13 UW–Madison group members had been acknowledged in Madison365’s annual checklist of “Wisconsin’s Most Influential Black Leaders” for 2022.
A nonprofit on-line information publication, Madison365 has printed annual energy lists recognizing Wisconsin leaders from totally different racial and ethnic teams since 2015. The aim of the lists is to “spotlight the great thing about the range throughout our state” and elevate position fashions for Wisconsin’s younger individuals, based on Henry Sanders, Jr., co-founder, writer, and chief government officer of Madison365.
Congratulations to the next present and former UW–Madison college students and workers who acquired this well-deserved recognition. You may learn the whole checklist on the Madison365 web site: Wisconsin’s 52 Most Influential Black Leaders 2022.
Alnisa Allgood is the founder and government director of Nonprofit Tech, an organization that helps nonprofits use expertise to work extra effectively, and Collaboration for Good, a Madison-based firm centered on constructing the capability of for-profit or not-for-profit group service organizations. Collaboration for Good plans the annual Madison Nonprofit Day Convention and the Social Good Summit and companions with Ahead Fest, Madison’s premier tech and entrepreneurship pageant. Within the Nineties, Allgood attended a gathering for the ten % Society, a homosexual scholar group at UW–Madison, and realized a few years-long battle to start an LGBT center on campus. Allgood mixed her ardour for problem-solving and serving to others to discovered the college’s LGBT middle in 1992, now often called the Gender and Sexuality Campus Heart.
Adey Assefa is the financial inclusion supervisor on the Better Madison Chamber of Commerce, the place she works to assist the area and its companies reimagine its workforce techniques for a greater, extra inclusive, and extra equitable future. Earlier than taking up that position in 2020, Assefa labored at UW–Madison for 12 years, together with as founding father of the RISE program within the Workplace of Human Sources, director of the African American Scholar Educational Companies workplace, assistant director of the Heart for Educational Excellence, and chief of the Workplace of Multicultural Arts Initiatives and First Wave Hip Hop and City Arts Scholarship Program. She earned her bachelor’s diploma in social welfare in 2004 and her grasp’s diploma in counseling in 2007 from UW–Madison and grew up within the Eagle Heights neighborhood.
Kyree Brooks is the affiliate principal of Central Heights Center Faculty in Solar Prairie. He earned his bachelor’s diploma from UW-Whitewater, and his master’s in rehabilitation psychology and special education from UW–Madison. He’ll start his doctoral research at UW–Madison in Instructional Management and Coverage Evaluation this fall. Beforehand, he served as a dean of scholars at Cardinal Heights Higher Center Faculty. Earlier than his work in Solar Prairie, Brooks served as coordinator of scholar engagement and constructive habits within the Madison Metropolitan Faculty District and labored as a particular schooling instructor in earlier years. He’s additionally a DJ, performing as DJ Ree Maniac.
Brian A. Burt, Ph.D., is an affiliate professor within the Instructional Management and Coverage Evaluation division and director of the Wisconsin Fairness and Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB) at UW–Madison, the place he research the expertise of graduate college students and the institutional insurance policies and practices that affect college students’ pathways. His present analysis falls into two strands: understanding team-based analysis experiences and exploring the experiences of underrepresented graduate college students of colour in engineering. By his work, Dr. Burt seems to be to supply new methods to know science participation and the experiences which may appeal to college students to or flip them away from science pathways. Dr. Burt acquired the Nationwide Academy of Schooling/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Nationwide Science Basis’s Early CAREER Award.
Kayla Conklin is the expertise administration officer at Park Financial institution, the place she is obsessed with looking for out expertise and serving to individuals discover their goal has been prevalent all through her profession. Conklin works to create a financial institution that extra precisely represents the higher Madison space. Conklin sits on the boards of Badger Prairie Wants Community, RISE Wisconsin, City Triage, and the City League of Better Madison Younger Professionals nonprofits. Conklin earned her bachelor’s diploma in authorized research from UW–Madison in 2018 and her grasp’s in communication from UW–Whitewater in 2022.
Angela Fitzgerald Ward is the host of “Wisconsin Life” and the restricted collection “Why Race Matters” on PBS Wisconsin. Along with her work internet hosting the tv collection, Ward is the affiliate dean for the Faculty of Educational Development at Madison Faculty. Beforehand she labored as director of household, youth & group engagement for the Madison Metropolitan Faculty District. She is pursuing her Ph.D. in human ecology at UW–Madison, the place she is finding out the intersection between schooling, organizing, and analysis because it pertains to bettering outcomes for traditionally marginalized teams. She has held analysis and analysis positions inside state and native businesses and nonprofits and has labored with college techniques to coordinate the supply of sources and have interaction college students and households. She applies her analysis and analysis perspective to her group work by discovering inclusive processes to judge influence and effectiveness.
Willie R. Glenn Sr. is the primary Black teen librarian on the Madison Public Library, the place he beforehand served as youth providers librarian assistant. He started his journey in Madison as a scholar assist service coordinator for UW–Madison’s Precollege Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence (PEOPLE) and later because the assistant director at Meadowood Neighborhood Heart. He has served in a number of capacities in youth and grownup schooling, together with as a lead teacher with UW–Madison’s Odyssey program, an out-of-school youth coordinator for Madison Metropolitan Faculty District, and a program coordinator for the Boys and Ladies Membership of Better Milwaukee. Considered one of his proudest moments was serving to spawn Madison’s “Parks Alive” from his “It Takes A Village Neighborhood Useful resource Honest,” which brings individuals collectively over the summer time months.
Kirbie Mack is a longtime chief in Madison’s Black group, and no single job title can seize all she’s contributed over the a long time. Professionally, she served for 36 years in each state and native governments. She was appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle and served for 2 phrases because the Division of Enterprise Companies administrator. Earlier than that, she served as town of Madison’s affirmative motion director, overseeing contract compliance, affirmative motion, and incapacity rights. She held numerous different state and metropolis positions earlier than retiring in 2011. Mack was the co-host and producer of “Give attention to Equality” CityCable 12 – Entry to Metropolis Authorities for six years. Mack earned her M.P.A. in coverage affairs and public administration at UW–Madison in 1995 and her bachelor’s diploma in psychology from Northeastern College in Chicago. Mack was appointed by the Wisconsin State Legislature to the Legislative Council’s Particular Fee on Employment of Vietnam and Different Veterans. She has served on the state’s Affirmative Motion Fee, the Madison/Dane County Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Awards Committee, Madison’s strategic administration crew, and town’s steerage crew on group energy effectiveness and monetary place, in addition to on the boards of many group organizations.
Ashley Morse is the primary Black girl to function a decide on the Rock County Circuit Courtroom. Choose Morse labored for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Workplace starting in 2010 and has been based mostly in Janesville since 2014, representing indigent shoppers as an assistant state public defender in numerous prison and civil proceedings in a number of counties throughout the state. She has served on the Rock County Trauma Activity Power and the Rock County Youth Justice Racial Disparities Committee and has coached the Turner Excessive Faculty Mock Trial Workforce. She earned her bachelor’s diploma in historical past from the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006 and her Physician of Regulation from the UW–Madison Regulation Faculty in 2009. She has labored extensively with the Nationwide Juvenile Defender Heart (now The Gault Heart), together with her choice as an Ambassador for Racial Justice.
Kurt Rose is the director of human sources operations for Madison Metropolitan Faculty District. Earlier than taking up that position in June 2022, he labored for 4 years at UW–Madison’s Faculty of Schooling, most not too long ago as interim human sources director. He was additionally a facilitator of the Our Wisconsin range and inclusion program at UW–Madison for 3 years. He’s president of the City League of Better Madison Younger Professionals, which has dramatically elevated its membership over the previous few years. Rose additionally serves on the board of administrators of Madison Ballet.
Marcus Sedberry is deputy athletic director for the Wisconsin Badgers at UW–Madison, the place he oversees inside operations for the athletic division. He joined Wisconsin Athletics in 2022 after spending nearly 5 years at Baylor College as a senior affiliate athletics director. At UW, Sedberry focuses on main inside operations and is liable for delivering on the Wisconsin Athletics mission and values referring to creating an setting that gives alternatives for student-athletes to develop frequently and elevate their lives. This contains oversight of all of the areas which are a part of Ahead 360, in addition to services, occasion and visitor providers, and sports activities administration for a number of applications.
Linda Vakunta, Ph.D., is deputy mayor for Madison, the place she assists with housing and human providers points. She beforehand served as program director on the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance Worldwide, the place she led, developed, and designed coaching applications for presidency, group, and non-governmental organizations to fight trafficking in individuals. Lately, she has labored as a researcher with Sustaining Pure Circle’s CDC-funded grant on understanding the impacts of opioid use amongst African American ladies in Madison. As founding government director of Undertaking 1808, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit, she led the event and development throughout a decade-long tenure from 2009-19. She was instrumental within the development, success, and global-local recognition of the group as an vital participant in remodeling lives, enabling youth and adults, and constructing capability in Sierra Leone by means of Faculty-Neighborhood-College Partnership Fashions. A 3-time UW–Madison graduate, the place Dr. Vakunta earned her undergraduate diploma in psychology, her M.A. in rehabilitation psychology, and her Ph.D. in setting and sources from the Nelson Institute, which propelled her to win the Nelson Institute’s Rising Star Alumni Award after commencement.
Danyelle Wright, Ph.D., is in her third yr at Cottage Grove Faculty as Constructing Principal with prior administrative expertise with the Madison Metropolitan Faculty District. She earned her Ph.D. in Schooling Management Coverage Evaluation from UW–Madison in 2022. Dr. Wright has been within the discipline of schooling for over 12 years as an academic assistant, instructor, instructor chief, dean, assistant principal, and principal. She additionally has expertise in greater schooling and was an adjunct professor at Edgewood Faculty in Madison. Dr. Wright is devoted to the sphere of schooling and needs to not solely be a frontrunner throughout the discipline of schooling however needs to empower different ladies and ladies of colour to get into schooling and management roles.
