Staff

Communication Science Professor Louise Mares and her graduate students are conducting research to understand the roles media can play in teaching, helping and supporting kids.

Following a nationwide search, John Karl Scholz, an economist and dean of the College of Letters & Science at UW–Madison, has been chosen as the university’s next provost. In his six years leading the university’s largest college, Scholz won praise for his leadership, innovation, and advocacy on behalf of L&S students, faculty, staff and programs.“Karl has both a deep knowledge of our university’s strengths and the insight to understand where we can continue to grow and improve,” says Chancellor Rebecca Blank.

It has been a full five decades since the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music has selected a new leader of the UW Marching Band. But after an extensive national search, they’ve found the one: Corey Pompey.

“I think I’m one of the worst people to teach organic chemistry,” jokes Matt Bowman, who has guided some 3,500 students through the demanding course at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “Because I’ve never had to study for organic chemistry in my life.”

Nine University of Wisconsin-Madison professionals — four of them from the College of Letters & Science — have been selected as recipients of the 2018 Academic Staff Excellence Awards. The awards recognize achievements in leadership, public service, research, teaching and overall excellence.

Marí-Beffa, a professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, will begin the post on January 5, 2018, the start of the spring semester. Previous associate dean Eric Wilcots has moved into the position of Interim Deputy Dean and Associate Dean for Research.

Noyes will serve as a senior advisor to Dean Karl Scholz.

This fall, in a field in rural Wisconsin, you can get lost in a trilobite. Bug-like and armored, with as many as 100 legs, these now-extinct marine creatures once cruised the planet’s seas, including those that covered Wisconsin. With some help from the UW-Madison Geology Museum, it is also the defining feature of this year’s award-winning Treinen Farm Corn Maze in Lodi.

“I was always a tinkerer,” Steve Narf explains from his Chamberlin Hall workshop lined with towering cabinets, each one stuffed with an amazing array of tools, bolts, and wires. It seems fitting, then, that the Madison native returned to his hometown 22 years ago from the Twin Cities to manage the L. R. Ingersoll Physics Museum.