Staff Spotlight

  1. November 19, 2012

    Athletic trainer gives back to athletes with disabilities at Paralympic Games

    As a former high school athlete and current staff athletic trainer for U-M’s Athletic Department, Jeremy Marra understood that all athletes have to overcome challenges. But until he worked with the Paralympic Games in London this year, he didn’t realize the full scope. “Not to take away from what the Olympians or other athletes do,…
  2. November 12, 2012

    Architecture professor designs for specialized care in hospital setting

    Photo by Eric Bronson, Michigan Photography. Behind every structure, too and space is an architect who designed it, based on the needs of the user. This is the work of U. Sean Vance. Vance has been an assistant professor of architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning since Fall 2010, after teaching…
  3. November 5, 2012

    Outreach coordinator working on solo album

    Growing up in Detroit and raised on Motown hits, Michael Turner had a confession to make when, at 18 years old, he saw a Lenny Kravitz music video and a friend suggested he check out a certain left-handed guitarist who inspired Kravitz. “I was a college freshman who didn’t know who Jimi Hendrix was,” he…
  4. October 29, 2012

    SNRE research scientist infuses art into science

    What moment in the classroom stands out as the most memorable? Memorable moments are when I realize that through a class experience students discover something fundamental. As part of a course on sustainable development related to hydropower projects proposed in Chilean Patagonia, a student pointing down at the Baker River valley said to me almost…
  5. October 22, 2012

    For analyst, helping her community not ‘strictly business’

    Brittany Galisdorfer moved around a lot as a child, living in six different states before college. But she found a home when, as a freshman at U-M in 2001, she volunteered in the city of Detroit and fell in love with it. Galisdorfer, a business analyst in the Office of Financial Analysis, now uses her…
  6. October 15, 2012

    Writing lecturer combines social justice with class

    Christine Modey has always loved cookbooks, but it wasn’t until she taught a special section of English 125 last fall that she was able to collaborate on the creation of one. As a lecturer with the Sweetland Center for Writing, Modey teaches several classes and seminars, including a section of the first-year writing requirement English…
  7. October 8, 2012

    Nature lover brings science to kids

    As the Children’s Program Coordinator for Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, Liz Glynn works to bring science to children. Her most useful tool for the job is her “bag of tricks.” “It could contain anything, really,” she says of the bag she always brings on field trips. “I like to have magnifying lenses, so…
  8. October 1, 2012

    Art director uses annual festival to bring art to streets

    A large puppet — the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex — hangs from the ceiling of a concrete room, accompanied by similar puppets that annually perform on the streets of Ann Arbor during the carnival-esque event called FestiFools. The puppet holds a carrot in one claw, and a chocolate bar in another, with Mark Tucker,…
  9. September 24, 2012

    Entomologist sees his world through many lenses

    On most days Mark O’Brien, a U-M insect division collection manager, is found sorting dead insects into 8-foot-tall specimen cabinets that fill several rooms in the Museum of Zoology within the Ruthven Museums Building. “We’re maybe one of the best kept secrets on campus because we’re not really known for having a program in entomology…
  10. September 17, 2012

    Linguistics professor uses radio, video to explore language

    Photo by Scott C. Soderberg, Michigan Photography. Regular Michigan Radio contributor Anne Curzan says she is a linguist partly because her “mathy” brain gets the system of the English language. But what really inspired her to make the study of English her life’s calling was the creativity and quirkiness that often shapes the evolution of…