News releases

May 12, 2008

TO: Reporters, news directors
FROM: University Communications, (608) 262-0930
RE: STORY IDEAS ON SPRING GRADUATES OF UW-MADISON PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS

Reporters covering commencement this weekend at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Kohl Center may be interested in stories of individual students who have done remarkable work while on campus.

This is the first of two tip sheets on interesting graduates at UW-Madison. This one focuses on graduates of professional schools, whose ceremonies will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, May 16. A tip sheet featuring stories of bachelor's degree graduates from May 17 and 18 ceremonies will be released on Tuesday, May 13.

- Rebecca Banks: Film producer turns to veterinary medicine: Banks admits that there's an idea for a documentary film about animals germinating in her mind. But for now, this former filmmaker is concentrating on veterinary medicine.

Banks graduated with a bachelor's degree in film production from UW-Milwaukee, one of the top documentary film programs in the country, then went to live with her sister in New York City. She got a job with a film crew, but it wasn't quite what she'd imagined. Banks wanted to do lighting, filming - all the things she'd learned in school. Instead, she found herself getting coffee for a movie star.

She eventually returned to Wisconsin to film the screenplay she had written in New York. Her independent film, "Still Life," was produced in Milwaukee and Madison in 2000.

Even after returning to her professional first love by attending the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine in 2004, film experiences continued to fall in her lap. In the summer of 2006, she was hired as a production coordinator for the movie "The Last Kiss" when it was filmed at UW-Madison.

Banks plans to remain in Madison and is currently negotiating for veterinary openings in the area. She can be reached at (414) 588-2271 or rbanks@wisc.edu.

- Megan Beaman: A neighborhood focus on legal issues: Beaman is the first person in her family to graduate from college and the first to go to professional school. She came to law school to pursue a public interest career in poverty law and immigration. During law school, she was a student attorney with the Neighborhood Law Project (NLP), the Law School's community-based poverty law clinic located on South Park Street.

As an NLP student attorney, Beaman worked under the close supervision of the NLP faculty representing clients with poverty issues, such as landlord-tenant, public benefits, and wage and hour issues. She also worked on community advocacy projects, including community legal education and outreach.

Beaman, who is fluent in Spanish, also volunteered as an interpreter for NLP and was involved in a number of public interest organizations and volunteer activities, including Habitat for Humanity, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Latino/a Law Students Association..

"My experience with the Neighborhood Law Project helped me to acquire lawyering skills," she says, "and allowed me to connect my legal education to the community and remain grounded during the last two years of the law school experience."

After graduation, Beaman will become a staff attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance Migrant Project, focusing on migrant farm workers and their particular legal (and nonlegal) needs.

She can be reached at (515) 707-1574 or meggidy@gmail.com.

- Bill Bettenberg: After four decades, a new career in law: Bettenberg came to law school after a 40-year career in Washington, D. C., in high-level positions at the U.S. Department of the Interior. During his career, for which he won numerous awards for distinguished service, he negotiated self-government pacts between the federal government and American Indian tribes, negotiated western water issues and hydropower licensing, and worked extensively on energy policy.

In August 2005 he retired and enrolled at the UW-Madison Law School with a clear vision of where he wanted his law degree to take him.

"I really enjoyed resolving conflicts between tribes, environmentalists and resource users, and the conflicts always involved thorny legal issues," he explains. "That is basically why I went to law school and what I focused on here."

Returning to student life required some adjustments, but Bettenberg took them in stride and focused on getting the maximum advantage from his time in law school. His well-established interests guided his choices, and he focused on Indian law and participated extensively in the Law School's Indigenous Law Student Association.

After graduation, Bettenberg will join Homer Law, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm representing American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments.

He can be reached at (608) 826-0409 or bettenberg@wisc.edu.

- Sara Greenslit: Novelist grabs second career in animal care: Greenslit, a returning adult student, has always had dual interest in art and science. She completed a pre-veterinary degree in biology at the College of Charleston, S.C., in 1992.

Not quite ready to tackle medical school at the time, she instead pursued an MFA in poetry at Penn State University. She ended up with a job in public relations and crafted a novel on the side.

Greenslit's novel, "The Blue of Her Body," edged out 177 other entries to become the winner of the 2006 Starcherone Fiction Prize. Starcherone Books, an independent publisher of innovative fiction, publishes each year's contest winner.

The St. Paul, Minn., native returned to her other first love, veterinary medicine, in the fall of 2004 when she was accepted to UW-Madison's School of Veterinary Medicine. As a returning adult student, she's worked hard at learning the veterinary medical profession. Yet she also dreams of the day when she can once again carve out time to write.

For now, she plans to stay in Madison and find a small animal practice position.

Greenslit can be reached at (608) 335-5156 or sagreenslit@wisc.edu

- Abdalla Saad: On the cusp of new biotech startup: Many scientists are content to spend their entire careers in the laboratory, chasing new insights into the way the world works. Not Saad. Though he admires the scientists he works with as a research specialist in the School of Medicine and Public Health, Saad has dreams of launching a biotechnology company some day.

With expertise gained through the Master of Science in Biotechnology Program, the aspiring entrepreneur is now taking a major step toward his goal. Based on technologies developed by three UW-Madison professors, Saad is writing a business plan for a company that would market a better delivery system for drugs ranging from volatile anesthetics to anti-cancer agents.

He hopes to finish his plan and begin showing to investors by summer's end. If the business gets off the ground, it will join five others that have spun out of the Master of Science in Biotechnology program during the past five years.

"That's what I like about UW-Madison," says Saad. "There's strong promotion of entrepreneurship and help for students who want to start companies."

He can be reached at (608) 358-9655 or aasaad@wisc.edu.

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