Four faculty members of F&WE with a combined total of 110 years of experience in the department, retired over the last year. Professors Glen Stanosz and Scott Lutz retired in 2021, and Professors Christine Ribic and Bill Karasov retired in 2022. Each of them attained numerous accolades throughout their careers, a selection of which are highlighted in the descriptions below.

 

Professor Glen Stanosz retired in Spring 2021 after 19-years at UW-Madison. Stanosz received his BS in forest biology in 1976 at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Then, after serving as an officer in the U.S. Army, Stanosz returned to UW–Madison to complete his MS and PhD in plant pathology (1983 and 1985, respectively). From 1985 to 1987, Stanosz was a post-doctoral researcher at North Carolina State University, and from 1987 to 1991, he served as a forest pathologist for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. In 1992, Stanosz joined the Department of Plant Pathology at UW–Madison and had responsibilities in research, teaching, and outreach in forest and shade tree pathology. He achieved the rank of associate professor in 1998 and that of professor in 2003. In 2013, he moved to the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, where he continued to teach and conduct forest pathology research.

Stanosz is recognized internationally as an authority on leaf, stem, and root diseases of forest and nursery trees. His work with many students and collaborators over the years has changed how nurseries, plantations, forests, and ornamental landscapes are managed to improve tree health. Through observation and the use of detection methods developed in his lab, Stanosz has also contributed to a better understanding of the host and geographic ranges of existing and new tree pathogens throughout the United States and in a number of other countries, including Canada, Brazil, and Tunisia. The excellence, significance, and quantity of Glen Stanosz’s contributions across a spectrum of research, teaching, and service to his profession and to the public makes Glen an outstanding academic and scientific role model. 

Professor Scott Lutz retired in Spring 2021After serving as a faculty member of Wildlife Ecology for 26 years, . Scott earned his BS in Wildlife & Fisheries Science and MS in Wildlife Science at Texax A&M (1977 and 1979, respectively), then went on to earn his PhD in Wildlife Science at Oregon State University in 1987. After this, he was an Assistant Teaching Professor at Iowa State University for one year, then became an Assistant (and later Associate) Professor at Texas Tech University until 1995 when he came to F&WE, first as an Assistant Professor, and later promoted to Associate Professor.

Throughout his years at UW, Scott advised numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and taught and advised many undergraduate students. His area of expertise is avian ecology and the effects of habitat change on wildlife species. 

Dr. Christine Ribic retired from the United State Geological Survey (USGS) in July 2022. Dr. Ribic earned her PhD at the University of Minnesota in Ecology. She joined F&WE in 1994 as an assistant professor and the Unit Leader for the USGS Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit.

Dr. Ribic’s research can be grouped into four main topics: grassland bird conservation, seabird ecology, marine debris monitoring, and forest wildlife management and conservation. Throughout her career, Dr. Ribic made important contributions concerning each of these topic areas. For example, she developed a long-term program to address how agricultural lands could successfully be used for bird conservation. Her work has been used directly by the Wisconsin DNR for developing conservation strategies for grassland birds in agricultural landscapes. Furthermore, her work has advanced the basic understanding of seabirds as marine organisms and their role in structuring marine food-webs of which they are a part, and it helped form the basis for the United Nations proposed standards for marine litter surveys.

Moreover, to help inform the delisting decision and long-term management efforts for the formerly endangered Kirtland’s Warbler, Dr. Ribic led a team that developed a population simulation model that incorporated breeding and wintering grounds habitat dynamics to project population viability based on current environmental conditions and potential future management scenarios (including climate change). Her work was used by the Kirtland’s Warbler Recovery team in their delisting decision.

William (“Bill”) Karasov

Bill Karasov became an Assistant Professor at UW-Madison, in the Department of Wildlife Ecology, in 1985, specializing in animal physiological ecology. Karasov received his BA in biology in 1975 at the University of Minnesota, then completed his MS and PhD in biology at the University of California—Los Angeles (UCLA) (1981 and 1984, respectively). Over the span of his 37 -year career at UW, Karasov exceled in both research and teaching. His areas of expertise include animal digestive and nutritional ecology, as well as ecotoxicology, and he mentored 63 trainees (15 MS and 28 PhD graduate students and 20 postdoctoral associates) and countless undergraduates on these topics.

Karasov received numerous awards and recognitions throughout his career. Of these many honors, some of his highest achievements include the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the NSF (1985-1991), a Fulbright Award (1997) that allowed him to conduct research in Israel, being an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2013), and having a special day-long public session presented in his honor (titled “Digestive Physiology: A Session in Honor of Bill Karasov”) at the 2020 meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

Beyond his noteworthy achievements and honors, Karasov was also extremely active in service. For example, he served as co-principal investigator (with Professor Joshua Posner from the Agronomy Department) and assistant and then final director of an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and UW-Madison (2006-2012). Furthermore, from 2009-2015 he served as Chair of the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, and from 2015-2021 he was the faculty director of BioHouse, a residential learning community for undergraduate students in the biological sciences.

If you wish to send Glen, Scott, Chris, or Bill a note or card, you can use the department address and we will be sure that they get them!

This article was posted in Emeritus Faculty, Faculty News, News.