ResearchReport2015_FINAL

Big IDEAS
UW-Milwaukee 2015 RESEARCH REPORT
5 Big Potential
6 The Energy Revolution Starts Here
8 A Search-and-Destroy Strategy
for Killing Tumors
9 Been Drinking?
10 Can Big Data Lead to Big Cures?
12 A Living Language
13 School Integration Efforts
Being Challenged
14 Physicians, Web Developers Team Up
to Improve Treatment
16 Getting a Grip on Diseases from Afar
18 Discovering How Memories
Affect Attention
19 Johnson Controls Endowed Professor
Comes to UW-Milwaukee
20 How Green Is My Battery?
21 Citizens and Government
Working Together
22 Innovation Campus
23 Big Ideas
24 Operation Hand: A Potent Purpose
for 3-D Printing
26 Technology Breathes New Life into
Ancient Treasures
28 Can Favorite Songs Soothe?
30 Theatre Duo Wrestles with Latino
Subject Matter
32 Championing Places from the Past
34 Freshwater Sciences
35 Big Science
36 Faltering Fish? The Trout Doctor Is In
38 Sensing a Demand for Better
Water Monitoring
40 Expertise in Water Research
Draws Startups to the Region
42 Gearing Up to Boost Comfort
for Wheelchair Users
44 Choking a Forest’s Ability
to Tame Carbon
46 Autism: Could the Disorder Be Linked
to the Dirty Air We Breathe?
47 Invitation to Partner with
UW-Milwaukee Research Foundation
uwm.edu/MadeInMKE
Big Potential Big Science
Milwaukee is a city that refused to be left in the rust after America’s economy collapsed. Innovation was inevitable, and
collaboration became our university’s calling card as UW-Milwaukee faculty shared their expertise with partners in every
industry and every corner of southeastern Wisconsin.
Ideas were exchanged, companies formed, problems were assessed and addressed. Transformation through research
and collaboration became a formula for UW-Milwaukee and the region.
Challenges remain, but the city’s collective will and the university’s dedicated faculty together redefine what it means
to be an engaged community.
Of course, the UW-Milwaukee vision transcends the region. The expertise and accomplishments
of our 1,700 faculty and instructional staff are globally relevant. Research and development
endeavors focusing on cancer treatment, climate change, Ebola, ecosystems and energy storage
hold the potential to shape economies and industries worldwide.
We invite you to learn more about our university, our city and the work that we might do
with new partners like you to revitalize economies in southeastern Wisconsin and beyond.
Milwaukee is a town long known for its generosity. Now we’re once again putting our
ingenuity on the map and into practice. There’s plenty to go around.
Welcome to Milwaukee –
Milwaukee is our hometown, an essential part of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
identity, the setting for many of the stories that unfold in these pages.
= See the story for yourself.Video online at uwm.edu/MadeinMKE.
On the cover: UW-Milwaukee metalsmith Frankie Flood is shaping lives
worldwide through his work in the Digital Craft Research Lab, run out of
UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts.Turn to page 24 to see the associate
professor of art and design at work, or meet him at uwm.edu/MadeInMKE.

IDEAS
BigPotential
Big
A letter
from
Chancellor
Mone
Over 150 years ago, as much of the world headed into the Industrial
Age, American industry turned to Milwaukee to get things done.
Milwaukee was America’s toolbox and pioneered advances
worldwide through the combined ingenuity, spunk and rock-solid
work ethic of its people.
Our ancestors made Milwaukee the world hub for creating items that
made it possible to make just about everything else in the new age of
manufacturing. The phrase “Made in Milwaukee” came to represent
the city’s reputation for top quality and innovation.
Although the world has changed, Made in Milwaukee continues to
have a special meaning. This is especially true when we consider that
UW-Milwaukee, as an urban public research university, is a living
laboratory of innovation and engaged research.
The work done by our students, faculty and alumni, in partnership with
others, changes lives and answers some of the most profound – and
the most practical – questions of the modern day.
This is Milwaukee’s university, and we remain committed to creating
dynamic research relationships throughout the region and beyond that
have significant impact on areas such as language, freshwater, arts,
humanities, public health, engineering and education. As an
engaged university, these collaborative efforts are crucial for the future
of higher education because these connections produce new and
better technologies and engender socioeconomic progress.
I think you will recognize the very powerful next generation of the
Made in Milwaukee stamp of innovation as you page through this
research report. The remarkable accomplishments of individuals and
organizations working together spotlight the power of building on a
storied past, expanding our strengths and focusing on service, lifelong
learning and invention.

Best regards,
Mark A. Mone
Chancellor
It’s where our most promising research intersects with momentous
challenge. University engineers work alongside industry partners
to make Milwaukee an epicenter for energy control and storage.
A nursing professor in Milwaukee reaches back to his home country
of Liberia with suggestions to halt an epidemic and prevent future
outbreaks. A chemist tests treatments that focus with deadly precision
on cancer tumors, leaving healthy cells and systems intact. Public
education and public works projects need overhaul, no matter
where you live.
Read on, and consider reaching out. New ideas, innovators and
partners are encouraged.

Big Potential UW-Milwaukee 2015 RESEARCH REPORT 76
VOLUTIONREYou say
you want a
Adel Nasiri
The timing is right. Recent advances are making
alternative energy sources like natural gas, solar
cells and even wind turbines more cost-efficient.
Because they generate and distribute energy in
different ways, however, these various sources
must be made compatible with the nation’s
existing grid.
The switch to microgrid energy distribution will be
dramatic, equivalent to how the leap from landline
to cellphone communication revolutionized the
telecom industry, says Alan Perlstein, executive
director and CEO of the Mid-West Energy
Research Consortium (M-WERC), which is a funder
of the UW-Milwaukee research.
A balancing act
Nasiri’s microgrid testbed will demonstrate new
energy control and storage methods while also
integrating multiple kinds of energy, including
renewables – something of particular interest to
industry leaders.
The grid infrastructure is designed to use power
dispatched from power plants that can adjust their
output to match user demand. Output is not as
adjustable with other energy sources like wind,
solar and batteries.
“By adding multiple other sources, we will need to ‘smooth out’
the intermittent power that each generates in order to keep
the output-demand in balance,” says Nasiri, a professor in
UW-Milwaukee’s College of Engineering Applied Science.
Wind turbines, for example, generate electricity only when the
wind is blowing. But in most places, the wind blows more often
at night when demand for electricity is low. Nasiri’s patented
technology allows energy produced when demand is low to be
stored and then released when the demand is high.
Energy islands
Microgrids can function in two ways. They are able to trade power
from the combined sources and add those services to the electrical
grid; they can also serve as freestanding power sources that
provide uninterrupted power to a limited surrounding area.
This adaptability means microgrids could serve as “energy islands”
for local areas during power outages. Or, grids could power small
villages in developing countries where energy service is unreliable
or even nonexistent.
The first piece of UW-Milwaukee’s microgrid system is a
100-foot-high, 10-kilowatt wind turbine erected in a parking
lot near the university’s Kenwood campus. The system also
combines power generated from wind, solar, natural gas
and batteries.
The epicenter of the field
Perfecting microgrid technology would strengthen
an industry cluster that already exists in the Midwest.
“The region has a large footprint in energy, power
and control,” or EPC, says M-WERC’s Perlstein. “The
size and growth of that sector makes the Midwest the
North American center for the field.”
The 80-member M-WERC pools resources to
accelerate research and provide a trained workforce,
helping sustain the eight-state region as a national
stronghold in EPC research and development.
Six of the organization’s industry members
are contributing microgrid parts, including Kohler,
Rockwell Automation, LEM USA, Odyne Systems,
Eaton Corp. and ZBB Energy Corp.
The university’s state-of-the-
art testbed will give regional
companies a first look at the
compatibility of their parts.
LEM USA, headquartered in
Milwaukee, is one of those
participating in the project. The
company is the world’s largest
producer of transducers, a key
component in the power electronics
industry. Power electronics are vital to
microgrids and the DC current that is part
of the system.
“We have the good fortune to be involved
at the ground floor of a new market,” says
John Marino, LEM USA general manager
and technology manager. “LEM wants to be
there as the microgrid is evolving, so we have
the right product when the market is ready.”
In energy, it starts here
Tucked away in a small industrial area of Milwaukee
lies a prototype of the future of energy distribution –
technology that holds commercial potential in the billions.
Once perfected, the experimental technology, called a microgrid, promises to integrate diverse energy sources
into the national electrical grid where they can feed energy-hungry homes and businesses.
Electrical engineer Adel Nasiri is addressing the challenges that keep microgrids from entry into a market that
is projected to generate revenues of $3 billion by 2017.
Electrical engineering graduate student Azadeh Mazaheri.

Xiaohua Peng
Current cancer drugs do not distinguish between malignant
cells and healthy ones. In order to destroy tumors, drugs
must target all cells in the body.
“There are many ways of treating cancers, but the common
problems are the side effects, so the patients suffer a lot
during the treatment,” says UW-Milwaukee bioorganic
chemist Xiaohua Peng.
But new compounds developed by Peng are actually
attracted only to the cancer. The compounds she has
designed are activated by trademark conditions inside
cancer cells – increased oxidative stress and hypoxia.
This strategy allows the drugs to kill the diseased
cells selectively.
Oxidative stress occurs naturally in the body during
processes like metabolism. Cancer cells grow and
divide so quickly that they’re literally engaged in a
metabolic marathon – leading to the formation of high
levels of hydrogen peroxide and free radicals.
Peng’s compounds dispatch a toxic agent to the exact
location of increased oxidative stress. The drugs have
shown promise in recent laboratory screen tests conducted
by the National Cancer Institute and the University of
Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which investigated
the compounds’ effects on human cancer cells. The
screenings found a 60-90 percent reduction in various
kinds of cancer cells – leukemia, colon, renal and
some types of lung cancer.
MD Anderson’s tests also found the compounds had
no adverse effects on normal human cells. Next, Peng
and her lab members will test these compounds on mice
with cancer.
Also in progress is a second family of anticancer
compounds developed by Peng. These seek another
environmental trait of tumors – the presence of little to no
oxygen. Hypoxia is common among tumors that are located
farther away from blood vessels, and it diminishes the
effectiveness of radiation treatment.
Peng’s hypoxia-targeting compounds could provide a way
to improve results of radiation treatment.
“This unique approach, where the agent will only be
converted to the toxic form in the presence of both radiation
and hypoxia, holds considerable promise,” she says.
In the last five years, Peng has supported her research
with funding from a mix of local and national sources:
a Bradley Catalyst Grant from the UW-Milwaukee
Research Foundation, a Shaw Scientist Award from
the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and a grant from the
National Institutes of Health.
A search-and-destroy
strategy for killing tumors
Been Drinking?
The answer is right at your fingertips
Spring 2014: A team of social-science researchers at a university spend 16
weeks trimming the hair and fingernails of more than 600 college students –
seeking answers to sensitive questions that have a reputation for generating
false reports.
“Have you been drinking?” is one such question. “How much?” is the other.
Turns out nail clippings may be better than hair at answering these
questions. Fingernail clippings capture evidence of high-risk drinking
behavior better than hair samples or self-reporting, according to researchers
Michael Fendrich and Lisa Berger. Berger, with the UW-Milwaukee Helen
Bader School of Social Welfare, oversaw the project. Their particular test
looked for evidence of ethyl glucuronide (EtG), a direct alcohol biomarker.
“Milwaukee, because of its brewing history and the tavern culture of
Wisconsin in general, makes the city an important place to do research on
alcohol use,” Berger says.
The project was a joint effort between the school and United States Drug
Testing Laboratories (USDTL) in Des Plaines, Illinois, funded by the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Offering tools to measure and evaluate exposure to alcohol, drugs and
toxins, USDTL staff seek research on accurate screening information
regarding drug and alcohol use.
“This project led directly to the implementation of our fingernail ethyl
glucuronide test that we now offer as part of our package of forensic testing
services,” says Douglas Lewis, president of USDTL.
“It’s a great example of collaboration between UW-Milwaukee and
industry,” says Fendrich, who worked at UW-Milwaukee when the
research began.
In the original study, students answered a detailed questionnaire about their
drinking history during the 90 days prior to the clippings.
The study looked at students in three categories, finding “a few non-
imbibers,” “lots of increasing-risk users” and “some high-risk users.” High-risk
users were defined as consuming 30 or more standard drinks on average
each week during a 12-week period.
“Heavy drinking can adversely interact with prescribed medications,” Berger
explains. “Our research potentially identifies a tool that clinicians could
potentially use to assess and address patient risks.”
In articles and ongoing research, the pair are continuing to explore
data related to alcohol reporting behavior, family alcohol risk and the
relationships between heavy alcohol use and other risk behaviors.
“This study adds to a relatively young body of literature focused on
long-term direct biomarkers,” says Berger.
“This unique collaboration with private industry produced a very rich data
set that promises to further our understanding of alcohol use and related
behaviors,” Fendrich says.
“The hope is to have the research make a positive impact on individuals in
the city and the state at large,” adds Berger.
Fendrich has since taken a position as associate dean for research
and professor of social work at the University of Connecticut School
of Social Work.

big data
BIG CURES
“It’s significant in terms of public health
research because heart attacks and
heart disease are a leading cause
of death,” says Auer.
Paul Auer
Can Big Data lead to big cures?
Paul Auer doesn’t have a scalpel or stethoscope,
but his work is having an impact on the treatment
of heart and kidney disease.
Auer, an assistant professor of biostatistics in
UW-Milwaukee’s Joseph J. Zilber School of
Public Health, uses mathematics and computers
as his tools in the fight against kidney disease and
heart disease, the latter being a leading cause of
death in the United States.
Based in Milwaukee, he is part of a national team
sifting through medical and genetic data, looking
for genetic mutations that may help with prevention
and treatment. He was one of the authors of a recent
New England Journal of Medicine article that showed
strong evidence that four specific gene mutations lead
to lower levels of triglycerides in the blood. The study
also provided evidence that triglycerides, a form of fat
circulating in the bloodstream, may be as important
to heart health as “bad” LDL (low-density lipoprotein)
cholesterol and “good” HDL (high-density lipoprotein)
cholesterol.
Another study he co-authored in the New England
Journal of Medicine last year highlighted a rare
genetic mutation that is connected to lower LDL
cholesterol levels, leading to a 50 percent reduction in
the risk of heart attacks. That study also could lead to
validation of existing treatments and the development
of new ones.
“It’s significant in terms of public health research
because heart attacks and heart disease are a leading
cause of death,” says Auer. “Findings like these that
could help prevent heart disease are very exciting.”
Another study he co-authored in the Journal of the
American Medical Association found that African
Americans with sickle-cell trait face up to a twofold risk
increase of chronic kidney disease.
Sickle-cell trait is a condition in which a person has
only one copy of the gene for sickle cell but does not
have sickle-cell disease (which requires two copies of
this gene). It was previously believed to be a relatively
benign condition that posed little risk to carriers.
Approximately one in 12 African Americans has
sickle-cell trait.

Meg Noodin From left: Raquel Farmer-Hinton, Michael Bonds and Marie Sandy.
“Our native language is alive, and it’s staying alive.”
The ancient language that gave Milwaukee its name echoes in the halls
of the UW-Milwaukee today.
A Living LAnguage
The Anishinaabe language – spoken by the Ojibwe,
Odawa and Potawatomi tribes – is now being offered
in full-credit university courses. It’s a first for this language
on the edge of extinction that counts 8,000 to 10,000
speakers among 566 federally recognized tribes.
“Many of the native speakers are over 70 years old,”
says Assistant Professor of English Margaret Noodin,
“making this one of many world languages in danger
of disappearing.”
But Milwaukee could be an ideal site for an Anishinaabe
renaissance.
“The indigenous presence here is sustained and significant,”
Noodin says.
Anishinaabemowin is embedded in place names common
across these parts: Lake Michigan (great sea), Chicago
(land of the chigag, or skunk) and Wauwatosa (firefly).
“Five hundred years ago, people sat around and talked to
each other, and that’s how languages were kept alive and
growing,” says Noodin. “They had a world that allowed
them to focus on language.”
Now people chat on Facebook and post pics on
Instagram.
And when a language is lost, the casualties are more
significant than a vanished vocabulary. Culture erodes.
Knowledge disappears. “Something in that language
could be the very thing we need to move forward in
scientific discovery.”
Noodin’s research, then, focuses on Native culture and
preservation beyond words. She serves as the interim
director of the university’s Electa Quinney Institute for
American Indian Education and is president of the Studies
in American Indian Literatures Association. She collaborates
with UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences and
Global Inclusion and Engagement office.
Yet the classroom is where some of her most valuable
contributions take hold, with the help of her students and
21st-century technology.
“One component of a living language is that it is not only
spoken fluently, but also used creatively,” Noodin says
about ojibwe.net, the website she helped create with
Anishinaabe Web architect Stacie Sheldon. There’s also a
Facebook page where users chat about current events in
English and Ojibwe. “It’s how kids communicate now. It’s
little moments here and there that add up. If we don’t use
the language creatively into the future, then all we’re doing
is documenting a language that’s dying.”
On a field trip to UW-Milwaukee’s Manfred Olson
Planetarium, students learned Ojibwe names for
constellations – that the skies functioned as an ancient-day
GPS. The Ojibwe word for North Star comes from the
Ojibwe verb “to go home.”
Between UW-Milwaukee and ojibwe.net, new language
learners can take up where Noodin’s class ends: sharing
stories, songs, prayers and poems with elders online.
“Saving the language has become of utmost importance in
many communities – on the rez, in the cities, in schools, in
homes, in the lodge – where there are elders who speak
the language and where there are none.”
School integration efforts
being challenged
When he transferred to a suburban school district in1989, Jelani Canser found
more academic and artistic enrichment opportunities.
“It’s fair to say that the entire direction of my life changed,”
he says of the move from Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS)
to a suburban district just minutes from Milwaukee.
A teacher himself, Canser now worries about the outcomes for
other minority students who don’t have involved parents like his.
“Again, I appreciate what the program did for me, but a
better long-term solution would have been to keep the best
and brightest in MPS and try to put more resources into the
schools – easier said than done, I know.”
Three UW-Milwaukee School of Education faculty members
looked at the thorny issues involved in the voluntary integration
of schools to overcome achievement gaps and decrease
segregation. Their case study, recently published in Education
and Urban Society, looked at Milwaukee’s pioneering Chapter
220 voluntary integration program, established in 1975.
They found that the benefits of Chapter 220 are now being
substantially eroded by legislative changes.
“Chapter 220 was set up by the state legislature to alleviate
hypersegregation,” says Michael Bonds, associate professor of
education and lead author of the study. Bonds is also president
of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors. Co-authors are
Marie Sandy, assistant professor, and Raquel Farmer-Hinton,
associate professor of education.
Chapter 220 allowed MPS’ predominately African-American
students to attend one of 23 suburban schools, most of
which were predominately white. The program also allowed
suburban students to enroll in MPS.
The goal was to promote cultural and racial integration in
education on a voluntary basis without cost to taxpayers. In
addition, national studies demonstrated that students in racially
diverse schools do far better in terms of long-term achievement.
However, enrollment in Milwaukee’s 220 program has
declined dramatically since its 1993-’94 enrollment peak
of 5,918 students. By the 2012-’13 school year, enrollment
plummeted to 1,456.
“Milwaukee had a model program, and we are looking at
how that essentially became imperfect over time,” says Bonds.
Legislative changes that appeared race-neutral on the surface
have contributed to resegregating schools, he adds.
Bonds explains that Wisconsin’s statewide Open Enrollment
program, established in 1998, is a key factor behind 220’s
eroding enrollment. Open Enrollment allows parents to enroll
their children in any public school district in Wisconsin.
Under Open Enrollment, there are no integration goals and
no financial support for transportation. This disadvantages
minority parents who often don’t have the time or money
to drive students to outlying suburbs, and encourages white
students to flee city schools for the suburbs, co-author
Marie Sandy explains.
Differences in the way the two programs are financed also
give suburban schools incentive to accept Open Enrollment
rather than 220 students.
Bonds says he and his co-authors hope their study and ongoing
follow-ups will provoke discussion about the role of voluntary
integration programs nationally as well as the need to improve
urban schools.

TECHNOLOGY
pocket-sized
Imagine how apps can help researchers screen
patients for clinical trials more quickly, aid doctors
in “stepping down” doses of steroids for young
patients and explain the process more clearly to
their families, and encourage young people to
donate blood.
“We needed a better process to quickly
enroll stroke patients in clinical trials,” says
Alicia Castonguay, assistant professor of
neurology and director of the Stroke, Neurocritical
Care, and Neurointerventional (SNN) research
center at MCW.
The SNN research team, comprised of
physicians, nurses and coordinators, recruits stroke
and neurology patients for clinical trials of medical
devices and medications. This can be a time-
consuming and paper-intensive process. Doctors
may have just three to four hours to determine if
a patient meets the research study criteria.
“These trials are important to improving treatment,
but some patients don’t want to take part, and
others aren’t eligible,” Castonguay says. “It’s
important to quickly reach out to those who are
willing to consent and who are eligible.”
Consent forms, information on participating
physicians and other details on who is qualified
to participate are currently kept in a study binder.
Tracking down the binder quickly when a patient
comes into the emergency room at 3 a.m. can
be a challenge.
“But almost everyone has a smartphone,”
Castonguay says. “I thought: Wouldn’t it be
wonderful if we could provide information about
our clinical trials to the primary physician and
the patient in real time?”
The opportunity to find out came through
a competition that brings doctors and
researchers together with student developers
from UW-Milwaukee. Founded in a renovated
19th-century – you guessed it – brewery complex
in downtown Milwaukee in 2013, the App
Brewery soon expanded to include a second
location at the university’s Innovation
Campus (take a close look at Innovation
Campus on page 22), a neighbor and
research partner to the Medical College.
Castonguay and her team submitted a proposal
that became the clinical research app REACH,
one of the first MCW-UW-Milwaukee projects to
be implemented. Following a winter pilot, REACH
is scheduled to be in the hands of team members
in early 2015.
The collaborative effort has been a learning
process for both the medical staff and the student
developers, led by UW-Milwaukee App Brewery
Manager Quinn Madson. As graphic design
and information technology majors, the student
developers at first struggled to understand the
medical terminology and health care reasons
behind the app. Doctors had to learn how their
decisions impacted the programming process.
“I realized when I wanted to make one little
tweak to the app, that involved hours and hours
of coding,” says Castonguay.
A series of initial meetings between the medical
team and the developers helped the teams
work out what the users needed and how the
developers could meet their needs with an app.
“We’re really working closely with MCW to
make sure that the tools we give them are
useful and doing what they want to accomplish,”
says Madson.
“This collaboration is great. I’m very grateful for
the planning that went into it,” says Castonguay,
who hopes to get funding to pursue further
development of the app after the pilot.
“It’s really great to see an idea come to fruition.
This is going to provide us a way to help improve
patient access to successful therapies.”
Physicians, UW-Milwaukee
web developers team up
to improve treatment
Health care professionals may soon have a new
tool to help treat patients – a pocket-sized technology
created by teams from the Medical College of Wisconsin
and UW-Milwaukee.
Medical and training researchers, faculty and physicians at MCW are working with app developers
at UW-Milwaukee’s App Brewery to pilot smartphone apps that could improve medical care.
From left: Dustin Hahn, UW-Milwaukee App Brewery Project Manager; Chris Sampon, developer;
Anthony Jesmok, developer; Joel Herron, lead developer; Medical College of Wisconsin Assistant
Professor of Neurology Alicia Castonguay; Jon Major Condon, developer; and Julia Alberts, designer.

Aaron Buseh
worldsliving
Getting a Grip on
Diseases from Afar
For Aaron Buseh, the ongoing Ebola
epidemic in West Africa is personal.
“I am a man living in two worlds,” says the associate professor. “I am a Liberian and African, and I
am here in the U.S. studying and teaching about health issues. The work I do in research and writing
about Ebola and other health policy issues is my way of helping tell my people’s stories without being
physically present.”
He has researched
and written about the
stigma attached to HIV/
AIDS both in the United States
and Africa, as well as looked
at ways to work with and engage
Africans and African Americans in
genetics and other health research.
Before the Ebola epidemic hit home,
Buseh wrote the book “Empowering Resilience:
Improving Health Care Delivery in War-Impacted
African Countries.” With colleagues in the UW-Milwaukee
College of Nursing, he recently wrote an article about the
massive health challenges and learning opportunities the Ebola
outbreak presents to the international community. That article
can be found in the January/February 2015 issue of the journal
Nursing Outlook.
“Ebola has become the leprosy of the 21st century,” Buseh says
of the deadly infectious disease that frightens on a global scale
and stigmatizes those it touches. That is why, he argues, it is
critical to base prevention and disease-fighting policies on
evidence-based science and cultural understanding. “It would
be a travesty to see the fear of Ebola lead to the marginalization
of individuals from West Africa.”
Rebuilding and strengthening health care systems in West Africa
to prevent and control the disease is vital, he says. Otherwise,
even if a vaccine or treatment is discovered and resources are
bolstered through foreign aid or donor networks, it will be difficult
to stop the spread of Ebola.
“The Ebola epidemic in West Africa highlights the disparities
in health resources and health outcomes between developed
and developing countries. It underscores the vulnerability of
public health systems in sub-Saharan African countries.”
Strengthening health systems will be challenging. The three
nations most impacted by the disease – Liberia, Sierra Leone
and Guinea – recently emerged from damaging civil wars.
And, as in many sub-Saharan countries, entrenched poverty,
lack of clean water, poor living conditions and endemic
neglected diseases complicate the situation.
And while health care workers have worked tirelessly and many
have lost their lives in caring for patients, the workforce is small
compared to the need. In Liberia, there is only one doctor for
every 14,000 people (compared to 25 per 10,000 in the U.S.).
To rebuild and expand
health systems will require strong
public-private collaborations among
the affected countries themselves and
the international community, says Buseh.
“The international community is bolstering
resources, which is good, but sustained
funding for prevention and management
of those who have already contracted the
virus is needed.”
Every large-scale crisis provides opportunities for
important decision-making. Although the Ebola
epidemic in West Africa is unprecedented, Buseh
says it gives the international community an opportunity
to work with trusted local health leaders to find ways to
address infectious diseases in resource-poor settings.
“Trust will be an important factor to consider as vaccines
are developed and tested for efficacy on local populations.
Although there is urgency, we must design and implement
such research cautiously, ensuring that it is conducted
ethically and that any potential harms are carefully weighed
against potential benefits to the local population,” says Buseh.
in two

Deyang QuDeborah Hannula
Johnson Controls
endowed professor
comes to UW-Milwaukee
Renewable energy expert Deyang Qu has been named
Johnson Controls Endowed Professor in Energy Storage
Research, a collaborative appointment among the company,
UW-Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Energy Institute (WEI)
at UW-Madison.
Qu has built a recognized research program in energy
storage systems for electric vehicles, smart-grid technology
and military applications.
The joint appointment, based in the UW-Milwaukee College
of Engineering Applied Science and affiliated with WEI, is
part of an unprecedented industry-academic partnership among
Johnson Controls, the world’s leading supplier of automotive
batteries, and the state’s two public research universities. Its
aim is to advance research, development and commercialization
of energy storage technologies.
In addition to the endowed professorship, Johnson Controls’
multimillion-dollar investment in research already has produced
two laboratories at UW-Milwaukee’s College of Engineering
Applied Science, where students and the company’s scientists
work side by side. One of the labs is a state-of-the-art “dry” lab,
the only one of its kind on a university campus in North America,
which enables work on the next generation of lithium-ion batteries.
Qu will provide long-term strategic coordination between the
universities’ research and the clean-energy industry’s needs.
DISCOVERing how memories
affect attention
When is a sharp memory not a desirable trait?
The answer could reveal insights that mental health
practitioners can use to better treat illnesses like
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Cognitive neuroscientist Deborah Hannula wonders whether people’s attention can be diverted from
a task if there is an object in sight that triggers an unrelated memory – a phenomenon she calls
“memory-based capture.”
“It’s possible that memory-based capture is slowing us down or making
us less effective in a variety of situations, particularly in cases of
neurological or psychiatric disorder,” she says.
Hannula’s research into the relatively unexplored field of memory’s
effects on attention has netted her an Early CAREER Development
Award from the National Science Foundation, a first for the
UW-Milwaukee Department of Psychology.
Her most recent experiment measures participants’ eye movements
and simultaneous brain function, a two-pronged approach that is
novel among researchers.
Using infrared light projected from a camera and a software program,
Hannula can track what participants are looking at and for how long.
Participants in the study memorize a series of coupled pictures – for
example, a woman’s face paired with a park scene. Participants then
perform an attention task, which requires them to deliberately ignore
one item in the pair of pictures they have just studied.
At the sight of the park scene, participants attempt to direct their
attention away from the corresponding face, looking instead at other
materials offered in a visual display. The question is, “Will the sight of
the park trigger the recalled association with the woman’s face?”
Hannula’s previous work suggests that memory-based capture
happens automatically.
In one study already completed, two groups of participants performed
a matching task. One group was asked to do their best to identify
the face, from among three choices, that had been associated with
a place. The other group was instructed to deliberately conceal their
memories of the studied face-place association.
The results showed that in both cases, participants looked almost
immediately at the correct, previously memorized match – whether or
not they ultimately chose it. In other words, their eyes “gave away” a
memory that the participants were attempting to hide.
“The next step is to identify how this memory-based capture is
supported by the brain,” Hannula says.
To do that, she will use functional magnet resonance imaging, or
fMRI, to find which parts of the brain are active during the memory
and attention tasks. She can then compare the brain regions activated
when capture occurs to those that are activated without capture.
capture
memory-based

Chris Yingchun Yuan
“Think of this as an innovation
ecosystem that we need to build,”
says Nambisan.
HOW GREEN
IS MY BATTERY?
Next-generation lithium-ion batteries (NGLIB) will allow electric vehicles to
travel much farther on a single charge. But the high performance of advanced
rechargeable batteries comes with an environmental cost: disposing of the waste
from manufacturing them.
Mechanical engineer Chris Yingchun Yuan thinks the time to
address those costs is before NGLIBs hit the market, which
could be in the next decade. “We want to be prepared for
these questions while research on next-generation lithium-ion
batteries is still going on,” he says.
Working with three industrial participants conducting
research on NGLIBs – General Motors, Johnson Controls
and PE International – Yuan is taking on the first study of the
environmental impacts of the new technology.
“Making these batteries requires the use of more chemicals
than the current technology, in addition to creation of
the nanomaterials themselves,” says Yuan, an associate
professor in UW-Milwaukee’s College of Engineering
Applied Science. Exposure to nanoparticle waste may pose
risks for both occupational and public health, he adds.
The work is supported by an Early CAREER Development
grant from the National Science Foundation.
One outcome will be a model designed to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions in large-scale battery production,
while also bringing down costs through waste reduction.
The research group is also investigating how to dispose
of and recycle the batteries when they reach the end
of their 10-year life spans – without releasing nanoparticles
into the air.
Yuan also is collaborating with Johnson Controls and
General Motors on separate research projects related to
NGLIB development and green manufacturing
of vehicle batteries.
citizens and government
wOrking together
What if budget cuts and staff retirements at the Environmental Protection Agency or the Wisconsin
Department of Transportation didn’t lead to fewer public services, but actually led to better results?
In an era of shrinking budgets, increasingly complex problems facing
communities and greater, more accessible technological capabilities,
public-service innovation is possible if citizens and governments
can find and trust in new ways of working together, says Professor
Satish Nambisan.
Nambisan holds a joint appointment in UW-Milwaukee’s Lubar School
of Business and College of Engineering Applied Science, specializing
in technology entrepreneurship and innovation management. His research
has been published in the Harvard Business Review and Academy of
Management Review. Among his latest titles is “Engaging Citizens in
Co-Creation in Public Services,” a report published in 2014 by the
IBM Center for Business and Government.
Co-creation, he says, has the potential to solve public problems and
bridge the consumer-producer divide that can create unnecessary
distance between citizens and government.
“Customers consume the product or service, and there has always been
the divide between the entity that creates the value and the other entity,
who consumes value.”
It doesn’t have to be that way, he adds.
Powered by mobile computing and crowd sourcing, citizen evaluators
helping amass and analyze vast collections of data, and new
practices like app-creation contests and innovation jams (see how
the UW-Milwaukee App Brewery partners with the Medical College
of Wisconsin on page 14), citizen co-creation enables citizens and
government to get more done by working together. More common in
Europe, it’s still in the developmental stages in the United States.
One example is Boston’s Citizen Connect app. With the app, Bostonians
become the “eyes and ears” of their city and are able to quickly alert
city employees to neighborhood issues – graffiti, damaged road signs,
dangerous potholes – within minutes. They receive personal responses
as soon as the problems are fixed.
For governments, the benefits include preserving precious financial
resources, solving thorny problems and tapping into fresh talent,
says Nambisan.
Transparency and clarity are key to making co-creation work, however,
and the bureaucratic nature of government work doesn’t easily lend
itself to either.
“Government can start by speaking the language of citizens,” Nambisan
says. “Trust is also an issue. Can government provide citizens with access
to information they need to identify and solve problems?”
Trust is fostered through a shared vision for what problems need to
be solved, and what the two parties – citizen and government – bring
to the table.
“Think of this as an innovation ecosystem that we need to build – a
collaborative environment of peers interacting with peers, nonprofits,
agencies with a shared worldview and sense of purpose.
“Clarity removes friction among these groups, and facilitates coordination
and communication.”
In Milwaukee, Nambisan sees huge potential for citizen co-creation
to tackle public health issues like prenatal health and poor nutrition.
Mobile app development and entrepreneurial exercises, like those
already embedded in UW-Milwaukee arts, engineering and business
curricula, are on the right path.
Satish Nambisan

IDEAS
Big
It can be a seamless collaboration of old and new, the traditional
and the topical. Ancient treasures take new shape and reach a wider
audience through smart technologies. Elders with dementia find
release and peace with a personal playlist – an approach our faculty
scientists believe could displace drug therapy.
Mexico’s lucha libre wrestlers make a major theatrical debut in
Milwaukee. Children around the world receive a new lease on life
– literally – through a community of artists based online, enabled by
technology and faculty on a university campus.
Discoveries you read about in these pages are the result of
collaboration that is regional, national, global. Partners join our
research endeavors from anywhere, everywhere. Join us.
Just across the street from the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center is UW-Milwaukee’s new 72-acre, next-generation
research park, where UW-Milwaukee scientists collaborate and share ideas with nearby medical professionals.
The aim is to build products that solve health care problems and then bring them to the marketplace.
The first building on the grounds opened in the spring of 2014 and features
a rapid prototyping center for use by both UW-Milwaukee
faculty and research and business partners.
INNOVATION CAMPUS

Big IDEAS 24 UW-Milwaukee 2015 RESEARCH REPORT 25
From left: Adream Blair and Frankie Flood.
The 3-D printer will run for
14 continuous hours in order
to yield all 26 pieces needed to
make one prosthetic hand.
ion Hand:
A potent purpose
for 3-D printing
Everything about UW-Milwaukee’s
Digital Craft Research Lab (DCRL)
carries the stamp of Milwaukee’s
industrial and manufacturing past
– right down to the former Ford
Model T plant that houses it.
But the work generated in this lab, which puts vintage and digital tools
directly into the hands of students, serves both the city and the world.
In the last year, two faculty members have involved students in a global
volunteer effort to design and make sophisticated 3-D-printed prostheses
for children who have congenital hand deformities.
It began when Shea Stollenwork, a third-grader from Mukwonago,
Wisconsin, wanted something very unusual for Christmas 2013 –
a functional right hand.
Born with a partial palm and no fingers on her right hand, Shea had
seen robotic-looking prostheses on the Internet and asked her mom if
she could get one.
Ranee Stollenwork’s search brought her to Frankie Flood’s door.
A metalsmith in UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, Flood has been
active in the Milwaukee “maker” community, using production techniques
as varied as old-fashioned machining to high-tech desktop 3-D printing.
Although they had never attempted it before, Flood and colleague
Adream Blair, both associate professors, set to work.
“When Frankie introduced me to the idea, I immediately thought,
‘This is the type of thing we should be doing to make people’s lives
better,’” says Blair. “It was Christmastime, so we were already in
that mood!”
Global Creation
About the time the Stollenwerks contacted him, Flood had discovered
a group called e-Nable, a community of people with a wide spectrum
of backgrounds – from computer scientists to car detailers – who create
custom prosthetic hands assembled from 3-D-printed pieces.
E-Nable volunteers share one common goal, says core member Jen
Owen. “They have a 3-D printer and they want to help someone.”
Think of a 3-D printer as a copy machine for objects. Laying down a
single layer of plastic at a time, the device replicates three-dimensional
items from information contained in a computer scan of the item.
E-Nable has many dedicated and talented contributors, says Owen,
but she describes Flood and Blair’s efforts as “above and beyond.”
“They have not only helped to come up with stronger and better
designs, but their students have produced other very valuable
materials that are of great benefit to the families we serve – from
safety guideline pamphlets to ‘Ikea-like’ instruction manuals for
assembly of the devices.”
The duo’s design for Shea’s hand has been downloaded hundreds
of times, and the new Raptor design that Flood contributed to – a
streamlined version of the group’s previous work – is becoming just
as popular.
Along with the lab’s students, they have worked on hand designs
for seven other children, including one in Scotland.
Made in Milwaukee
The crowd-sourced braintrust of e-Nable is a perfect fit for the can-do
ingenuity of the 2-year-old DCRL, which Flood directs.
Blending the new and old fabrication processes, from anodizing to
3-D printing, gives students the vision to reclaim and reimagine their
industrial heritage, he says.
An Illinois native, Flood himself feels that Rust Belt connection.
“I had worked in a factory while I was going to college,” he says.
“And I was always amazed that I wasn’t learning many of these
processes used at the factory in my metals courses. I wanted to make
sure that my students could learn the entire spectrum of processes.”
Involvement in e-Nable takes the design experience a step further
by providing inspiration, says Blair.
“When our students joined e-Nable, people that even I would be
intimidated to talk to at first would chime in on their sketches and
ideas,” she says. “You could just see that the students were proud
of the fact that they were a part of this.”
See the story for yourself.
Video online at uwm.edu/MadeinMKE.
operat

Derek Counts
EEPdiggingDtechnologY breatheS new
life into ancient treasures
Archaeologists in Milwaukee are using the tools
of the 21st century to explore ancient cultures from
all over the world.
Derek Counts, professor and chair of art history at UW-Milwaukee, is digging deep to understand how iPads and
3-D scanners can replace notebooks, sketchpads, pencils and cameras at archaeological sites and museums.
Digital technologies allow Counts and colleagues to look at a
2,500-year-old terra-cotta figurine in closer detail than ever, right down
to the ancient artist’s thumbprint. Matching the fingerprint of that anonymous
artist to fingerprints on other pieces can help link the sculptor’s work to a
more precise historical time and place.
“Our ability to harness this emerging technology has completely changed
the way we access and understand the past,” says Counts.
Mobile computing (with tablets, even smartphones) is becoming more and
more the normal way of collecting, mapping and archiving information,
says Counts, who also serves as associate director of the Athienou
Archaeological Project (AAP). The multidisciplinary, international research
team has been investigating Cyprus’ Athienou-Malloura site since 1990
under the direction of Professor Michael K. Toumazou of Davidson College.
The National Science Foundation has funded AAP since 1995.
Using smart tools on site, AAP archaeologists jot down notes as they
excavate items, look up information on relational databases, create
spreadsheets, complete drawings, take photos and make audio and video
recordings to insert into their notes as they work.
“Tablets have long-lasting batteries, are highly portable, include
high-resolution cameras and have really made mobile computing a reality
in the field,” says Counts. “A researcher can even be inside a trench and
bring up facts he or she needs right there. It is much more efficient.”
Counts and colleagues recently received a National Endowment for the
Humanities Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant for a two-day workshop on
the topic, to be held this year.
With help from the University of Kentucky Center for Visualization Virtual
Environments, Counts and colleagues are exploring how structured light
3-D scanning can capture both the surface and geometry of artifacts.
They hope that this technology will eventually help put artifacts that have
been excavated in pieces back together again.
The digital scans also allow researchers and art lovers to study details of
color, texture and size, making it easier to study and interpret objects within
their cultural and historical context. These high-resolution images can bring
out details not visible to the naked eye, like a 2,500-year-old thumbprint.
Most significantly, 3-D scans give researchers incredible access from a great
distance, leaving the original artifacts in museums in their countries of origin.
Three-dimensional printing goes further, making it possible for archaeologists
to hold replicas of these objects.
“People can experience the art of Cyprus in a really dynamic way,”
Counts says.

Jung Kwak
Can favorite
songs soothe?
Dementia is part of everyday
life, and loss, for nearly
5 million Americans. Soon,
researchers may know if
listening to one’s favorite
music — be it big band,
Elvis or Motown — can
lessen dementia patients’
reliance on drugs.
“More than 70 percent of people with dementia are affected by
depression, aggression, anxiety, apathy or withdrawal. The usual
treatment is medication,” says UW-Milwaukee’s Helen Bader
School of Social Welfare Associate Professor Jung Kwak, also a
scientist with the university’s Center for Aging and Translational
Research. “We’re studying whether people with dementia who
listen to their favorite songs require less anti-depressant and
anti-anxiety medications.”
Kwak is co-principal investigator of the first rigorous evaluation
of the New York-based Music Memory Program, which has
extended to 45 states and six countries. With funding from
the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the
Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS), the program
will be rolled out to 100 Wisconsin nursing homes by the end of
2015. Participating care staff and families identify a dementia
patient’s favorite music, create a playlist and then use iPods and
headphones to deliver the tunes.
Nursing staff who have witnessed the effects of the program
describe it as “magical,” and the 2014 documentary “Alive Inside”
captures the excitement of watching a noncommunicative person
light up and start talking when his favorite music begins to play.
But until now, Music Memory has not been rigorously evaluated.
With her UW-Milwaukee-based team, Kwak is closely following
60 residents at 10 nursing homes. The team will determine to
what extent music might be as effective as drugs in reducing
agitation, anxiety and depression in people with dementia.
The results are being awaited by health care professionals
nationwide; meanwhile, the study has captured national
attention in The Associated Press, USA Today, the Canadian
Broadcasting Association, Wisconsin media outlets and more.
Today, we know that one’s personal relationship with music
does not weaken with age.
“There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of the immediate impact
that the Music and Memory Program has when a resident with
dementia responds to a favorite song, and that’s wonderful,”
says Kitty Rhoades, DHS secretary. “But only through research
will we begin to understand the long-range effects on things
such as the extent of memory recovery, how the music can
help to prevent agitation or combativeness without the use of
medications and the program’s overall effects on the quality
of life of the participants.”
Music therapy is an established discipline. But the ability to listen
to one’s favorite songs on demand is an outgrowth of technology
that wasn’t part of the lives of today’s dementia patients.
“Even if we develop dementia, our musical abilities and
our memories associated with particular songs seem to
remain intact,” says Kwak.
This is where the door has been cracked open. Whether
it will usher in a new and scientifically proven therapeutic
tool for dementia patients is to be seen.
Study results are expected this year.
Memorymusic “Even if we develop dementia, our
musical abilities and our memories
associated with particular songs
seem to remain intact,” says Kwak.

LIVE from
Milwaukee...
From left: Alvaro Saar Rios and Michelle Lopez-Rios.
Theater duo wrestles with
Latino subject matter
Live from Milwaukee, it’s Saturday morning theater – featuring a
perspective you might not find on many other stages. Except for
San Antonio, or Houston. Together, these three cities are fertile
creative ground for the Royal Mexican Players, whose founding
members, Alvaro Saar Rios and Michelle Lopez-Rios, brought their
academics and their creativity to UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School
of the Arts in 2006.
Whether they are working on a project individually or
as a team, Lopez-Rios says the Latino voice has always
been at the core of their research.
“We started the Royal Mexican Players to tell Latino
stories, those that were not being told onstage and in
film,” explains the associate professor of voice and
speech and head of acting at the Peck School. “We
are both interested in getting people’s stories out, but
we approach it in two different ways. I do it more
by literally telling the actual story, and Alvaro does it
mainly from the writing standpoint.”
In early 2015, Rios completed a play set in the world
of lucha libre – Mexican wrestling. Rios, an assistant
professor of playwriting and analysis, describes
“Luchadora” as the story of a young woman who finds
a pink wrestling mask and is taken on a journey into
her Mexican-American heritage.
One Saturday morning, somewhere around the fourth
draft, “Luchadora” was presented as a staged reading
at the United Community Center on Milwaukee’s south
side. The experience helped Rios mold the final project.
“It’s an opportunity to research what works and what
doesn’t,” he says. “It also serves to let the community
feel they are part of the development process, which
they are, and that gets them more invested in the work.
This is what I love about theater.”
A workshop production took place this winter in
San Antonio, while costume fittings and set design
were underway at First Stage, a Milwaukee theater
company that caters to young audiences. “Luchadora”
will make its world debut there in April with Lopez-Rios
performing in a main role.
“For the arts, research is not about publishing books
and papers; it’s about putting your art out there,” adds
Lopez-Rios. “Our research is our art, and making it
happen is our version of publishing. The advantage is
that as opposed to someone reading your work in an
office somewhere, we get the immediate reaction of the
audience. We know right away if they liked it or not.”
Among their fans and community connectors is
Griselda Aldrete, executive director of Hispanic
Professionals of Greater Milwaukee.
“I have known Alvaro and Michelle for a number of
years,” she says. “I think their work has been very
important to the Latino community and to Milwaukee
as a whole. They bring some cultural diversity to a city
that sometimes still struggles with race and segregation
issues. It’s great to have this kind
of talent in our own backyard.”

IS NEWwhat’s old
Matt Jarosz
Championing places
from the past
By the time architect Matt Jarosz
joined the Milwaukee Historic
Preservation Commission in the
mid-’90s, many of the city’s
historic buildings had been
quietly demolished.
Today, only 43 National Historic Landmarks remain in Wisconsin, a
relatively small number considering Milwaukee’s rich architectural legacy.
Jarosz, an adjunct associate professor at UW-Milwaukee’s School of
Architecture Urban Planning, believes that preserving places from the
past is important to most Milwaukeeans.
“I wouldn’t have said that 30 years ago,” he says. “But if you give them
the right tools, you can get developers and financers to prove that it’s
actually more economical to keep old buildings than to build new.”
Getting credits
As director of UW-Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Institute (HPI),
Jarosz has been a statewide promoter of historic preservation
since moving to Milwaukee from Chicago in 1989.
Today, he is also a shaper of policy concerning
the use of historic tax credits.
Convincing developers to renovate
significant buildings while also retaining
their historic features often comes down
to cost. That makes state and federal tax
credits powerful incentives.
Jarosz is helping to rewrite the criteria
used statewide to determine eligibility
for tax credits.
Backed by students in the HPI, he is documenting how renovation
supported through the tax credits “spreads the love” by spurring
development that spans entire neighborhoods.
The HPI is evaluating 30 projects across Wisconsin to determine to
what extent each investment stimulated economic benefits like job
creation, an increase in neighboring new-building permits and rising
property values.
“We are interested in revealing a picture that consists of more than
charts and numbers,” he says. “What did the area look like before
and after? We want to see the new residents walking their dogs.
We want to see that new coffee shop.”
The project is funded in part from a grant from the Marvin
Windows and Doors Company through the Wisconsin Trust
for Historic Preservation.
An enabler
Though the study won’t be completed until later in 2015, the results
will likely have an impact on the future of the state’s historic tax
credits, something Jarosz hopes to quantify for policymakers.
Their value was clear in 2014, when state historic tax credits
increased for the first time. With the bar raised – 20 percent of
renovation costs became eligible for credits – developers sent forth
a wave of new applications for historic redevelopment. Things
stalled when the state briefly rescinded the credit
hike, then reinstated it a few months
later. Jarosz says the political
wavering has had a chilling
effect on further applications,
but he hopes that the results
of HPI’s tax credit study will
stabilize the climate.
Bringing together the
public and private
players, something that
was missing 30 years
ago, is the key to
saving the most
important buildings.
It is a strength Jarosz brings to the preservation community, says
Chris Rute, development center manager in the city’s Department
of Neighborhood Services and a senior fellow at HPI.
“Matt’s expertise provides a balanced, thoughtful approach to
preserve those structures worthy of saving while understanding
that not all buildings are of significant historic value.”
Jarosz’s role as connector was also recognized last year with
a $500,000 gift from David and Julia Uihlein to strengthen
partnerships between HPI and the city’s preservation specialists.
David Uihlein is the president of Uihlein/Wilson Architects, a
firm known for its preservation work.
The funding also supports a graduate-level design studio that
focuses on reuse of historic buildings.

SCIENCE
Big
How do we preserve our most vital resources – clean water to
drink, ample air to breathe, healthy children and families? Science
provides clues and can lead to answers, but collaboration is key to
implementation. So is innovation.
Entrepreneurs, scientists and public officials who take part in our
research endeavors seek both what has always been a part of
Milwaukee and what UW-Milwaukee faculty bring to this region
today. One of the world’s greatest bodies of water continues to shape
our culture, commerce and health as a region. Lake Michigan is now
the primary research facility for our School of Freshwater Sciences.
City-based industrial spaces continue to welcome entrepreneurs and
engineers. Today their products are high-speed underwater optical
systems, one-of-a-kind design, microsensors that cleanse our most
precious natural resource.
FRESHWATER SCIENCES
A few feet from Lake Michigan stands a major addition to UW-Milwaukee and the study of freshwater
sciences worldwide. Opened in summer 2014, the School of Freshwater Sciences new Starboard facility
comprises 92,000 square feet: a pathogen-testing facility, biosecure and quarantine labs and the
Great Lakes Genomics Center, America’s only DNA sequencing lab dedicated to water
and environmental issues.
If you can’t find us here, we’re probably out on Lake Michigan.

Big SCIENCE 3636 UW-Milwaukee 2015 RESEARCH REPORT 37
John Janssen
{trout} DOctor is inTHEfaltering fish?
Lake Michigan was once home to the largest
commercial fishery of lake trout in the world. But by
the 1950s, overfishing and the invasive sea lamprey
had dramatically reduced their numbers.
For decades, the native fish has resisted a comeback, despite interventions that brought the sea lamprey under
control and a government program that continues to stock the lake with trout.
“It’s been half a century, and we’re just not getting positive results,” says John Janssen, a professor of freshwater sciences
and a recognized expert in fish ecology in the UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences. His quest is to diagnose
and treat the lake trout’s reproductive woes.
Since coming to UW-Milwaukee in 2000, Janssen has been a primary gatherer of information about lake trout and
an indispensable resource for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), says Bradley Eggold, the DNR’s
southern Lake Michigan fisheries supervisor.
In 2004, Janssen was the first to find baby lake trout in deep water 30 miles from the Sheboygan, Wisconsin,
shoreline – an area known as the Mid-Lake Reef Complex. Now a major aspect of the DNR’s plan to manage
the lake trout calls for stocking certain strains of the fish in the Mid-Lake Reef.
“He’s done a lot of geographical mapping of lake trout out in that location,” says Eggold. “He’s helped us
pinpoint where they are, based on his overall tracking of the fish’s preferred habitat. Before he came, I don’t
think people believed that there was any lake trout natural reproduction going on there.”
If you build it, will they come?
In 2008, We Energies joined forces with the DNR and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to design and build
an artificial reef to test whether lake trout would lay their eggs in a custom-made environment.
Six reef structures were built at a location 2 1/2 miles from shore, between the cities of Milwaukee and Racine.
Janssen’s charge was to assess the reef’s use by both lake trout and yellow perch, another declining native species.
Sampling between 2008 and 2013, Janssen and his students collected very little evidence that either fish was using the
artificial reef.
In roughly the same time period, the DNR has recorded a slow increase in the number of young trout without any
fin clips, an indication that they probably were naturally reproduced.
Multiple culprits?
“I don’t think the artificial reef is the answer,” says Janssen.
In fact, he says, stimulating a resurgence of the trout may not be
about location at all. He and other scientists say indications are
strong that the decline of the invasive alewife in lakes Michigan
and Huron could explain why young trout have increased
– most likely under natural conditions – in the last few years.
“Trout eat the alewives, which contain an enzyme called thiamine
that then causes a vitamin deficiency in the eggs and young,”
he says.
But alewife numbers are down dramatically in the lake, thanks
to management strategies to bring them under control, says
DNR’s Eggold.
It’s likely that the remedy is not singular, Janssen is quick to add.
It’s too difficult to identify a precise formula that promises the
return of a sustainable lake trout population. There are too many
variables: location of the stocking, the strain or species
being stocked, the time of year the DNR stocks and
the size of the fish.
Whatever the remedy, discovering why lake trout have
struggled to reproduce as they once did is essential information,
says Janssen.
“The lake is a big, complicated machine, and we don’t know
what all the pieces do. You don’t know what will happen if
you take one part out, maybe nothing. But then, if it really is
important, you won’t know until it’s gone.”

Junhong Chen and Bob Heideman
ensorsserious SSensing a demand for BETTER
water monitoring
Between the treatment plant and the tap in
people’s homes lies a stretch of the unknown.
“We always take it for granted that the drinking water is safe after it is distributed from the utilities,”
says engineer Junhong Chen. “In reality, especially with an aging infrastructure, older pipes
contain materials like lead that can leach into water by the time it reaches homes.”
Ingesting heavy metals like lead is detrimental to human
health, particularly to children. Bacteria that can infiltrate
through cracks in pipes also pose a health risk.
That’s why Chen and a cluster of other UW-Milwaukee
researchers are developing the next generation of
high-performance micro-sensors that can continuously
monitor water systems and detect contamination at the
very moment it happens, even in trace amounts.
“This technology will be radically new, making time-consuming
and costly sampling obsolete and primitive by comparison,”
says Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering.
This work will feed the development of new products, helping
Milwaukee snare its part of the $500 billion global freshwater
technology market.
“It’s a very big priority for us,” says Dave Averbeck, chief
engineer of water treatment at A.O. Smith Corp., a Fortune
500 company that produces water heaters and purifiers.
“Customers pay a lot of money for water treatment, and
they want some assurances that the system they purchase is
reliable. There are water sensing products out in the market
now, but they aren’t specific for the target contaminants,
which are primarily heavy metals and bacteria.”
In fact, a major reason membership in the Water Equipment
and Policy (WEP) Research Center in Milwaukee has doubled
in the last year is the interest in water sensor technologies.
Backed by the National Science Foundation, WEP is a
member-based consortium of industries, including A.O. Smith,
and researchers at UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University.
Many sensing platforms
Chen’s sensors are so small that hundreds of them occupy
a silicon wafer the size of a fingernail – the right size to be
integrated into existing water equipment like pumps, purifiers,
meters and pipes.
The sensor material he developed blends two kinds of
nano-structures, yielding a material that is cost-effective,
highly accurate and “tunable” to detect a range of targets.
This is of particular interest to three of Chen’s industry partners:
A.O. Smith; the Milwaukee-based meter manufacturer
Badger Meter; and Baker Manufacturing, a Madison-based
manufacturer of water pumps and filters.
The work has attracted an $800,000 grant from the National
Science Foundation, matched one-to-one by partners, which
also includes Chen’s own startup company, NanoAffix LLC.
Chen’s work constitutes one slice of UW-Milwaukee’s research
in water sensors, projects that are conducted by faculty in
several disciplines.
Speeding products to market
Another path for rapid discovery in water sensing began last
year when funding from the University of Wisconsin System
established a Water Technology Accelerator (WaTA) through
the School of Freshwater Sciences at UW-Milwaukee.
Product development seeded through WaTA includes three
water-sensor projects, says David Garman, dean of the
school, who has teamed with Chen to produce a water sensor
for rapid detection of low levels of E. coli.
Ultimately, the research is aimed at perfecting individual
sensors so that networks of them can be connected to
modeling software that would analyze and monitor
all the parts of an entire ecosystem or water distribution
system at once.
“It would enable us to consult Big Data at fine detail,
which would give us, for the first time, a full picture of
what’s going on in Lake Michigan and alert us immediately
if conditions change.”
The payoff would be enormous, he says. “You could now
see how monitoring the lake directly affects your health.”
More UW-Milwaukee research
in water sensors
Real-time optical sensors for wastewater treatment control.
(Peter Geissinger and Alan Schwabacher, Chemistry)
Autonomous wireless sensors that monitor the movement of
water through trees. (Stefan Schnitzer, Freshwater Sciences)
A multiple-monitoring “lab on a buoy.” (Matt Smith, Freshwater Sciences)
Water-related pH sensors. (Woo-Jin Chang, Mechanical Engineering)
From left: Junhong Chen and David Garman.

LEStiny
From left: Jose Ramirez and Rudi Strickler.
BUBB MikroFlot is a business that removes suspended
contaminants from wastewater using micro-bubbles
to herd particles to the surface so they can be
skimmed away.
“The smaller the bubbles, the more efficient the
removal of very fine particles will be,” says Ramirez.
Turns out, creating micro-bubbles is surprisingly difficult.
“I saw immediately that the camera techniques he uses
to observe tiny animals would help me with seeing the
bubbles at the scale I use them,” says Ramirez, who
himself holds a PhD – in engineering.
The secret life of zooplankters
Strickler, a Shaw Distinguished Professor of biological
sciences based at the GWC, has been recording the
bottom of the aquatic food chain since the 1980s,
thanks in part to his deftness as an inventor.
Magnification of the barely visible organisms is only
one challenge to filming them. Zooplankters move their
mouthparts 60 times per second.
Yet Strickler’s cameras offer such a clear view of
zooplankton behavior that he’s been able to prove the
creatures manipulate the water around them to find
mates, avoid predators and snatch morsels of alga
(one of his videos shows the animal spitting out food it
didn’t like).
Strickler’s techniques are giving Ramirez the same visible
proof in his quest for the perfect bubble.
Larger bubbles rise more quickly in water, leaving little
time to collide, and it’s the collision that forces solidified
contaminants up to the top. It is more energy-efficient,
says Ramirez, to generate micro-bubbles selectively.
“We need to understand all the variables that result
in the kind of bubble we need,” Ramirez says. Using
a high-speed camera and a laser, the pair is testing
conditions like pressure, pulsation and airflow rate
in the bubble-making process.
Valuable give and take
MikroFlot is among 14 startups housed at
the GWC, sharing space and equipment
with a cluster of corporate partners
and other organizations that have ties
to Milwaukee’s burgeoning water sector.
UW-Milwaukee scientists and students who
conduct related research occupy the top floor.
“There’s a cross-section of the university’s top
scientists located here, from freshwater sciences to
engineering,” says Strickler, making joint work between
business and academic research as easy as a short
trip down the hall. Students involved in collaborative
research here are introduced to new ideas from business
and vice-versa.
Entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones interested in the
GWC, says Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of the
Water Council, the economic development agency that
created the center. The council brings together industry,
academia and government officials to promote the city’s
leadership in water technology innovation.
In 2014 alone, the Water Council hosted visitors from
26 countries interested in the work being done by
GWC entrepreneurs and scientists. Officials from the
General Counsel of Canada, for example, have asked
to meet with Strickler.
Although his work attracts global interest, the scientist
says Milwaukee’s industrial and manufacturing pedigree
has kept him anchored to the city for the last 25 years.
“In this city, you can still find places that can fabricate
something you need and get it to you quickly and
relatively cheaply.”
Expertise in water research
draws startups to the region
A UW-Milwaukee water scientist known internationally
for his high-speed video of aquatic life lends his technology
to a startup in search of nearly microscopic bubbles.
Biologist Rudi Strickler’s research on microscopic aquatic organisms, called zooplankters, has reversed previous
scholarship that asserted the tiny lobster-like creatures survived by chance encounters.
This internationally known work has been possible because Strickler can see them with high-speed video in
optical systems that he designs and builds himself in his lab at Milwaukee’s Global Water Center.
Seeing is truly believing. Observing Strickler’s academic inventiveness in a business setting convinced Chicago-
based entrepreneur Jose Ramirez to locate his startup company, MikroFlot Technologies, at the GWC.

Brooke Slavens
Gearing up to boost comfort
for wheelchair users
It takes more than 20 muscles in the arms and upper body
to propel a manual wheelchair. That constant repetitive motion
usually causes shoulder injury and pain for people who depend
on wheelchairs for mobility.
20 uscles
Getting around hurts, but it doesn’t stop most of her patients
from using a manual wheelchair, says Dr. Vaishnavi Muqeet,
a physician at the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs
Medical Center in Milwaukee. The reason, she says, is they
fear that they will lose their main form of exercise – and their
independence.
On the fast track to intervention is Brooke Slavens, an
assistant professor in UW-Milwaukee’s College of Health
Sciences Department of Occupational Science Technology.
Slavens has joined with an Illinois startup company,
IntelliWheels, on a research project that proposes an
entirely different idea for manual wheelchair assistance.
The company has created a multigeared wheel system that
operates much like the gears on a bike. This system allows the
user to maintain a steady speed on an incline with the same
amount of effort as on level ground.
“There are no solutions that are similar to what we are doing,
so it’s a unique aspect of a simple concept,” says Slavens.
She and Muqeet are testing the IntelliWheels prototype
with patients at the VA hospital who have spinal cord injuries.
The research collaboration also includes the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and TiLite, a manufacturer of
ultra-light wheelchairs.
The project, funded by the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), could be an ideal compromise for chair users:
They can manage their discomfort while continuing to
use a manual wheelchair.
“This study is giving us direct clinical interaction with patients,”
says Slavens, “and it has great potential for changing how
people use their chairs.”
Mapping joint stress
Adult manual wheelchair users make four distinct patterns
with their arms and wrists to propel themselves. Identifying the
most damaging aspects of those patterns is a goal Slavens is
working toward.
With the help of some of the most advanced simulation software
available, Slavens is revealing vital information that could
help wheelchair users change arm-movement habits because
they can actually see where the stress occurs by watching the
animated program.
“We’re able to use our models to see when joint forces are
really high with certain motions,” she says. “This is how we
quantify which patterns result in the most force to the joint,
and then we can provide recommendations to patients.”
Mentoring Slavens, as part of a prestigious Career
Development Award from the NIH, are two experts in the
rehabilitation field. One is Stanford University Professor Scott
Delp. Slavens joins thousands of investigators in an international
research collaboration using Delp’s OpenSim software to make
and exchange biomechanical models.
Another mentor is Jules Dewald, chair of the Department
of Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences
at Northwestern University. Dewald’s work combines
neurophysiology, imaging and signal analysis techniques,
rehabilitation robotics and clinical testing.
“My ultimate goal is to help surgeons, clinicians and therapists
improve someone’s life,” says Slavens. “And when that
happens, there’s no limit to what people can do.”
M

Choking a forest’s ability
to tame carbon
The dense forests of Panama are representative of
many of the Earth’s tropical forests. Here, biologist
Stefan Schnitzer and his team of student researchers use
sophisticated data-collection equipment – and machetes –
to prove that a botanical competitor is threatening trees.
It’s bad news – and not just for treehuggers.
The loss of trees weakens our best defense in the battle against rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide
(CO2) – a greenhouse gas that hastens climate change.
All trees soak up CO2 during photosynthesis, but tropical forests are true hoarders, storing around one-third
of the terrestrial carbon on the planet.
Their competitors are parasitic woody vines, called lianas. Schnitzer has found that lianas are increasing in
tropical forests throughout Central and South America, choking out the mature trees that store the most carbon.
Lianas use trees to support their thin stems as they climb to the forest canopy. There, they blot out sunlight
required for tree growth. To make matters worse, lianas are more drought resistant than many tree species
and continue to grow during the dry season, when trees fall dormant.
Although lianas also take up carbon during photosynthesis, they account for only a mere fraction of the
amount of carbon that trees accumulate.
“When plants compete in a tropical forest, people think it’s a zero-sum
game – the one that prevails takes up the same amount of carbon
that the one that was displaced did,” says Schnitzer, a professor in
UW-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences. “But this assumption
is now being challenged.”
Getting a foothold
In the first experimental study to demonstrate that competition between
plants can result in forest-carbon loss, Schnitzer has quantified the outcome
of runaway liana growth. The verdict: Lianas can reduce forest-wide
carbon uptake (mostly by trees) by nearly 20 percent.
Lianas grow quickly in gaps created by fallen trees, a process that tells the
carbon-imbalance story best, says Schnitzer.
To determine how much damage was being done, he conducted an eight-
year liana-removal experiment.
In research supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), he and
his team, armed with machetes, chopped out lianas in some plots in the
Panamanian forest and recorded the rate of tree growth and mortality in all
of the sites.
By comparing data from liana-free plots with plots in the same forest where
lianas were present, they quantified the extent to which vines limited tree
growth: Lianas reduced tree-carbon accumulation by nearly 200 percent in
the cleared areas. The lianas themselves were able to compensate for only
24 percent of the carbon that they displaced in trees.
Data collection has been daunting. Across a 125-acre plot, the researchers
have tracked over 67,000 lianas. No matter what species of liana, the
researchers found that most of the trees in plots where treefall occurred
were negatively affected by the vines.
Restoring balance
What is driving this proliferation of lianas? Schnitzer says it still isn’t clear.
His lab has an NSF grant pending to investigate this question.
The outlook isn’t completely bleak, however.
Despite lianas’ hardiness, Schnitzer doesn’t believe the encroachment
of lianas will ultimately smother whole forests.
“It’s still beneficial to be a tree,” he says. “Once they gain a canopy
position, they could be there for 500 years, putting out lots and lots of
seeds year after year. Also, vines have a higher mortality rate than trees.”
One to 2 percent of the tropical forest turns over annually. When trees fall,
they rip some of the lianas away from the canopy. If the remaining trees
are big enough, they stay vine-free for a long time, says Schnitzer, because
it’s more difficult for the lianas to gain a foothold on large trees.
Stefan Schnitzer
tree trouBLE
From left: biology major David DeFilippis; biology doctoral candidate
Ellie Rodriguez; and recent UW-Milwaukee grad Jeremy La Che,
who now runs the lab.

Big SCIENCE 4646
Amy Kalkbrenner
catalyst
grant
support
Autism isn’t caused by vaccines. It’s not contagious. There is certainly a genetic
component to it. About its origins, epidemiologist Amy Kalkbrenner has this to add:
“There is something about traffic-related air pollution that can be linked to autism rates.
We’re not sure what exactly, but the latest research shows we’re on to something.”
Kalkbrenner’s landmark study, just published in the journal
Epidemiology, showed that air pollution’s impact on autism
rates in North Carolina is similar to results of pollution-autism
studies in California – despite weather and climate differences
between the two states.
These findings build on previous studies that have shed light
on the origins of the world’s fastest growing developmental
disorder. Kalkbrenner and her colleagues found that exposure
to higher amounts of traffic-related air pollution might do
the most damage to unborn children in the third trimester
of pregnancy.
“This supports the hypothesis that environmental chemicals
are part of the autism puzzle,” says Kalkbrenner, who is
an assistant professor in UW-Milwaukee’s Joseph J. Zilber
School of Public Health.
Kalkbrenner’s study zeroed in on PM10
, airborne coarse and
fine particulate matter that arises in part from traffic-related
air pollution. A research team of eight evaluated mounds of
medical records, covering pre-conception through the first
birthday for 87,000 children in North Carolina and 77,500
in California born in the mid- to late1990s. Key regions
in each state were selected based on the team’s ability to
simultaneously measure the level of particulate matter present
and know which children had autism in these regions.
Researchers used a new, more exact tool to measure the
levels of particulate matter in smaller slices of time, based on
pollution at the family’s address during pregnancy. With this
method, they were able to compare exposures during specific
weeks of pregnancy. Approximately 1,000 children who later
developed some form of autism spectrum disorder were then
compared to all other children.
Better measurement tools and the two-state comparison are
what make this study more likely valuable, Kalkbrenner says.
Evidence for a link between a chemical exposure and a
health impact like autism is more likely when it can be shown
in more than one region.
“We’ve now had three solid studies saying the same thing.
The evidence is pretty compelling that something is going on
with air pollution and autism,” says Kalkbrenner.
“Our findings of greater susceptibility in the third trimester are
consistent with other studies that demonstrate links between
autism and altered brain network development, specifically
synaptic connections that develop during the final months
of pregnancy.”
Future research will dig deeper into the chemical components
if the autism-pollution connection. What chemicals are most
dangerous? When is their impact strongest?
Autism: Could the disorder
be linked to the air
we breathe?
{dirty}
The UWM Research Foundation:
Research and education that
transform the economy
Catalyst Grants make a
difference in bringing promising
early-stage research at
UW-Milwaukee to market.
take part
Partner to support research and
innovation in the Milwaukee area:
UWMresearchfoundation.org
Where do the creative ideas generated in UW-Milwaukee’s research labs go?
They involve, teach and inspire students, of course, but through the UWM Research
Foundation (UWMRF), those ideas also make their way into the hands of local and
state industry.
In many cases, the best way to get research out to the broadest possible audience is
by taking it to the commercial marketplace. That’s where the UWMRF can help.
We not only manage intellectual property for university inventors, but we foster
commercialization of new technology by investing the most promising early-stage work
through our Catalyst Grant Program. Now in its seventh year, the program has awarded
more than $3.7 million in seed funding for 67 projects.
Administered by the UWMRF, the Catalyst Grants originate in our own backyard,
supplied by industry and foundations with deep roots in Milwaukee, including the
Rockwell Automation Charitable Corp., the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation,
GE Healthcare and the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation.
Together these donors provide a pool of resources used to seed research development in
areas where UW-Milwaukee has the greatest potential to impact the regional economy –
areas such as water, energy and health care.
These are also sectors where UW-Milwaukee has strategically partnered with companies
like A.O. Smith and Badger Meter, Johnson Controls and GE Healthcare. Outcomes to
date are shown in the graphic on this page.
UW-Milwaukee’s industry collaborative research involves students at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels, which is supplying a workforce tailored to fit
employers’ needs.
The UWMRF is also part of a greater effort to equip our students with entrepreneurial
skills. Our support for the Student Startup Challenge offers students an avenue to attempt
to turn ideas into startup companies. But more important, our programs help to transform
them into innovators. UW-Milwaukee graduates are going to be more valuable to
existing companies if they already understand the process of moving an idea into the
marketplace and have experienced the leadership necessary to make that happen.
Simply put, UW-Milwaukee research makes Wisconsin companies more competitive.
And that’s the best result of all.
Want to know more? We would welcome a chance to explore your needs and share
with you the resources of this great institution at UWMresearchfoundation.org.
$
3.7Million
Awarded Since 2007
$
13.5Million
In Follow-on Funding
14patents
7startup
Companies
18License Option
agreements
Brian Thompson, President of the UWM Research Foundation

uwm.edu/MadeInMKE
take part
Partner to support research and
innovation in Milwaukee and beyond.

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