Alumni Accomplishments Taggert Brooks (’99, PhD Economics) was appointed the interim dean at UW-La Crosse’s College of Business Administration following the retirement of dean Laura Milner. Brooks will serve a two-year term before a national search for a new dean. Brooks is a professor of economics and currently chairs the UW-L Economics and Finance departments. https://bit.ly/3iYTxTL Stephanie Engebretson (’16, BS Biological Sciences) joined North Shore Eye Health and Wellness as an optometrist as the clinic expands to serve its clients in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. She completed the preoptometry course of study at UWM and graduated from the Illinois College of Optometry. https://bit.ly/30jJkZl Giorgio Sarro (’20, BA Atmospheric Science) was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Father James B. Macelwane Annual Award in Meteorology. The award carries a $1,000 stipend and partial travel support to the next American Meteorological Society annual meeting. The Macelwane award supports undergraduates interested in meteorology by soliciting student papers concerning some phase of the atmospheric sciences. It is among the most prestigious student research awards in the field. Sarro is UWM’s first recipient of the award.
Langston Verdin (’02, BA History) was named to the board of directors of Community Care, Inc., in Brookfield, Wisconsin. The nonprofit organization serves older adults with physical and intellectual disabilities. Verdin is the program leader of strategic partnerships at Children’s Health Alliance of Wisconsin. https://bit.ly/30wTeqJ
Langston Verdin
Alexander Rassogianis (’82, MA History) released his fifth novel, a book entitled “Clouds Over the Aegean,” in May. The book follows Nick, an American investigator whose Greek mother was privy to a terrible secret in her childhood. As Nick sets out to investigate the murders of Greek Orthodox priests at Naxos, he and the daughter of his mother’s childhood friend begin to close in on the secret their mothers kept all of those years. https://amzn.to/2ZLMpT3 Grant Kilmer (’16, BA Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies) was hired as a full-time reporter at Urban Milwaukee after working his way up through the publication’s ranks as an intern and later a part-time editor. Kilmer joined the paper’s team as a freelancer during his senior year at UWM. https://bit.ly/30gSEyn
Passings Dr. Millicent (Penny) Ficken, Professor Emerita in Biological Sciences at UW-Milwaukee, passed away on July 7, 2020. Ficken received her BS and PhD from Cornell University. She joined UWM in 1967 as a faculty member in the Department of Zoology (now Department of Biological Sciences) and as Director of the UWM Field Station. She retired in 1999 after 32 years of service at the university. Those who worked with her remember Ficken as a remarkable ornithologist and colleague. She did ground-breaking work on the song of birds, including the discovery that chickadees have complex calls that qualify as a language and that birds “take turns” singing in the morning to avoid overlapping the songs of others. For these and many other discoveries, Ficken was made a Fellow of both the Animal Behavior Society (the third woman in 1989) and the American Ornithological Society. She was the author of more than 100 scientific papers. She also participated in local ornithological activities and trained a large number of graduate students who now hold prestigious positions around the country. For additional information, please see Penny’s obituary online.
14 • IN FOCUS • August, 2020
