Featured Alumni
Andrew Goodman
Legacy of the Freedom Summer Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms, Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision. Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more? Heart’s willing still to suffer that... Read more »
Anil Rathi
Sparking Creativity Anil Rathi BBA1997 has built a business around rewarding good ideas. As the creator of the Innovation Challenge, which he describes as the world’s largest and most established online innovation competition, Rathi has... Read more »
Ayse Gurses
Error Eliminator As an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Ayse Gurses PhD2005 uses her doctorate in industrial and systems engineering to improve the safety and quality of health care. Her... Read more »
Ben Relles
YouTube In his role as the head of comedy at YouTube, Ben Relles BA1997 oversees development of new content from YouTube’s top comedy talent. While he was still a UW senior, Relles started his first... Read more »
Caroline Savage
Diplomacy Expert Caroline Savage MA2002, MA2004 has played a challenging role behind the scenes as a top leader in Russian, Eurasian, and African diplomacy. At age 32, she spent a year coordinating policy development relating... Read more »
Casey Rotter
Children’s Champion Casey Rotter 2005 was committed to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as a campus member of the UW UNICEF Club. But it was a conversation with a UW Sudanese student that sealed... Read more »
Demondrae Thurman
Musical Mentor Demondrae Thurman MMusic 1998 hits so many notes in his busy life that the cadence belies the mellow tones of his horn, the euphonium. A brass instrument smaller than a tuba, the euphonium... Read more »
Don Fraynd
Bold Reformer The decades-long debate about school reform drags on, but Donald Fraynd PhD2004, who earned his doctorate in educational administration, has developed some bold solutions that work. Using research begun during his PhD program,... Read more »
Eric Neufeld
Restoring Limbs, Restoring Lives Eric Neufeld BA1998 began his career in the field of prosthetic engineering at Scheck & Siress, Chicago’s largest provider of orthotics and prosthetics, using his free time to help more than... Read more »
Gabriel Stulman
Restaurant Phenom When Gabriel Stulman BA2003 faced a crabby customer who was throwing a tantrum over the wait for a table in one of his New York City restaurants, he spontaneously hugged her. Not only... Read more »
Heidi Allstop
Online Empathy Heidi Allstop BA2010 desperately needed to “spill.” By her junior year, she felt stressed, lonely, and depressed, and she yearned to connect with peers who could empathize. So she created Spill, an anonymous... Read more »
Jarius King
Pop-culture ambassador Jarius King BA2009 is an English teacher and creative arts instructor at Foundation Global Education as well as a dance instructor at Ananta in Hong Kong. But that’s just the latest in his... Read more »
Jay Blasi
Golf-Course Mastermind Jay Blasi BS2000 has been fascinated by golf for as long as he can remember. Even as a toddler, he played on the putting green that his father built in the family’s backyard.... Read more »
Jensine Larsen
Creating Citizen Activists Jensine Larsen BA1999 believes that the creative human potential of women and girls is the greatest untapped resource on earth. As a young freelance journalist working in Southeast Asia and South America,... Read more »
Jessica Sack
Art for All Jessica Sack BA1996 believes that the arts are an indispensable part of life that everyone should experience. After graduating from UW–Madison with a triple major (and earning honors in each one), she... Read more »
Jill Carey
Creating Confidence Jill Carey BA2008 chose to attend UW–Madison so that she could become editor-in-chief of the Daily Cardinal, and by her senior year, she had achieved that goal. But Carey knows that not every... Read more »
Jonny Hunter
The Artisanal Chef Jonny Hunter BA2005, MPA2011 went from five years as a vegetarian to raising pigs with a farmer friend. But being vegetarian made him more conscious of consumption and waste, he says, and... Read more »
Justine Nagan
Justine Nagan BA2000 is the executive director at American Documentary and the executive producer on its two signature series: POV (Point of View), its award-winning documentary series on PBS, and America ReFramed (World Channel). After... Read more »
Laura Klunder
Social Change Leader On January 14, 1985, Laura Klunder was recorded as K85-160 — the 160th Korean child her agency had put up for adoption that year. She was one year old when a couple... Read more »
Maggie Rodgers Morrison
Nurse to the Forgotten Having grown up less than a mile from Camp Randall Stadium, Maggie Rodgers Morrison BS2009 realizes that she started out with a skewed view of the world. In Wisconsin’s capital, clean... Read more »
Melissa Holds the Enemy
Justice on the Reservation As a child in the Crow Nation in southern Montana, Melissa Holds the Enemy JD2010 wrestled with her ambitions. “The notion of attending a world-class university like [UW–Madison] seemed to be... Read more »
Natasha Ali
Newsroom Leader As a producer for HLN (formerly CNN Headline News), Natasha Ali MA1997 has worked on developing and launching new programming for the 24-hour news network. She was previously a producer for the network’s... Read more »
Rustem Ismagilov
Nobel-Caliber Discoveries Think of your high school chemistry lab shrunk down smaller than the palm of your hand. Now you are in Rustem Ismagilov’s world. A former Harvard researcher and professor at the University of... Read more »
Serena Pollack
Attorney to the Rescue Serena Pollack BA1997 is general counsel at Boelter Companies, a third-generation, Wisconsin-based company in the restaurant and hospitality industry. A Badger through and through, she’s motivated to help others both on... Read more »
Tamara Grigsby
Change Agent The UW inspired Tamara Grigsby MS2000 to become an agent for social change. “I became angry as I learned the full extent of injustice in our world,” she said. But thanks to the... Read more »