Academia

Assistant Director, Residential Education at Montana State University

Nora Smith earned her PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW–Madison in 2004. She has worked in a variety of administrative and instructional roles in academia and now serves as Assistant Director for Residential Education at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.

Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, University of Colorado Boulder


Justin Brumbaugh earned a PhD in Biochemistry in 2011. After completing a postdoc in Boston, he is now an assistant professor in Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder. There, Brumbaugh has worked to start his own lab, building and managing a team that applies stem cell biology to explore fundamental aspects of biology, development, and regenerative medicine.

USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture Postdoctoral Fellow in Plant Pathology, Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management at Colorado State University


Alejandra Huerta earned a PhD in Plant Pathology from UW–Madison in fall 2015. As a student, she worked in Caitilyn Allen’s laboratory studying intraspecies competition in plant pathogenic bacteria. Huerta is now a postdoctoral fellow investigating bacterial-rice interactions.

Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art for the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Campaign

In 2005, Amy Powell came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to pursue her MA in Art History. Upon completion of her master’s in 2007, the Kentucky native decided to stay at the university to pursue her PhD in the same field. She is now the curator of modern and contemporary art at Krannert Art Museum (KAM) at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign—overseeing a collection that contains roughly 10,000 works of art.

Senior Research Methodologist with NORC at the University of Chicago

English completed his MS in Geography at UW-Madison in 2001. After a year at Empower Geographics, English took a position with NORC at the University of Chicago. NORC is an independent research institution that delivers reliable data and analysis for business and policy decisions.

Clinical Assistant Professor for the University of Wisconsin Law School

Steven Wright came to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2012 to pursue his MFA in creative writing. Upon completion of his degree in 2014, Wright became a clinical assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In this role, he supervises the Wisconsin Innocence Project (WIP), a program focused on exonerating individuals who were wrongly convicted of serious crimes.

Professor of Astronomy at Vanderbilt University; Adjunct Instructor at Fisk University

Graduating with a doctorate in astronomy from UW–Madison in 2000, Keivan Stassun has built a career dedicated to advancing our understanding of the cosmos through research, teaching, and outreach. He now works as a full professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University and as an adjunct instructor at Fisk University.