Going above and beyond to help students succeed

Jacee Cho

Associate Professor, English, and Director, Second Language Acquisition Lab

You might not expect to find an experimental lab in an English Department - that's just one of the remarkable things about Jacee Cho's work. She's a psycholinguist, seeking to understand the nature of the minds of people who speak more than one language and how those languages influence one another. A core component of her research practice is creating opportunities for undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty to come together as learners, says department Chair Christa Olson. "The results - both in terms of extraordinary research and in terms of undergraduate student support and success - are undeniable." Often students come in with little to no linguistics background, so Cho has created structures, such as a biweekly reading group and training workshops, to prepare them to engage with confidence. Many go on to present at high-profile conferences. And for some, her lab is the gateway to a future they couldn't have imagined. Says one student, "Professor Cho single-handedly changed my career and academic trajectory."

Brendan Eagan

Associate Director for Partnerships and Community Engagement, Epistemic Analytics Lab, Center for Research on Complex Thinking

Under Brendan Eagan's mentorship, undergraduate interns in the Epistemic Analytics Lab regularly do work that in other labs would be done by Ph.D. students or postdoctoral fellows - developing web-based software applications, helping to devise and test new statistical techniques, and performing complex analyses of data for researchers all over the world. That undergraduate brainpower has directly contributed to the lab's own growth, says Eagan's supervisor, Andrew R. Ruis. "The quantitative ethnography community, which consisted of only a few dozen researchers when Brendan began this work, now numbers more than 1,000 scholars on all six inhabited continents, and a big part of that growth was due to the way Brendan built and mentored a team of high-performing undergraduate interns." Eagan also pays close attention to his interns' own professional growth. "He identified my strengths and provided opportunities for me to step into - from leading a meeting, to a project and clients, and later a full team," says former intern Clare Porter. "During my time at Epistemic Analytics, every intern left the lab with at least one short paper publication, experience working on a project across the entire pipeline and a strong network of researchers with whom they'd worked." Porter is now a research assistant at the Rand Corp. - other interns now work for Amazon, the Federal Reserve and the National Opinion Research Center, among others.

Aditi Gargeshwari

Postdoctoral research associate, Binaural Hearing and Speech Lab, Waisman Center

When Aditi Gargeshwari begins working with a new student, together they create a mentor-mentee compact where they define their goals and intentions. In those conversations, "she listens carefully, adapts thoughtfully and makes students feel valued," says Ruth Litovsky, director of the Binaural Hearing and Speech Lab and Oros Family Chair and Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders. "Undergraduates in our lab are not given generic tasks. They are given meaningful opportunities aligned with who they are and who they hope to become." In that first meeting, student Mary Claire Kristjanson mentioned that she was interested in coding. Gargeshwari thought up a semester-long project to automate data tracking - fascinating and highly useful, but also daunting. "Being new to the field and being given such a large task I needed a lot of guidance," Kristjanson recalls. Gargeshwari spent hours explaining everything she needed to know and creating an outline to break the project down. "I was never afraid to ask questions because Aditi approached every conversation with great patience and kindness: She made it so easy to feel comfortable in the lab." Kristjanson succeeded in creating and debugging the program and it's now in use, improving the accuracy and efficiency of the lab's EEG research on sound processing and hearing loss.

Alexey Glukhov

Associate Professor, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine

Alexey Glukhov treats the students in his lab as emerging scientific colleagues, not assistants, says Mohamed Hamdan, Mildred and Marv Conney Chair in Cardiology. He invests his time and energy in them accordingly, teaching them not only how to conduct experiments but also the fundamental principles of cardiac electrophysiology. When the heart's electrical system goes awry, it disrupts the heartbeat's rhythm, which can be life-threatening. "I see all the students as potential contributors to our science projects," Glukhov says. "I want them to understand why we are doing this [and] how this problem can affect yourself or your relatives." Those conversations not infrequently stretch for more than two hours, says senior Jenson Aaron. The payoff, says Hamdan, is "an extraordinary record of undergraduate scholarship," with more than half of students publishing research and nearly 90% presenting at conferences. Aaron has produced 10 abstracts, a first-authored manuscript and a co-authored publication. "Alexey saw potential in me which I never knew I could find," he says. "If a student is willing to work hard, Alexey will stop at nothing to help them succeed."

Valerie Hammer

Graduate student, Curriculum and Instruction

A pivotal time in an elementary education student's journey comes when they have their first teaching experiences. Valerie Hammer has mentored many recent students through this process, observing them, giving feedback and helping them build strong relationships with the teachers they're working with. "She showed us how to make learning fun while still meaningful," says student Carly Hersch. "She shared practical strategies I know I will use forever, such as writing activities where students do not even realize they are completing a writing prompt until they suddenly have an entire scene or story." Hammer makes a point of tailoring students' experiences in the program and seminars to their interests, asking them what community resources they'd like to learn about and then arranging opportunities to learn from or visit local organizations like the public library and the zoo. "Val is the type of person who will always listen to others because she is genuinely interested in what each person has to say," says student Noelle Anderson. "She is just as interested in learning from individuals as she is teaching them. … If I could be a fraction of the teacher Val is, I would consider myself incredibly successful."

Seth McGee

Biocore Lab Instructor

Whether they are working with single cells or the complex ecosystem that is the Biocore Prairie, Seth McGee finds ways to challenge and surprise students. The 12-acre prairie, located in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, is the central field site for two lab courses and summer independent research. McGee leads the summer Prairie Crew ecology internship. "Students look forward to days that start early in the morning, under the hot summer sun, where they leave coated in mosquito bites, simply for an opportunity to engage with him as a mentor and teacher," says Anna Kowalkowski, Biocore associate director. McGee enlivens the hard work by generously sharing his knowledge, says student Eashna Agarwal. "Thanks to Seth, my peers and I learned so much about the Biocore Prairie - yes, about the plants and birds that inhabit it, but also about its importance in a world where natural spaces are rapidly disappearing. My experiences this summer taught me that, as students of science, we're part of something greater than ourselves; we have the power to solve challenges such as climate change, the loss of ecosystems and the impact these have on human lives. It takes a passionate, attentive mentor to instill such an understanding in his students, and Seth never fails to rise to that occasion."

Caglar Uyanik

Assistant Professor, Mathematics, and Director, Madison Experimental Mathematics Lab

Even before arriving on campus, Caglar Uyanik was planning to involve more undergraduates in math research. Five years later, the Madison Experimental Mathematics Lab (MXM) is a phenomenal success, says Jean-Luc Thiffeault, professor and chair of mathematics. More than 300 students have worked on research ranging from pure mathematics to systems biology, education, machine learning and substance abuse. "The lab has really ignited undergraduate research in mathematics," generating excitement among faculty, postdocs and graduate students as well as undergraduates, says Professor Autumn Exum Kent. Uyanik's mentees include students who have traditionally been underrepresented in the discipline. Many go on to pursue graduate studies. "I know that Caglar will support me at every stage of my career in mathematics regardless of what institution I am at," says Katerina Stuopis, now a Ph.D. student at Boston College. "Caglar has been a fantastic mentor to me, and has shown me how to move through mathematics with joy and curiosity without being stopped by challenges."

Joseph Walston

Graduate Student, Cameron Lab, Botany

Joseph Walston's mentoring approach is as much about team building as it is one-on-one support. He began working with undergraduates in his first semester of graduate school and quickly formed a tight-knit team dubbed the PitcherPals after the carnivorous plant type they study. (He presented them with T-shirts and stickers to show their pitcher plant pride.) The team has grown to eight students from five different majors, and under his guidance, they learn a wide range of research tools and methodologies - consistently measuring and recording data on plant specimens, extracting plant DNA, analyzing data and creating visualizations. He emphasizes the importance of getting others interested in science through outreach, and his mentees have volunteered in the Wisconsin State Herbarium, taught plant anatomy to Boy Scouts and participated in various science communication social media events. And he is committed to students' long-term development, helping them apply for grants and navigate grad school applications. His adviser, Professor of Botany Ken Cameron, says that in three decades of advising doctoral students, "I have never witnessed a young scientist so passionate and effective at mentoring."

Ziyan Wu

Graduate student,Environmental Analytical Technology Laboratory, Civil and Environmental Engineering

First-year student Yousif Zakir had little research experience but lots of curiosity when he started working for Ziyan Wu. Thanks to Wu's well-organized work plan, clear expectations and frequent check-ins, he quickly got up to speed. "Her responsiveness helped me build confidence in my work and reassured me that my learning and development were priorities, not just the output of the project," says Zakir, who recently presented his research at the Undergraduate Symposium. Wu works with students from other fields - electrical engineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, computer sciences - and has a knack for helping them connect their knowledge of their own discipline to the research they're doing, "allowing them to make meaningful contributions while also learning fundamental concepts outside their home fields," says Gregory Harrington, professor and chair of civil and environmental engineering. Adds mentee Patrick Wang: "She talks to me about my discrete mathematics and computer sciences course content, asking thoughtful questions that challenge me to articulate my reasoning clearly and explain my learning. Seeing her engage with topics outside of her own field has made me realize that true scholarship is not about narrowly focusing on one domain, but rather being open to curiosity and understanding the broader network of interconnected scientific systems."