Ninth Cohort of Morgridge Fellows Selected

Andrea C. Buhler-Wassmann

Assistant Professor, Human and Family Studies Department

Dr. Andrea C. Buhler-Wassmann (she/they/ella) is an assistant professor of human development & family studies in the School of Human Ecology. She studies how Latine caregivers nurture their children’s early development and learning through everyday practices in their home environments, with the goal of identifying culturally relevant ways to support caregivers and create environments that promote family and child well-being.

Her scholarship is organized around two central themes: (1) how caregivers navigate stressful contexts and the intrinsic, relational, and systemic factors that promote healthy socioemotional and psychobiological development, and (2) highlighting cultural strengths in caregiver-child interactions. Her focus on Latine families stems from a personal connection to these communities as a Latina scholar and my conviction to promote social justice through developmental science. She is dedicated to working in partnership with community organizations that support Latine families, as well as students from ethnoculturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Andrew Stevens

Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics

Andrew Stevens (he/him) is the Martin E. and Kathleen M. Burkhardt Associate Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics. As an applied economist with research interests in agricultural and food policy, his research focuses on economic decision-making throughout the food supply chain from agricultural production to consumer demand. Much of his current research agenda explores resilience in the agri-food system and the economics of agricultural land use and related policies.

Anna Bierbrauer

Associate Professor, Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture

Anna Bierbrauer is an assistant professor of landscape architecture in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at UW–Madison. Drawing on interdisciplinary training in landscape architecture, geography, and environmental history (MLA, University of Minnesota; PhD, University of Colorado Denver), her research examines how landscapes function as living archives of social, political and ecological change. Working at the intersection of landscape architecture, political ecology, environmental humanities, and geospatial science, she combines archival research, GIS, historical mapping, field ecology, and community-engaged scholarship to investigate the relationships among plants, water, infrastructure and urban development.

Her current research explores urban forests, ecological restoration and green infrastructure to better understand how historical decisions continue to shape environmental resilience and social equity. Through interdisciplinary collaborations with municipalities, community organizations, and scientists, her work bridges historical inquiry, environmental monitoring, and design practice to inform more just, climate-responsive and ecologically grounded approaches to planning and landscape architecture.

Brianna Jackson

Assistant Professor, School of Nursing

Brianna Jackson (she/her) is an assistant professor with the School of Nursing and a psychiatric–mental health registered nurse. She is a recent PhD graduate of Yale University and completed her postdoctoral training with the National Clinician Scholars Program at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Jackson’s research and clinical practice are highly synergistic, lying at the intersection of trauma and resilience among youth who are marginalized by inequity.

She uses mixed methods, arts-based, and participatory approaches to explore complex biopsychosocial factors influencing mental health and wellbeing in historically underrepresented and socially disadvantaged young people. Drawing upon their lived realities, knowledge, and expertise, Dr. Jackson aims to facilitate the development of youth-led mental health interventions that support engagement, empowerment, and meaning-making.

Dana Landress

Assistant Professor, Department of Medical History and Bioethics

Dana Landress (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Her research examines the history of medicine and public health across the 19th and 20th centuries, with a particular focus on community health activism and the political economy of capitalism.

Her first book, which is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press, excavates the structural histories of food systems enclosure and the landmark contributions of everyday people who worked tirelessly to reduce health disparities across the first half of the twentieth century.

Doubara (Dobby) Stucki

Lecturer, Doctor of Physical Therapy Program

Doubara (Dobby) Stucki, PT, DPT, GCS, ACHH (she/her), is a board-certified geriatric clinical specialist and lecturer in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at UW–Madison. She teaches in both classroom and clinical settings and is involved in outreach efforts that connect prospective students and communities to the DPT program. In addition to her teaching role, Stucki practices physical therapy in the home health setting, where she works primarily with older adults.

Her work focuses on supporting healthy aging through dementia care, building fall resilience, and addressing social drivers of health in both clinical and community settings. She is especially interested in creating opportunities for students to learn alongside and from the communities they serve.

Jayer Fernandes

Research Scientist, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jayer Fernandes (he/him) is a research scientist with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In a past life, he spent a lot of time designing and building biomedical sensors in a lab. In his current research life, he works with older adult communities to co-design a gait monitoring wearable, to improve its usability and understand why our fall risk increases as we age. 

Jessica Coburn

Clinical Professor, School of Nursing

Jessica Coburn is a clinical professor in the School of Nursing, where her work focuses on nursing education, population health and health policy. She has taught in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs, led innovative experiential and community-based learning initiatives and contributed to scholarship in nursing education. Dr. Coburn combines academic leadership with mentoring for current and future nurses across clinical, academic and policy-focused settings.

She has been actively engaged in health advocacy and workforce development through statewide professional organizations and public service roles. Her work bridges academic preparation and real-world practice, strengthening student learning through partnerships with healthcare systems, public health agencies and community organizations.   

Jing Yu

Assistant professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis

Jing Yu (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor of international higher education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a faculty affiliate in Asian American studies at UW–Madison. Her research examines how the macro-level dynamics of neoliberal ideology, global inequality, and geopolitical tensions shape higher education systems and influence student mobility, experiences and academic outcomes.

Specifically, she explores the unique challenges faced by international students from marginalized backgrounds as they navigate the complex educational landscapes of Western countries. Using a community-based participatory action research approach, her current project centers Chinese international students’ lived experiences and engages campus stakeholders in developing holistic, campus-based programming to better support their mental health and psychological well-being.

Julie Ober Allen

Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology

Julie Ober Allen is an assistant professor of health promotion and health equity in the Department of Kinesiology and director of the Stress and Health Disparities Lab. Her research investigates mechanisms generating chronic disease burden and disparities within the older U.S. adult population. This work focuses on how exposure to chronic stressors rooted in social inequities (e.g., ageism, racism, race and gender expectations, adverse life events) affects behavior, biology, psychosocial factors and subsequent health in later life.

Her work to date emphasizes the health implications of ageism, Black-White health disparities, and health outcomes such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and multimorbidity. The underlying motivation for this research is to inform innovative community, societal and policy level change to promote health and reduce health disparities among older U.S. adults. 

LB Klein

Assistant Professor, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work

LB Klein (they/she) is an assistant professor in the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work and a core faculty member of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) at UW–Madison. Their research focuses on sexual and intimate partner violence prevention and response, with particular attention to LGBTQIA2S+ communities, institutional contexts and community-engaged approaches to advancing health and well-being. Dr. Klein directs the GLITTER Lab (Gender, LGBTQIA2S+, Interpersonal Trauma, and Translational Equity Research), which partners with practitioners, advocates, and communities to conduct applied research that informs policy, practice and systems change.

Their research, teaching, and service are informed by more than 20 years of experience as a survivor advocate, prevention educator, program director, evaluator, trainer, researcher and consultant. They also teach graduate courses in community-engaged practice, interpersonal violence, and social work practice with LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and communities.

Lola Loustaunau

Assistant Professor, School for Workers

Lola Loustaunau (she/her/ella) is an assistant professor at the school for workers, Department of Labor Education, and affiliated faculty in sociology, community and environmental sociology, and Chicanx/e & Latinx/e Studies at UW–Madison. She directs the Labor, Migration, and Community Engaged Research program at the 4W Initiative. Her research examines the intersection of labor precarity, migration, and gender in food systems, with a focus on low-wage workers’ experiences and collective organizing strategies.

Using community-based participatory action research, she partners with organizations including Voces de la Frontera, Worker Justice Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Farmworkers Coalition, and Legal Action Wisconsin to generate research that informs policy, practice and worker organizing. She also develops and delivers bilingual labor education programming for immigrant and low-wage workers, including workshops on workers’ rights, workplace safety, and collective organizing. Her work is driven by a commitment to building knowledge alongside the communities most affected by labor exploitation and immigration enforcement, with the goal of advancing immigrant workers’ rights and collective power.

Sara Kelm

Assistant Teaching Professor, English Department

Sara Kelm (she/her) is an assistant teaching professor and the acting director of English 100, a program that offers over 100 sections per academic year of first-year writing to UW–Madison undergraduate students. As part of the E100 administrative team, she trains and mentors graduate students and teaching faculty, refines the recommended curriculum (which has a community/campus-based focus), provides professional development in the teaching of writing and collaborates across divisions and programs.

Kelm also teaches upper-division writing and rhetoric courses in the English major that often involve community-engaged projects. She earned her PhD in rhetoric and composition from Texas Christian University, with certificates in gender and women’s studies and multimodal pedagogy, and her research interests include women’s professional memoirs, the role of reflection in writing pedagogy and writing program administration.

Wan-chin Kuo

Assistant Professor, School of Nursing

Wan-chin Kuo (she/her) is an assistant professor at the School of Nursing. Her research focuses on cardiovascular disease prevention through behavioral modification, particularly dietary and exercise behaviors. Her lab applies wearable technologies, ecological momentary assessment, and just-in-time adaptive interventions to support workers’ health, with a primary focus on the trucking industry and extending to office settings and rural communities.

Through community-academic partnerships with multi-level stakeholders in the trucking industry, Kuo is guided by the belief that the community’s collective wisdom is key to building self-sustaining health solutions that protect working hearts.

Weidi Qin

Assistant Professor, Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work

Weidi Qin (she/her) is an assistant professor in the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work. She is an interdisciplinary health scholar trained in social work, gerontology and social epidemiology. Her program of research is focused on socio-ecological and contextual factors of cardiometabolic diseases (especially diabetes) and functional limitations among community-dwelling older adults.

A related thread of her research examines stress-health associations and modifiable psychosocial factors underlying racial and ethnic disparities in late-life health. Her motivation to pursue community-engaged research is to understand the lived experiences of older adults living in disadvantaged and underserved neighborhoods, complementing her quantitative findings and helping identify potential intervention points.

Weiqi Chen

Assistant Professor, School of Nursing

Weiqi Chen (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor in the School of Nursing. Her research focuses on preventing alcohol-involved sexual violence and risky sexual behaviors among young adults. Additionally, Dr. Chen investigates condom use resistance, a unique phenomenon at the intersection of sexual health, sexual violence and reproductive justice.

Utilizing community-engaged and user-centered approaches, she aims to develop innovative, effective interventions that lower the risks of alcohol-involved sexually risky or violent behaviors. She also aims to center insights from survivors and healthcare providers to design tailored interventions that support recovery and strengthen advocacy and holistic care around under-recognized forms of sexual misconduct.