Brazil Initiative Programming Archive – Steering Committee

Severino Albuquerque

Director

Professor Albuquerque teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in Portuguese language and Brazilian literature and culture. His main area of research is contemporary Brazilian theatre. Author of Violent Acts: A Study of Contemporary Latin American Theatre (1991); Tentative Transgressions: Homosexuality, AIDS and the Theater in Brazil (2004); and co-author of the revised edition of Português para principiantes (1993). Professor Albuquerque edited the volume Joaquim Nabuco: Conferências nos Estados Unidos – Nabuco e Wisconsin (2010) and co-edited the critical anthology, Performing Brazil: Essays on Identity, Culture and the Performing Arts (2015). He has also published numerous articles in journals and critical anthologies. He is a co-editor of the Luso-Brazilian Review; Brazilian literature (drama) editor for the Handbook of Latin American Studies, Library of Congress; and an editorial board member of Hispania and the Latin American Theatre Review. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the American Portuguese Studies Association (2012-2016). Professor Albuquerque served as director of the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program from 2002 until 2004 and in 2002 he received a University of Wisconsin’s Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Professor Albuquerque’s book, Tentative Transgressions has received the 2005 Roberto Reis Award of the Brazilian Studies Association (for best book on Brazil published in English between 2003 and 2005) and the 2008 Elizabeth Steinberg Award for best book published by the University of Wisconsin Press between 2003 and 2008.

Michael W. Apple

Michael Apple is John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the Institute of Education, University of London. He has worked with governments, researchers, unions, political movements, and dissident groups in Latin America and many other parts of the world on building more critically democratic research, policies, and practices in education. Among his recent books are Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality, 2nd edition (2006), The Subaltern Speak: Curriculum, Power, and Educational Struggles (2006), The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education (2009), and Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education (2010).

Guilherme Rosa

Dr. Guilherme Rosa has a PhD in Statistics and Agricultural Experimentation from the University of São Paulo (USP) – Brazil, and a postdoctoral training in statistical genetics and genomics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From 1991 to 2001, Dr. Rosa was a Lecturer and later an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biostatistics, São Paulo State University (UNESP) – Brazil, and in 2002 he moved to the USA to work as an Assistant Professor in statistical genomics at Michigan State University. In 2006, Dr. Rosa returned to the UW-Madison, where he is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Animal Sciences and the Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics. Dr. Rosa teaches undergraduate courses in animal breeding and genetics, and grad level courses in Bayesian MCMC data analysis, and statistical genomics. Dr. Rosa develops research on statistical applications in animal breeding and genetics as well as in molecular biology. He has 90+ peer-reviewed publications and three book chapters, and has served as reviewer and member of editorial board for many scientific journals. Dr. Rosa is currently the Book Review Editor of Biometrics, a member of the Advisory Board of the Brazilian Biometric Journal, and he is the founding Chief Editor of Livestock Genomics. Dr. Rosa has maintained collaborative research projects with many institutions in Brazil, including UNESP, USP, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), and the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA).

Ricardo Saban

Dr. Saban is a Professor in the UW’s Department of Neurosciences and Professor of Physiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He is a graduate of the University of São Paulo, where he received his DVM as well as a Ph.D. in Physiology, and a Livre Docente professorship in Pathology. In the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Saban did two post-doctoral trainings at the UW (Pharmacology, 1981-1984, and Anesthesiology, 1986-1988) and was a member of the Division of Urology from 1988 until 1999. Dr. Saban is an internationally recognized expert in bladder inflammation especially with respect to angiogenic, neurogenic, and lymphangiogenic factors. He is also a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health (NIDDK) study section and an ad hoc member of National Cancer Institute study sections. The track record of his publications shows that Dr. Saban is a pioneer in generating animal models of diseases and that his laboratory utilizes cutting-edge molecular techniques such as molecular imaging, suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH), cDNA arrays, and transcriptional factor analyses to identify organ- and disease-specific genes, transcription factors, and regulatory networks.

Timothy A. Shedd

Steven K. Smith

Steven K. Smith is the UW-Madison Secretary of the Faculty. He holds a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in Lusophone literature from the UW. His dissertation examined the burgeoning alternative theater scene in Brazil’s largest city at the turn of the millennium. He was the Associate Director of Global Studies at UW for over a decade, and has worked with the Division of International Studies on developing connections with Brazilian universities and research centers. He has taught Portuguese language and literature classes, as well as courses on human rights and human security and a senior capstone seminar on the cultures of soccer. Steve is a former Portuguese interpreter for the US State Department and has traveled extensively throughout Brazil. As Associate Director of the UW-Madison Land Tenure Center, he also worked in Lusophone Africa. He has published translations of the works of Fernando Pessoa, Plínio Marcos, and Machado de Assis.

Karen B. Strier

Karen B. Strier is Vilas Professor and Irven DeVore Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has been studying the critically endangered northern muriqui monkey in the Brazilian Atlantic forest since 1982. Her pioneering research has been critical to conservation efforts on behalf of this species, and has been influential in broadening comparative perspectives on primate behavioral and ecological diversity. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and she holds an Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Brazilian Primatological Society. Among her most recent publications are Faces in the Forest: The Endangered Muriqui Monkeys of Brazil (1999), which was updated and translated into Portuguese (Faces na Floresta 2007), and Primate Behavioral Ecology 4th edition (2011). She is affiliated with the graduate program in Biological Sciences at the Universidade Federal de Espírito Santo and a co-author and member of the strategic advisory committee of the Brazilian National Action Plan for the Conservation of Muriquis.

Umberto Tachinardi

A native of Brazil, Dr Umberto Tachinardi received his medical degree in 1983 from Itajuba School of Medicine and a master’s in physiology from the Biomedical Sciences Institute at the State University of Sao Paulo. Dr. Tachinardi was the CIO of the Heart Institute of the State University of Sao Paulo Medical School, when he left after more than 20 years of tenure, developing Electronic Medical Records Systems. Between 2002 and 2006 he led the IT group of the State Secretary of Health of Sao Paulo State. Since coming to the U.S. in 2006, he has served on many NIH review panels and been involved with national medical informatics groups and projects. Dr. Tachinardi was named Chief Research Information Officer, and Associate Dean for Biomedical Informatics, at the School of Medicine and Public Health at UW-Madison. He is also the Director of the Biomedical Informatics Core of the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR). Dr. Umberto Tachinardi came to UW-Madison from the University of Chicago, where he was director of informatics in the Office of Clinical Research and for the UC Comprehensive Cancer Center. He was also assistant dean of academic and research informatics at Chicago.

Alberto M. Vargas

Alberto M. Vargas is the Associate Director of the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies at UW-Madison. He holds a Masters in Horticulture and International Development from Texas A&M University and a PhD in Forestry and Environmental Studies from the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW. His dissertation examined the evolution of forest policies in the management of tropical forests in Southern Mexico. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Terra Institute in Madison and has worked in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean as a consultant in international environmental and land tenure issues.