil tackles “The Problem of Evil: Campus, moon shots, grand challenges, and thinking broadly about which big 1968,” appeared this fall as part research bets the federal government should make. As an example, he of Tikkun magazine’s online cites the early exploration of the Internet: “What are the investments we content. Today Donovan is a should be making today so that the United States leads in the industries University of Maine professor and the jobs of the future?” emerita of English who lives in Under former president Bill Clinton, Kalil worked on the National Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Nanotechnology Initiative and a range of other issues as deputy Elaine Seidel Cusker assistant for technology and economic policy and deputy director of the ’68’s spouse of forty-seven White House National Economic Council (NEC). While at the University years, Joseph Cusker, said he’d of California, Berkeley, he launched Big Ideas@Berkeley, which provides risk a nepotism accusation — support for multidisciplinary student projects aimed at solving economic and we think he did the right and societal challenges. thing — to tell us that the State That multidisciplinary approach informs his current work, which University of New York (SUNY) includes serving as senior adviser for science, technology, and innovation has honored Elaine with a 2015 for the NEC. On major initiatives — such as the vice president’s “cancer SUNY Chancellor’s Award for moon shot” and NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge — the goal is to bridge Excellence in Professional efforts in the private and public sectors to solve big societal problems. Service. It recognizes her “I think it’s very powerful when you can line up two things: one is an current work as the associate ambitious goal, and the second is a story about why now,” Kalil says. He dean for academic affairs and points to the cancer moon shot: recent advances have engineered white undergraduate education at the blood cells that can destroy tumors but leave healthy cells untouched. University at Buffalo and her This has led to longer survival times and provided a way to capture the twenty-year career there as public’s imagination. Instead of using scientific jargon, Kalil likes to an administrator and leader translate research by emphasizing things like the fact that we are now of university initiatives. “storing the Library of Congress on a device the size of a sugar cube” or The National Academy “detecting cancerous tumors before they [are] visible to the human eye.” of Public Administration has Given how rapidly technology changes, the overarching question been enriched by the induction about where to put our resources has also changed. “As science, technol- of Robert Strauss MA’68, ogy, and innovation become increasingly powerful, in a lot of cases, the PhD’70, a professor of econom- relevant question is no longer ‘What can we do?’ — because we can do a ics and public policy at Carne- lot,” he says. “The question is, ‘What should we do?’ ” gie Mellon University’s Heinz MELANIE FONDER KAYE College in Pittsburgh. He’s also earned the Steven Gold Award from the Association for Public

52 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnAlumni Class Notes

Policy Analysis and Manage- Brooklyn Bridge Park, and par- Journal article by lead author ment, the Southern Economic ticipated on many boards and Koch. The conclusion? Four or Association’s Georgescu-Roegen committees in his home commu- more tattoos may convey some Prize, and presidential pens nity of Weston, Connecticut. WELCOME, ALL! women’s inherent high self-es- from former presidents Richard CK (Chung-Kong) Chow The Wisconsin teem and others’ empowerment Nixon and Gerald Ford. ’72 received a helpful tip before Alumni Asso- following adversity or trauma. he was knighted by Britain’s ciation (WAA) Koch is a professor of sociology Queen Elizabeth II: despite what encourages and associate chair at Texas 70s diversity, inclu- Alumni of the Farm and Indus- people do in the movies, look up, sivity, nondis- Tech University in Lubbock. try Short Course (FISC) — an not down. Named one of the most crimination, and Mark Stromberg MS’75, intensive, fifteen-week program powerful Chinese men in the participation PhD’79 put his zoology degrees that’s now in its 132nd year West by Hong Kong media, the by all alumni, to work as the director of the at the UW — toasted FISC’s Hong Kong native and current students, and Wyoming Natural Heritage proud history at their January Londoner has become Sir CK friends of Program, as the Nature Conser- reunion and gave Wisconsin Chow for his contributions to UW-Madison vancy’s Rocky Mountain land state representative and former industry in the UK — which now in its activities. steward, at Audubon’s Research farmer Lee Nerison FISC’70 include chairing the Hong Kong Ranch, and as the resident direc- of Westby their Service to Exchanges and Clearing stock tor of the Hastings Natural His- Agriculture award. He chairs the exchange. tory Reserve. He’s also served Wisconsin Assembly Committee Mark Larson MS’72, on the Organization of Biological on Agriculture. Gail Hill ’71 PhD’80 joined the faculty Field Stations’ board and as a and her husband, Jim Brown, of Humboldt State University WISCONSIN University of Arizona adjunct ALUMNI received the Friends of Short in 1975 and has now joined ASSOCIATION professor, and he’s written Course honor. Hill’s father and the ranks of its journalism (WAA) extensively on native grassland grandfather were both FISC professors emeriti. He’s also MEMBERSHIP ecology. Now retired in Sonoita, alumni, and the couple contrib- a photographer in Arcata, Thank you, loyal Arizona, Stromberg is involved utes generously to the FISC California. Happy trails! members, for, with research at the Southwest scholarship program. They live The Humboldt Foundation well, being loyal Research Station. “The UW and in Kent, Washington. in Bonn, Germany, grants its members. You the people of Wisconsin gave “He’s back … and crazier Humboldt Research Award to know that we love me such a great training; it was you! Nonmem- than ever!” This could refer to academics whose discover- bers may wish to critical to my career,” he says. “I a lot of people, actually, but it ies, theories, or insights are consider all the will always have a Bucky T-shirt comes from ad copy about the significantly enhancing their swell reasons to hiding under there somewhere.” comic-book superhero Badger. disciplines. As one such award become members The world’s largest scientific As one of the personalities of a recipient and the inaugural at uwalumni.com/ society — the American Chemi- man who has multiple-personal- holder of the University of membership/ cal Society — can now boast Lee ity disorder, Badger is a snarling, California, San Diego’s En- benefits, then join Latimer PhD’76, the head of unhinged hulk whose hair could dowed Chair in Modern Chinese our merry band at chemistry at NeurOp in Oakland, do with a bit of combing. Writer History, Distinguished Profes- uwalumni.com/ California, as a director at large. membership. Mike Baron ’71 of Fort Collins, sor Paul Pickowicz PhD’73 “The transformations in the Colorado, began publishing will work with scholars at the employment landscape for chem- Badger’s adventures — set in a University of Heidelberg’s Insti- ists at all stages of their careers faithfully depicted Madison — in tute of Sinology to explore the are critical issues,” he says. 1983. The character vanished for impact of the silent-era movies For her work as a PR profes- a time but reappeared in Febru- that were produced in early- sional for thirty-plus years, ary in both resurrected and new twentieth-century Shanghai. a longtime mentor, and a gener- forms. Fans of Badger, rejoice! What correlates with ous volunteer, Barbara Arnold Election to the American women who have four or more ’77 of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Institute of Architects’ College tattoos? According to research has become one of only thir- of Fellows recognizes architects’ coconducted by Jerome Koch ty-six people to earn the Public achievements as individuals and ’75, they report having the high- Relations Society of America’s their contributions to archi- est levels of self-esteem but were Lund Public Service Award. tecture and society nationally also four times more likely to “Volunteering is in my DNA,” — and Allen Swerdlowe ’71 say they had attempted suicide. says Arnold, but she shares is now among this august group. These paradoxical results — the credit with those who have The former Daily Cardinal asso- gleaned from surveys of nearly “supported me in my efforts to ciate editor has helped to build 2,400 college-aged people at touch lives and build bridges in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, six American universities — the communities I call home.” served as a founding trustee of appeared in a 2015 Social Science Nozomu Miyajima ’78

On Wisconsin 53 OnAlumni Class Notes has been a cheesemaking tion: Los Angeles Chapter. Patrick Cassity ’89 of Win- pioneer in Japan since the late Contributions to liability law field, Illinois, has been promoted 1970s. After studying French and tort reform have earned to group executive VP of Parsons production methods, he strove Mark Behrens ’87 the 2015 Infrastructure, a business unit to create original, natural Individual Achievement Award of Parsons Corporation. It offers cheese products with local roots — and a crystal gavel — from engineering and management and global appeal through his the U.S. Chamber Institute for services in the aviation, rail and Hokkaido-based Kyodogakusha Legal Reform. He’s a partner transit, transportation systems, Shintoku Farm. His internation- with the Shook, Hardy & Bacon Jay Ross and bridge and tunnel markets. al-award-winning Sakura — a law firm in Washington, DC. ’64 is a white mold cheese garnished Duly proud dad Edwin Beh- longtime 90s with a pickled cherry blossom rens ’60, MS’61 of Great Falls, A 2015 National Endowment for — was served at a G8 summit in Virginia, shared this good news. Chicago the Humanities Public Scholar Japan and joined Japan Airlines’ Peace of mind can come from enter- grant is giving Aaron Cohen first-class in-flight meals in being in the hands of a great tainment ’91 an uninterrupted 2016 to 2012. Miyajima employs many physican, and Kelli Kellbach attorney work on his book, Move On Up: workers who have physical and Heindel MS’87, MD’90 is one Chicago Soul Music and the Rise mental challenges to handcraft of them: she’s earned the Wis- who calls of Black Cultural Power, which his cheese and offers events and consin Academy of Family Phy- himself the is slated for publication in 2017. classes to his community. sicians’ 2015 Family Physician city’s “old- The grant program supports New to the board of Finan- of the Year Award. Heindel sees est rappin’ authors while they research cial Fitness Group — a company patients at and is the assistant and write nonfiction works that that offers employers online medical director of ThedaCare lawyer.” “demonstrate the importance tools to help their staffs better Physicians–Appleton North. of the role of the humanities manage their personal finances She also volunteers at a local in public life.” Cohen is an ad- and investments — is Patrick clinic for underserved patients, junct professor of English with Quirk ’79 of Lake Oswego, mentors students who are the City Colleges of Chicago’s Oregon. A software-industry interested in a medical career, Truman College. executive and CEO for three- and is an advocate for work/life Here’s what’s up with some plus decades, he’s currently the balance for physicians. “It’s like Badger attorneys from the ’90s founder and general partner of The initials CFRE follow you’re — and beyond. Felicitations to the angel investment firm ORCA the name of Susan Berse floating on new partners Chandra Flint Equities. Quirk enjoys mentor- Nieberle ’88 now that she’s ’91 at Neal & Harwell in Nash- ing Badger entrepreneurs, and become a Certified Fund Raising a cloud.” ville; Sarah Estreen Bunce the UW’s College of Engineering Executive. She’s putting her new Wilton Nelson ’54 ’97 at Tucker Ellis in Cleveland; honored him with a 2015 Distin- credential to work as a major Patrick Gallagher ’97 at guished Achievement Award. gifts officer for Mount Mary Uni- Duane Morris in Chicago; and versity in Milwaukee and says, Daniel Glass ’08, whose part- 80s “I am committed to the highest nership changed the name of Bill Reilly ’84 is using his standards in philanthropy.” his Lancaster, Wisconsin, firm agricultural economics degree to As the new associate VP to Urban, Kussmaul, Muller & manage price risk as the Schwan for research planning in Vir- CK Chow Glass. Rachel Clark Hughey Food Company’s chief procure- ginia Tech’s Office of the Vice ’72 received ’00, a shareholder with ment officer. He also works with President for Research, Eliza- a helpful Merchant & Gould, is one of the nonprofits; chairs the Marshall beth Tranter MA’88 works Minneapolis/St. Paul Business [Minnesota] Municipal Utilities with university researchers tip before Journal’s 40 Under 40 for 2016. board; and is a hobbyist bee- and funding partners to expand he was And, congrats to these new keeper who teaches children the Blacksburg university’s knighted associates: Bryna Shmerling about the benefits of pollinators. research portfolio and optimize by Britain’s ’06 in Ober Kaler’s Washington, After thirty years in the the role of research in regional DC, office;Samantha Overly apparel industry, John Mills economic development. Tranter Queen Amore ’10, JD’14 at O’Neil, Jr. ’85 sewed up that career has stepped up from her latest Elizabeth II. Cannon, Hollman, DeJong and became the chief market- post as chief of staff in the same & Laing in Milwaukee; and in ing officer at the independent office, and she’s taught at the Chicago, Joyce Williams mortgage-brokerage firm South University of Wisconsin and ’10, JD’15 at Segal McCam- Bay Equity Lending in Redondo Indiana University. bridge Singer and Mahoney, Beach, California. And — we love Serving most recently as and Alison Scheffert ’12 at this! — he’s the new president of senior vice president and road Gould & Ratner. the Wisconsin Alumni Associa- and highway division manager, Does Wisconsin provide

54 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Recognition Nicole Rocklin ’01 JORDAN STRAUSS/INVISION/AP an appealing environment for businesses? The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has explored this question through its Entrepreneurons program. A January panel discussion about mergers and acquisitions featured Kaz Hirao MBA’91 of Cellular Dynamics, Nicholas Caruccio PhD’96 of Epicentre, and Scott Johnson PhD’97 of Luminex Corporation. The February discussion — about choosing the Badger State as a business home — included Gilson’s Kevin Barrett ’81, MA’98, PhD’04; Starting- Block’s Scott Resnick ’09; IN THE SPOTLIGHT Understory’s Alex Kubicek ’10, It’s just a short time after winning an Oscar, but life isn’t all that different MS’13; and Zendesk’s Jillana for Nicole Rocklin ’01 (second from right). Peterson ’10. BioForward CEO “I woke up and had to make my kid breakfast and sweep the floor,” Lisa Leemon Johnson ’83 Rocklin says. “Day-to-day life doesn’t change that much.” moderated both events. Yes, many things remain the same, but there is a bit more of a spot- Shawn Folz ’93 is a fellow light, thanks to the movie Spotlight. Rocklin was one of the producers of the Northern Manhattan of the film, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in February. Fellowship, a nine-month pro- Spotlight, starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and gram that’s part of the Jewish Liev Schreiber, tells the story of the Boston Globe journalists who uncov- Community Relations Council ered sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The movie received six of New York. The fellowship Oscar nominations and also won for Best Original Screenplay. seeks to advance the next gener- Rocklin grew up in California and graduated with honors, double- ation of community-organizing majoring in history and Afro-American studies. and nonprofit leaders and to “My college experience was one of the highlights of my life. It’s the challenge participants from only time in life [when] you have that much freedom to explore so many a multiplicity of ethnic, cultur- things,” she says. “I miss it.” al, and religious affiliations to After graduation, Rocklin moved back to California. She knew she broaden their coalitions. Folz wanted to work in entertainment but wasn’t quite sure in what way. After has been involved in nonprof- working for an entertainment law firm, she took a job with Jerry Bruck- its in her NYC community as a heimer Films. She then started her own production studio and partnered copresident of Friends of 187, with fellow producer Blye Faust. a consultant for the Fort Tryon “We’ve been focused on smaller sorts of projects,” Rocklin says. Park Trust, and a former staff “Some people put twenty things out there. We don’t do that. It’s not who member of two film festivals. we are. We want to tell stories about real people.” Don Smithmier ’93 — It took seven years to bring Spotlight to the screen. “It was never a a vocalist and keyboardist question of whether we were going to tell the story,” she says. “We had to who created the country-rock tell the story.” band Rocket Club — originally In an era of shrinking newsrooms, Rocklin hopes the movie reminds moved to Minnesota to become people of the importance of journalism. She sees the Flint water crisis as a history teacher, but … three another example of why good journalism is necessary and says that the top-100 Billboard-charting best thing people can do is buy their local newspaper. songs later, he’s also an entre- “If the Boston Globe didn’t have an investigation team, we might not preneur in charge of three (so know the story. As we all know, knowledge is power. This story spread far) Minneapolis-based com- throughout the world,” Rocklin says. “There are still so many stories to panies: Rumble, a recording tell. If we don’t have reporters investigating, who is going to tell them?” studio that primarily produces KÄRI KNUTSON commercials; The Big Know, an online-learning company; and GoKart Labs, a digital-innovation enterprise. We heard about Tony

On Wisconsin 55 Recognition Carey Dunai Lohrenz ’90 MAGENTO Capriolo ’94 from his wife, Sky (Skyann) Ziskin Capriolo ’95, who says, “He’s taken his degree from the UW and … become a well-respected leader in the Chicago market. His career has touched sports, cameras in the courtroom, news management, politics, and special events.” Currently the executive producer of sports and special projects for NBC Universal, Tony won his second regional Emmy in November, and Sky works in marketing. “We are proud UW alums to this day,” she says, “and are grateful for FLYING HIGH our experience at the J-School.” Carey Dunai Lohrenz ’90 knows you’ve been afraid sometimes. She has If you’ve seen Disney’s been, too. Zootopia, then you’ve seen She also knows the life-or-death meaning of teamwork. On the the work of screenwriter and deck of an aircraft carrier. In the pitch-black night. In the middle of the producer Phil Johnston ’94 Pacific Ocean. writ large — and animated. He And, she knows that with grit and honor, you can work through that began his career as a TV news fear — even at thirty thousand feet. Lohrenz made history as the first reporter but eventually followed female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. She navigated a path his heart to study filmmaking through military service with nearly every kind of fear-inducing chal- and got his first big break with lenge: physical, mental, legal, political. Cedar Rapids. Johnston, of Los “People think that fighter pilots aren’t afraid of anything, and yet Angeles, has also been a story that’s not true,” she says. “It’s that we’ve learned and developed the ability and screenplay writer for the to work through fear, and flip it, and make it actionable, so that it works Oscar-nominated Wreck-It for us, and not against us.” Ralph, The Brothers Grimsby, Lohrenz left the navy in 1999. Today, as a speaker and consultant and many other projects. for the business world, she translates the soaring highs and lows of her If you have colleagues or aviation career into powerful insights about teamwork and leadership. friends at Philadelphia Universi- In her book Fearless Leadership, she offers clues to her motivation: ty, encourage them to welcome she’s a former UW varsity rower and a native of Green Bay, Wisconsin — (Siuwa) Monica Lam PhD’94 “a place where people tend to have a tremendous work ethic,” she writes. when she assumes her new post Through her travels, Lohrenz has discovered that this “Midwest- as dean of the School of Busi- ern stoicism ... that ability to just do the work with no fanfare” may be ness this fall. Lam has been the uniquely Wisconsin. But, she warns, that attitude may actually be an associate dean for graduate and unexpected disadvantage in today’s workforce, filled with noise and external programs in the College often-unwarranted self-promotion. of Business Administration at “Those of us who grow up in a system thinking, ‘All I have do is California State University, perform, and my performance will speak for itself’ can actually be left Sacramento since 2009. behind,” says Lohrenz, who’s embraced social media as one way to tell Congratulations to David her own story. Padget ’94! The UW Actuarial The mother of four loves to visit UW-Madison, where her eldest child, Alumni Club’s founder and Alexandra Lohrenz x’17, is the newest Badger in a family of grads that president, the Wisconsin also includes Lohrenz’s father and brother. Alumni Association: Houston Back home in Memphis, Lohrenz is, unsurprisingly, flying fast. Her Chapter’s past president, and consultancy takes her worldwide; she’s launched her debut audiobook; the Society of Actuaries fellow her second book is due out this fall; and she’s pursuing an MBA with the has been promoted to VP of ultimate goal of a PhD in organizational psychology. financial planning and analysis “Anything great that you’re going to want to accomplish is going to in AIG’s consumer insurance involve fear and discomfort, and making other people uncomfortable,” she division in Houston. says. “But you have to go for it anyway. That’s how you make a difference.” ESPN’s vice president of KATE KAIL DIXON ’01, MA’07 corporate communications, Katina Vlahadamis Arnold

56 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 OnAlumni Class Notes

’95 (@KatinaESPN), is now and cochairs its gender diversity gy division of the UW’s Carbone following On Wisconsin on committee. Cancer Center, and Seaborne Twitter (just sayin’), where she CPA Brad Netzel ’99, is a PA in the UW Hospital and describes herself this way: “Wis- MAcc’00 has been elected a Clinics’ Breast Center. co grad & lover of WI sports. partner at Sikich, which offers After Ben Schumacher ESPN PR biz, espn around globe, accounting, audit, tax, technol- ’02, ’08 and his wife, Jessica, digital. News & entertainment ogy, and investment-banking became foster parents in Jan- junkie. Greek American. Mom of services. He specializes in uary 2013, they learned of five two LAX girls. wannabe runner. accounting and audit matters in siblings in need of foster care. Bristol, Connecticut.” its Milwaukee-area office. They welcomed three in April New Yorker ALUM WHAT? The Baltimore-based public 2013 and soon advocated for Stephen Have you ever Palgon ’95 and his TV wondered what to accounting and business con- the other two to join them. That production company, Star call yourself as a sulting firm Ellin & Tucker is summer, the children were re- Crossed Pictures, have produced graduate of this where CPA Jared Rosen ’99 united. When their birth parents documentaries, features, and fine university? leads the employee benefit plan had another baby, he joined the branded entertainment for a Here are some services group and has been Schumachers as well — making variety of TV networks. Of late, choices: one promoted to director. He also six little ones by the end of 2014 he’s collaborated with Smoke- female grad is chairs the employee benefit — and all of the adoptions were house Pictures on America’s an alumna; one plan committee of DFK, a global finalized in November 2015. male grad is an Game and the Iran Hostage alumnus. The association of accounting firms The large, happy family lives in Crisis: a documentary chroni- plural alumni is and business advisers. Cincinnati, where Ben works for cling how an American reporter often mistakenly New to the Madison office GE Aviation. stationed in Tehran made and used in a singular of Cedar Corporation is Josh “For leadership in standard- smuggled a crude audiotape of context, but it Weiss ’99, a project manager ization of cellular systems,” the 1980 Super Bowl to the hos- actually refers in its structural/transportation Jianzhong Zhang PhD’03 of tages in the American embassy. to the members group. The company provides Samsung Research America has Directed by Tate Donovan and of an all-male engineering, building and interi- been named an IEEE fellow: an narrated by George Clooney, the graduate group or design, surveying, landscape honor conferred on a select few or a mixed group film aired on the NFL Network of male and architecture, and other services. each year by the “world’s leading in December and hit prime time female grads. professional organization for in January. The members 00s advancing technology for human- There isn’t a small-business of an all-female Civil-engineering firm Manhard ity.” He lives in Plano, Texas. owner alive who wouldn’t want graduate group Consulting is brimming One in seven adults in Dane word-of-mouth referrals, right? are alumnae. with newly hired Badgers. County, Wisconsin, struggles That’s what three Badgers are James (Matt) Nelson ’01 is with low literacy — and the banking on. Martin Machtan a senior land planner, and Paul problem has worsened — but ’98, JD’02; John David Lee Fredrickson ’15 is a staff Jeff Burkhart MS’04 is work- ’02, MS’14, both of Marshfield, X-PLANATION engineer in its Lombard, Illinois, ing hard to improve that statistic Wisconsin; and current UW An x preceding office, whileKatie Bolger ’15, and the lives behind it. As the student Killian McKiernan a degree year Christopher Shandor ’15, executive director of the Liter- MBAx’17 have developed the indicates that and Daniel Singer ’15 are staff acy Network of Dane County, Has Karma web app, which they the person did engineers at Manhard’s Vernon his current focuses are recruit- call the “simplest offline referral not complete, Hills, Illinois, headquarters. ing more volunteer tutors and program.” Through it, business or has not yet About half of all women carrying out a capital campaign. owners send promotion offers completed, who are diagnosed with cancer Burkhart’s career includes that degree at to current customers who can, UW-Madison. experience sexual problems program-management experi- in turn, share them with others after treatment, yet there are ence in government, health care, from any device. few programs to help them. education, and not-for-profit For her exemplary volunteer That’s why Joanne Rash ’01, organizations. service, Jennifer Mikulina MPA’15 and her colleague Lori Que (Qaiyim) El-Amin ’05 ’98, JD’01 has earned the Seaborne, a 1999 graduate of and his brother, Khalif, work Pro Bono Services Provided the UW’s physician assistant with inner-city Milwaukee teens by Individuals award from the (PA) program, have created the through Young Enterprising International Trademark Asso- Women’s Integrative Sexual Society, which they cofounded. ciation. She’s a partner in the Health program in Madison. It runs STEAM (science, tech- law firm of McDermott Will & It offers clinical consultations, nology, engineering, art, and Emery who’s based in Chicago. resources, education, emotional math) workshops; plants apple Mikulina heads the firm’s global support, and referrals. Rash is orchards in the city; and has trademark prosecution practice a PA in the gynecologic oncolo- now launched WERCBench JV

On Wisconsin 57 OnAlumni Class Notes workshops. The top teams from was nominated for an Academy Jason Smathers ’09 has these workshops attend a four- Award in the documentary been named to the top editor’s teen-week summer camp, where feature category. The New spot after serving as the Press’s they meet new role models and Yorker is an Emmy-nominated government-watchdog reporter. learn about the tools and tech- producer and award-winning He’s also worked for the Wis- nologies of building a business. editor who’s also worked on consin Center for Investigative Le Ondra Clark Harvey content for Showtime Networks, Journalism, Wispolitics.com, MS’05, PhD’10 is a Sacramen- MTV, and Amazon Studios, and and the Associated Press. to Business Journal 40 Under 40 he’s cofounded Manhattan award winner and has complet- Productions to create commer- 10s ed a science and technology cials, trailers, network promos, Kelly Heller ’10 took part policy fellowship in California’s TV series, and feature films. “The chal- in a grand experiment when capitol. Run by the nonpartisan, In his new role as associate lenge is how she moved to Somaliland to not-for-profit California Council athletic director for business to tap into participate in the first years of on Science and Technology, the operations in the UW Depart- the poten- the Abaarso School of Science fellowship program mentors ment of Intercollegiate Athlet- and Technology, a new boarding PhD scientists and engineers, ics, Mario Morris JD’06 is tial and hid- school for the nation’s top trains them in the policymak- overseeing all aspects of the den talent students. She taught chemisty ing process, and places them business office and joining the within all of and eventually became its dean in state legislators’ offices to senior staff of athletics director us.” of students for girls. Now in experience a year of public Barry Alvarez. The environ- Darold Treffert New York City, Heller keeps in service and leadership training. ment is nothing new, though: ’55, MD’58 touch with many of the school’s Clark Harvey is now the chief Morris has stepped up from first graduates, some of whom consultant for the California previous roles as director of are attending American univer- State Assembly Committee on financial operations and director sities. Meanwhile, Abaarso’s Business and Professions. of budget and camp adminis- experiment continues: will its The Second International tration. He was also a member alumni return to Somaliland Brass Festival/Guanajuato 2016 of the University of Alabama’s “I will to invest their education and took place in January thanks 1992 national-champion football always have talents there? to Claire Hellweg ’05 — the team, and he’s earning a PhD at a Bucky Even before Brian Phelps Guanajuato [Mexico] Symphony UW-Madison. ’11 graduated from Harvard Orchestra’s principal horn play- John O’Horo ’06, MD’09 T-shirt hid- Law School this spring, he’d er and a University of Guana- is a clinical fellow in infectious ing under already won a big case: in juato horn professor — and her diseases, and Alexandra there some- November, his six-member husband, who plays trumpet in Reynolds ’10 is a cytogeneti- where.” team was deemed the winner the orchestra and is a trumpet cist — both at the Mayo Clinic Mark Stromberg of the Harvard Law School professor. Students and young in Rochester, Minnesota. But MS’75, PhD’79 Ames Moot Court Competition professionals from all over it gets better: O’Horo proposed by a trio of judges that includ- Mexico convened for five days marriage to Reynolds in the UW ed Supreme Court associate of master classes, rehearsals, Arboretum in November. justice Elena Kagan. The team’s performances, conferences, and Which Badger did PR News mock appellate case featured social events with guest artists. choose for its list of 2015 Rising legal questions surrounding the One of the Milwaukee PR Stars 30 & Under? She’s Americans with Disabilities Act Business Journal’s 40 Under Chicagoan Katie Rowley and medical marijuana. 40 award recipients for 2016 Milgrom ’07, an associate The new voice of the Demo- is Sylvestra Ramirez ’05, director and health care– OBITUARIES cratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) a bilingual, bicultural doctor of account project manager at The great majority is communications director physical therapy and certified APCO Worldwide: a global, of death notices Brandon Weathersby ’11. His ergonomics assessment special- majority-women-owned firm for Wisconsin background includes work on ist. She’s founded and directs that offers communication, Alumni Associa- the 2012 campaign of U.S. Sen- Physical Therapy of Milwaukee stakeholder engagement, and tion (WAA) mem- ator Tammy Baldwin JD’89 to provide personalized rehabil- business strategy services. bers and friends (D-WI) and the Fight for 15 cam- appear in the itation care to the Spanish- and Milgrom will also be a North- Badger Insider, paign in Milwaukee; and as the English-speaking communities. western University alumna after WAA’s thrice-a- DPW’s deputy communications Chalk up another accolade finishing her master’s in public year magazine for director and a legislative aide to for the progeny of the School of health there. its members. state representatives Mandela Journalism and Mass Commu- Readers of the Sheboygan Barnes (D-Milwaukee) and Cory nication: Brad Ross ’05 was [Wisconsin] Press, a Badger is Mason IV ’03 (D-Racine). an editor on Cartel Land, which at the helm of your newspaper. Foreign Policy magazine

58 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Contribution Randall Wright has named Zainab Ghadiyali MS’12, MS’12 and Erin Sum- mers, both software engineers at Facebook, to its 2015 pantheon of Leading Global Thinkers for “cracking the STEM ceiling.” They’ve cofounded wogrammer: a Menlo Park, California–based movement to end the “brogram- mer” stereotype and applaud the technical achievements of their female peers. In its first year, wogrammer shared the stories of fifty-some women engineers from around the globe and in diverse industries. Tim Poellmann ’13 served the UW-Madison chapter of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity as its president; he’s greatly assisted the fraternity’s Zeta Alpha Crescent Colony at Marquette University; and now he’s been honored with the international fraternity’s Outstanding Alumni Advising Award. Poellmann is an assis- THE WRIGHT STUFF tant buyer and merchandise Most economists don’t debate the purpose of money. But Randall Wright, analyst for Kohl’s department the Ray B. Zemon Chair in Liquid Assets at the Wisconsin School of stores in Milwaukee. Business, isn’t like most economists. A thought leader in his field, Wright While Kate Chybowski is known for breaking complex issues into simple terms — using pizza MD’15 was interviewing for a and beer, for example, to explain intricate sets of equations. residency placement following Wright makes real-world issues understandable by analyzing and medical school, she made use exploring such questions as “What purpose does money serve?,” “Why do of the network of UW School banks exist?,” and “How can unemployment and job vacancies coexist in of Medicine and Public Health the same economy?” Ultimately, his research may help us understand alumni who welcome fellow how to build connections between job openings and job seekers, making Badgers into their homes to the process of reducing unemployment more seamless and improving help interviewees reduce the efficiency of our economy. accommodation costs while Wright is changing the lens through which students view the world, they travel. Now she and Nick and his impact on teaching and applying economics is immeasurable. Penzenstadler ’10 — a USA He is a consultant for the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and Today Network National News Chicago and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Desk reporter — are paying Research. From 1998 to 2008, he was the editor of the International it forward by hosting medi- Economic Review, and he has won several awards for his work. cal-school students in their His ideas are heard by fellow teachers, researchers, and more than Denver abode. twenty-five thousand students across the globe via a massive open New to Vehicle Security online course. By presenting his material — which isn’t available in text- Innovators in Green Bay, books — without the constraints of standard classrooms or a traditional Wisconsin, is supplier quality syllabus, Wright is able to create a rare case of limitless supply actually engineer Clay Selsmeyer ’15. increasing demand. The firm supplies fleet security For more information about supporting UW-Madison’s tradition of and mechanical locking systems faculty excellence, visit allwaysforward.org. to the original-equipment-man- ufacturer heavy-truck market.

Class Notes/Diversions editor Paula Wagner Apfelbach ’83 has a fluffy nougat center.

On Wisconsin 59 Diversions

YO, BIBLIOPHILES! Check out goodreads.com/wisalumni — our UW-Madison section of the book website Goodreads — for so much more about books by Badger alumni and faculty.

Douglas Little ’72’s Entrusting leaders Us Versus Them: The to effect great change United States, Radical simply because of lofty Islam, and the Rise of job titles is foolish, the Green Threat offers contends Emil Kresl a lively exploration ’93 in Self-leadership: of U.S. policymakers’ The Art & Science of shift from containing Control, and he shows Communism to com- how those who get the bating radical Islam, work done — wherever analyzing the latter that may be — can spur through an ideological the most innovation by WAITING framework that has being their own lead- The picture book Waiting has earned Kevin Henkes often pitted this nation ers. The Austin, Texas, x’83 two of the highest accolades in children’s against others. Little is consultant has also literature for 2016: designations as a Caldecott the Scotland Professor created the personal- Honor Book and a Geisel Honor Book. This is only of History and Interna- mission app Raison and the second time that anyone has won that com- tional Relations at Clark authored the fiction bination, and these wins make Henkes the sole University in Worces- work On Cedar Hill. author/illustrator to have earned ter, Massachusetts. Julie Halpern ’96 honors across the Caldecott, Inspired by a 2008 of Gurnee, Illinois — Geisel, and Newbery categories. incident in Madison, the author of a picture These are just the latest the sobering docu- book and five young- manifestations of literary praise mentary One Punch adult novels — has and reader love that Henkes’s Homicide includes written her first adult nearly fifty picture books and interviews with people novel, Maternity Leave. youth novels have garnered. who have killed with It’s the “profane, pro- Some of his best-known titles only one hit and others found, and just plain include Kitten’s First Full Moon, Owen, Penny and who have lost loved funny” story of a career Her Marble, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Chrysanthe- ones in this way. “Who woman who learns that mum, Olive’s Ocean, and The Year of Billy Miller. thinks they’re going it’s hard to have a baby, The congratulatory phone call prompted a to kill someone with a but also that finding reaction of “great joy,” Henkes told the Wisconsin single punch?” says the her own way to love State Journal. “I’ve been done with the book for film’s creator, Madiso- her family and herself a long time,” he said, and “my heart and soul are nian Steve Kokette is well worth the effort. thinking about what’s next. So when something like ’79. “But isn’t that the When an epilepsy this happens, it’s a nice bit of frosting on the cake.” problem? Ignorance?” diagnosis threatened The stars of Waiting are figurines of an owl, pig, A rundown Santa Fe Kristin Seaborg ’97, bear, puppy, and rabbit sitting on a child’s bedroom neighborhood is home MD’01’s health and windowsill. They’re all waiting for extraordinary to the struggling but career, her fear that sei- things to happen — and they do: outside, inside, resilient characters zures would prevent her instantly, over time, spectacularly, quietly, frequent- in Carla Trujillo from practicing medi- ly, and seldom. The book addresses the waiting that MS’81, PhD’84’s hu- cine led to a secret dou- kids regularly experience and Henkes’s notion that, mane and funny novel ble life as a patient and while waiting, “often life throws unexpected joys Faith and Fat Chances. physician. Her memoir, and sadnesses one’s way.” When an entrepre- The Sacred Disease: The hundred-some little animal sculptures that neur plans to replace My Life with Epilepsy, he’s made at a clay studio near his Madison home the community with a shares wisdom gained were the spark for Waiting’s characters: those that winery, he triggers a as a Madison pediatri- sat on his own studio windowsill looked as if they rollicking revolt and an cian, mother, patient, were waiting for something. epic result. Trujillo is and epilepsy-awareness Henkes’s latest work — illustrated by his wife, a University of Cali- advocate. Royalties go Laura Dronzek ’82, MFA’93 — is When Spring fornia, Berkeley writer to Citizens United for and administrator. Research in Epilepsy. Comes, and look for his next book, Egg, in 2017.

60 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 BADGER

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Nestled in the heart of the Innovation & UW-Madison campus, @1403 Research Park, @1403 offers co-working, networking, and a community of talented, mentoring opportunities to help Entrepreneurship innovative folks who are Learn more: URPat1 Intersect @1403 (608) 441-8000

62 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 What Are Your Retirement Goals? Pursue them with an IRA

Whether you plan to travel the world, start a new hobby or volunteer, there’s a lot to think about before you retire. An IRA can support you along the way. You can: 4Experience possible tax-deferred or tax- free growth.* 4Supplement an employer- sponsored retirement plan. 4Explore a potentially wider range of investments. No matter what your ideal retirement looks like, our financial consultants will take the time to understand your goals and create a plan unique to your needs. Call us today.

3750 University Avenue | Madison, WI 53705 | 800.533.6773 | 608.232.5000 | uwcu.org/investments

*See your tax advisor for details. Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Insurance products offered through LPL Financial or its licensed affiliates. UW Credit Union and Investment Services at UW Credit Union are not registered broker/dealers and are not affiliated with LPL Financial.

Not NCUA Insured | No Credit Union Guarantee | May Lose Value On Wisconsin 63

OnWisc_8.375x10.875_April_new.indd 1 4/8/16 10:57 AM RETIREMENT At Capitol Lakes, Marcia enjoys WITH A VIEW a wealth of fine amenities and programs while living in the heart of downtown Madison. A former registered nurse, she also appreciates the security of having all levels of healthcare right at her fingertips.

Call for a tour today: 608-283-2046

You + Madison. retirement.org/madison

Capitol Lakes is an Equal Housing Opportunity

64 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016 Your life, your plan.

You’ve made choices, and you’ve reaped the rewards. Being in charge of your own legacy is part of who you are. If there’s a plan, you’re going to be the one to make it.

To discuss your goals and ways to give back to the UW, contact Scott McKinney in the Office of Gift Planning at the University of Wisconsin Foundation: [email protected] or 608-308-5450 supportuw.org/gift-planning

On Wisconsin 65 Destination Goodspeed Family Pier JEFFMILLER (4)

A magnet for nighttime relaxation since opening in 2013, the pier honoring the family of Mary Sue Goodspeed Shannon ’81 replaced the aging stone-and- concrete struc- Swimming isn’t permitted near Up to seventeen boats can tie ture below the The pier has more than 330 Alumni Center. the pier (the Memorial Union up at the dock, made of massa- feet of boardwalk and will link has a swimming pier nearby), randuba — a hard, reddish wood the future Alumni Park — a gift but these two undergraduates from Central and South America to the campus from the Wiscon- still used it as a jumping-off that’s also known as bulletwood. sin Alumni Association — with point to greet the sunrise over In season, the pier is open from Lake Mendota when it opens Lake Mendota last summer. six in the morning to midnight. later this year.

66 On Wisconsin SUMMER 2016

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Madison, WI 53726-4090 WI Madison,

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