Schedule for March 24, 2022

Schedule for March 25, 2022

Sarah Yang – Toxicologist, Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Health

Sarah Yang is the groundwater toxicologist with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Her job duties include developing groundwater standards for the protection of public health, conducting human health risk assessments, and developing communication materials related to drinking water hazards. Before working for DHS, she was an environmental toxicologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Sarah holds a doctoral degree in molecular and environmental toxicology from the University of Wisconsin.

Kevin Masarik – UW-Stevens Point, Center for Watershed Science and Education

Kevin Masarik is an integrated specialist with UW-Extension in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Groundwater and drinking water quality are the focus of his teaching and research. Masarik has especially focuses on populations served by rural residential well water systems. His work includes understanding the relationship between agricultural land use and water quality, geologic related groundwater contaminants, and utilizing the Center's well water data to educate the public about important groundwater quality concerns where they live.

Daniel Sambu - UW-La Crosse

Daniel Sambu teaches geography and earth science and specializes on issues related to water resources,  sustainable development, environmental conservation, and community livelihood.  His research has focuses on drinking water in Africa. He has published work on both historical and emerging policies and how that impacts drinking water for people living in Africa. 

Cheryl Nenn – Community Science Water Monitoring

As a Riverkeeper, Cheryl identifies sources of pollution in Milwaukee’s rivers, actively patrols the rivers for issues of concern, responds to community concerns, and looks for collaborative solutions to  problems affecting the rivers. Cheryl also manages a citizen-based water quality monitoring program, the Milwaukee Urban Water Trail, and various restoration and stormwater demonstration projects.  Cheryl serves on the Board of the Waterkeeper Alliance, Preserve Our Parks, Friends of Milwaukee County Grounds Park, and the Milwaukee River Greenway; serves on advisory committees for the Milwaukee Area Technical College and UWM-School of Freshwater Sciences; and serves on several technical advisory committees for SEWRPC and WDNR relating to water quality and the Milwaukee River Estuary Area of Concern.

Forest Jahnke – Crawford Stewardship Project

Forest works to bring research and education to drinking water projects.  He has been involved with a  wide range of projects involving grassroots networking and cross-organizational coordination.  Forest has presented on regional karst geology formations which we have here in the Coulee Region. He explains how local hydrogeology related to the karst formations impacts just about everything we do on the surface.  Forest has a passion for the beauty of this area, and is dedicated to helping folks engage to protect the values and rights of our communities and ecosystems. 

Tisha King-Heiden – UW-La Crosse

Tisha King-Heiden is a professor in the biology department at UW-La Crosse, and an affiliate of the Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin and the UW-L River Studies Center.  She is also the vice president for the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry of North America. Tisha uses small fish models like zebrafish and fathead minnows to study how exposure to environmental contaminants during early life stages impact embryonic development and reproductive health later in life. She will present an overview about which kinds of endocrine disruptors are in our water, and how her work with fish helps us to understand the risks that these environmental contaminants may pose to wild fish and human health.

Kelly Smalling – U.S. Geological Survey

Kelly Smalling is a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, New Jersey Water Science Center. She is co-lead, along with Paul Bradley of the USGS Environmental Health Program, Drinking-Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Integrated Science Team, which focuses on the environmental and human health risks associated with the complex chemical and biological contaminant mixtures that are characteristic of both drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. Kelly’s research is focused on the actual versus perceived health risks of contaminant mixtures to human health and the environment (including fish and wildlife).

Paul M. Bradley – U.S. Geological Survey, Environmental Health Program

Paul Bradley is a research hydrologist/ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. He is co-lead, along with Kelly Smalling, of the USGS Environmental Health Program, Drinking-Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Integrated Science Team. His research focuses on human exposures to and potential effects of inorganic, organic, and microbial contaminant mixtures in drinking water at the point of use and on anthropogenic contaminant mixtures as ecosystem stressors.

Allison Madison – Wisconsin Salt Wise

Allison spearheads statewide collaboration around salt reduction. Allison has over 10 years of experience in science and sustainability education in  both formal and informal settings from the Appalachian Mountains to Olympic National Park, classrooms in inner-city Milwaukee to the ponderosa pine forests of Colorado's Front Range. Allison graduated from St. Olaf College and has a joint MS in environment and resources and soil science from the University of Wisconsin.

Hope Kirwan – Wisconsin Public Radio

Hope Kirwan has been Wisconsin Public Radio’s La Crosse reporter since 2015. Her stories can be heard almost daily on WPR’s newscasts, covering agriculture issues and southwestern Wisconsin. Before joining WPR, Hope was a reporter for public radio station KBIA in Columbia, Missouri, where she earned several awards, including a National Edward R. Murrow Award. Hope received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Mo.