UW-Madison Dept of Bacteriology

TalkBac

TalkBac is an inside and accessible look at significant happenings around the Department of Bacteriology.

Welcome: Cathy Davis Gray and Jenni Hart

Cathy Davis Gray joined the department as the Microbiology Doctoral Training Program Coordinator in October. Cathy has worked in student services on campus since 1985, most recently as the Student Services Coordinator for the Departments of Plant Pathology, Entomology, and Forest and Wildlife Ecology. It is now the very peak of the graduate admissions season, but when she is not working, Cathy enjoys gardening and working with flowers - a hobby that has evolved into a side business for her - as well as traveling.

Jenni Hart joined the department as a Financial Specialist 3 in November. Jenni comes to us from the Division of University Housing, where she had worked since 2004. She looks forward to a wider variety of responsibilities and new job tasks. In her spare time, Jenni enjoys freelance photography and playing with her pug, Chuck. Departmental sweet tooths may be interested to learn that Jenni assists with marketing and communications for Madison chocolatier Gail Ambrosius, who is also Jenni's aunt.

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Congratulations

Jo Handelsman was named by ASM as the recipient of the 2009 Carski Foundation Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. This award honors an educator for outstanding teaching of microbiology to undergraduate students and for encouraging them to subsequent achievement.

Nancy Keller has been elected as a Fellow for the American Academy of Microbiology. Read her recent interview in the News & Views publication of the Academy. Excerpted from their website: "The American Academy of Microbiology is the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). The AAM is the only group of its kind devoted entirely to microbiologists and the science of microbiology. Members of the AAM are elected through a highly selective, annual, peer-reviewed process, based on their records of scientific achievement and original contributions that have advanced microbiology. The mission of the AAM is to recognize scientists for outstanding contributions to microbiology and provide microbiological expertise in the service of science and the public."

Rachelle and Jay Lemke welcomed their son, Zachary Raymond, on September 11, 2008. Rachelle is a research specialist and Master's student in the Donohue lab; Jay is an MDTP student in the Gourse lab. Their budding bacteriologist weighed in at 6 lbs 14 oz and seems to enjoy leaking through diapers, staring at light fixtures, and chatting up a storm. You may have seen him at the holiday party, dressed as a snowman and pondering which appetizer to try first - the chicken wings or the l'il smokies.

The Department of Bacteriology was awarded the 2008 Breastfeeding Friendly Employer Award, given by the Madison Area Breastfeeding Promotion Network and the Wisconsin Well Woman Program. Other awardees were Happy Bambino (Breastfeeding Friendly Business), Carousel Bayrd (Legislative Advocate), and Adria Cannon (Community Advocate). A ceremony honored recipients, with Heather Allen accepting the award on behalf of the Department of Bacteriology. Pictured are (from left): Lea Wolf and Alison Dodge from Happy Bambino, Heather Allen (Handelsman Lab), Adria Cannon and Carousel Bayrd.

In the Labs

We are looking for a lab to volunteer to be the first featured lab in the new (and dare we say, improved) online TalkBac. Over the summer, John Alaniz requested feedback about TalkBac from a couple dozen employees, with varying roles, within the department. One common request was to learn more about individuals within the labs. The feature would include a little personal information about each of the lab members - whether faculty, post-doc, scientist, grad student, undergrad, etc - if they're comfortable sharing it with the department. This info would be similar to the info in the "Welcome" section of TalkBac. We could also include any relevant science-y stuff (i.e. expert on particular techniques) if you're willing to share that as well. Want to be our guinea pig? Let Katy France know.

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Articles of Interest

Microbes in the Energy Grid, by James Tiedje and Tim Donohue

Scientific Teaching in Practice, by Sarah Miller, Christine Pfund, Christine Maidl Pribbenow, Jo Handelsman

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Programs Update

The program updates are, for this edition, limited to only our undergraduate and Master's program, so that Cathy might spend her time working on admissions for next year's class of MDTP students and taking care of those graduating yet this semester! Let Katy France know what additional information about our current students you might find interesting.

Undergraduates: We currently have 124 undergraduates majoring in Microbiology (or Bacteriology - we did have some students choose to keep this name!). This number fluctuates frequently - daily during peak advising / enrollment times, which is when most students declare a major. Seven of our students plan on graduating in December.

Master's: Effective Fall 2008, Diana Downs has resigned as Director of the MS program. She remains Education Chair for the Department of Bacteriology, but has restructured the administration of the Master's program such that we have two new Co-Directors, Marcin Filutowicz and Tim Paustian. Marcin is the advisor for all research-track students, or students wanting to go research-track. Tim is the advisor for all coursework-track students. We have 33 Master of Science in Bacteriology students. In December, we'll be saying good-bye to 6 of our students who will be graduating with their Master's degree. We are still finishing up admissions for the spring session, but will have at least 3, and possibly 4 or 5, students entering the program in Spring 2009.

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