Shilpa & Mara’s Excellent Adventure – Michigan & Wisconsin

Shilpa and I are touring around the country to spread the word about the MSL program. To read about the first leg of our journey, click here

Our journey continued in Michigan with visits to MSU and University of Michigan.

Michigan State University

At Michigan State, we had a busy, but productive day of meetings. We met with some very interesting and friendly individuals across a variety of departments:

  • Tammy Long, Department of Plant Biology
  • Jeffrey Swada, Director of Food Science for the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition
  • Kendra Kanaboshi, Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Plant Biology
  • Jeannine Scott, Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics
  • Vincent Melfi & Leonard Johnson, Department of Statistics and Probability
  • Brian Chadwick, Department of Mathematics

I especially enjoyed touring around the Horticultural gardens. It’s a shame we visited before the greenery had sprung up, but we’ll just have to return in the future!

Cuisine Highlight:

  • No Thai – The description on google says it all: “Unfussy spot for familiar Thai cuisine.”

University of Michigan

University of Michigan was a beautiful, sprawling campus with absolutely no parking. Pro tip for visitors: do not drive! Despite the lack of parking, we managed to make it to meetings with some fantastic people:

  • Denise Phelps, Graduate Student Services Coordinator for Aerospace Engineering
  • Trisha Fountain, Undergraduate Academic Advisor for Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences
  • Keith Wittkopp, Neuroscience Advising Coordinator
  • Robert H. Lurie (pictured below)

 

Cuisine Highlight:

  • Fritas Batidos – The place was phenomenal. If you live within a 3 hour driving radius of Ann Arbor, I highly recommend making the trip just to eat these delicious sandwiches.

University of Wisconsin – Madison

Our next stop was University of Wisconsin – Madison! The campus is located along a beautiful river, so we were encouraged to visit again in the summer time to be able to take advantage of the Terrace. We met with a couple wondeful individuals:

  • Jake Blanchard, Professor and Executive Associate Dean at the College of Engineering
  • Maureen Muldoon, Interim Director for the Center for Pre-Law Advising & Center for Pre-Health Advising at SuccessWorks

Cuisine Highlight:

  • We enjoyed food from one of the many food trucks along State Street by the Memorial Library. It was fun to see so many people embracing the food trucks and Library Mall, despite the chilly weather.

Marquette University

At Marquette, we unintentionally created an interesting Venn diagram of departments by meeting with:

  • Mark Federle, Associate Dean of the OPUS College of Engineering
  • Ed Blumenthal, Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
  • Lars Olson, Interim Chair and Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering

After our meetings at Marquette, we headed back to Chicago. That concluded our midwest adventures for this spring, but we have many more solo adventures to come!

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Bonus*

Name the home of this statue! Despite initial doubts, we confirmed that this is, in fact, a statue and not a painted person.

*You won’t win a prize, but we’ll be very impressed.

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Next Stops!

If you are at one of the following schools, let us know! We’d be happy to connect with you on our next trips:

  • Oklahoma
    • University of Central Oklahoma
  • California
    • Claremont Colleges
    • University of California, Berkeley
    • University of California, San Diego

 

Mara Jacobucci
Sr. Program Coordinator

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