Faculty/Staff Spotlights
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June 5, 2023
“We know this war will stop and we know Ukraine will win, but we want Ukraine to win and then have a future.”
— Juliya Wicklund, an America Reads program manager with the Edward Ginsberg Center who helped launch the Ukraine TrustChain, a nonprofit aimed at helping the war-torn country of Ukraine
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May 22, 2023
“It’s always a thrill to get to put on the Team USA jersey and head out there and compete on the world stage.”
— Chuck Aoki, community access navigator with U-M’s Adaptive Sports & Fitness program, who has competed in wheelchair rugby in three Summer Paralympics Games
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May 1, 2023
“My creative instincts take eclectic items I’ve found in nature to assemble them in a free-form manner.”
— Tamara Havermahl, a research communicator with the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology in Michigan Medicine who has designed and created dozens of mailboxes and birdhouses
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April 24, 2023
Among those preparing to graduate are Annabelle Ha from the School of Kinesiology, Rhianna Lucas from the Marsal Family School of Education, Zachary Marmet from LSA’s Program in the Environment, Cedric Preston McCoy from the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and Meghana Tummala from the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning
— Each year, the Record highlights the range of experiences and people who attend U-M by profiling selected graduates about their time at the university and their plans for life afterward.
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April 17, 2023
“I would spend summers at Mount Hood ski racing in Oregon, so I was very thankful for the opportunities my parents gave me to live a different life than other people.”
— Devon Janks, director of catering for Michigan Dining who was a collegiate ski racer and coaches high school ski racing at South Lyon United
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April 10, 2023
“I think seeing how much more similar we are and our ability to kind of like cross-species communicate is better for both of us and for them.”
— Sascha Crasnow, lecturer in Islamic arts and culture in the Residential College in LSA, who has helped teach her 2-year-old beagle mix, Parker, to “speak” through the use of nearly 100 buttons in her home
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April 3, 2023
“I just kind of felt a calling to it. It was kind of slow and quiet at first, but then it just got more powerful.”
— Darcy Brandel, a lecturer in creative writing in the Residential College and with U-M’s Semester in Detroit program, who serves as a “death doula” to help families facilitate the passing of a loved one
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March 27, 2023
“There is such immense variety, such genius there. Out of those 281 works, I don’t think there’s a bad piece, and I don’t know of another composer I could say that of.”
— James Kibbie, professor of organ at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, who will perform the last of 18 concerts featuring all 281 solo organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach on April 16, shortly before his retirement
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March 20, 2023
“I love wood. That’s what I’m really into. But I’ve come to appreciate ceramics, because I can come up with an idea and realize it so quickly, which is appealing.”
— Mark Meier, lecturer II in architecture in the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, who builds furniture, sculpts ceramics and explores his expansive curiosity through digital means
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March 13, 2023
“It’s a fun operation. We’ve used it a little bit to teach our daughters about nature. We’ve always appreciated and valued local production.”
— Frank Marsik, lecturer IV in climate and space sciences and engineering in the College of Engineering, who with his wife, Theresa, has made homemade syrup from their solitary sugar maple since 2018
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