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Speakers & Presenters

R. Alta Charo

R. Alta Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she is on the faculty of the Law School and the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the medical school.  She also serves on the faculty of the UW Masters in Biotechnology Studies program and lectures in the MPH program of the Dept. of Population Health Sciences.Professor Charo served on President Obama's transition team, where she was a member of the HHS review team, focusing her attention particularly on transition issues related to NIH, FDA, bioethics, stem cell policy, and women's reproductive health.  She is on leave 2009-2011 to serve as a senior policy advisor on emerging technology issues in the Office of the Commissioner at the US Food & Drug Administration.

Professor Charo is the author of nearly 100 articles, book chapters and government reports on law and policy related to environmental protection, reproductive health, new reproductive technologies, medical genetics, stem cell research, science funding, and research ethics.  She has served as a member of the boards of the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Foundation for Genetic Medicine, the National Medical Advisory Committee of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the program board of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.  She has also been on the boards of the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health and the former American Association of Bioethics, as well as the ethics advisory board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  In addition, she has served as a consultant to the National Academy of Science's  Institute of Medicine and the former NIH Office of Protection from Research Risks.

Charo has also served on several expert advisory boards of organizations with an interest in stem cell research, including  CuresNow, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the International Society for Stem Cell Research and WiCell, as well as on the advisory board to the Wisconsin Stem Cell Research Program.   From 2005-2009 she was a member of the ethics standards working group of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.  Also in 2005, she helped to draft the National Academies' Guidelines for Embryonic Stem Cell Research, and in 2006 she was appointed to co-chair the National Academies' Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee.

Kathy Kelsey Foley

Kathy Kelsey Foley has the distinction of having twice served as director of Wausau’s Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, her tenures separated by seven years. She returned to the Woodson in March 1998 and considers the time away from Wausau and the Museum “an extended sabbatical and important learning period.”

Foley received her undergraduate degree in art history from Vassar College and a master’s degree, also in art history, from The Johns Hopkins University. Her museum training and experience include stints at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; The Dayton Art Institute; Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, where she was the founding director; and The Gap Inc., where she served as manager of corporate internal communication.

Foley’s community and professional involvement includes prior service on the Boards of United Way, Wausau’s Performing Arts Foundation, and the Wausau–Central Wisconsin Convention & Visitors Bureau. She currently serves on the Boards of Aspirus Wausau Hospital and Aspirus Clinics Inc., and chairs the Aspirus Wausau Hospital Accountability Committee and the Aspirus Inc. Quality Committee. Her involvement in the broader museum field includes a lengthy tenure on the Board of the Association of Midwest Museums, and service as an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant review panelist, American Alliance of Museums accreditation site visitor, and Smithsonian–Metropolitan Life grant reviewer.

Foley has been an advocate for the arts at both the federal and state levels, and was recognized by the American Alliance of Museums as a 2013 Star Advocate. She is passionate about her work at the Woodson Art Museum, and, like the museum, strives to “enhance lives through art” in the North Central Wisconsin community.

John Gurda

John Gurda is a Milwaukee-born writer and historian who has been studying his hometown since 1972. He is the author of twenty-one books, including histories of Milwaukee-area neighborhoods, industries, and places of worship. "The Making of Milwaukee" is Gurda’s most ambitious effort. With 450 pages and more than 500 illustrations, it is the first full-length history of the community published since 1948. Milwaukee Public Television created an Emmy Award-winning documentary series based on the book in 2006. In addition to his work as an author, Gurda is a lecturer, tour guide, and local history columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He holds a B.A. in English from Boston College and an M.A. in Cultural Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Gurda is an eight-time winner of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Award of Merit.

 

 

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