Outreach Theme for 2015-16: Health, Healing, and Medicine
In the 2015-2016 academic year Outreach Scholars will address the theme of health, healing, and medicine. We will explore the theme through a variety of lenses including the arts, education, communication, ethics, medicine and popular culture.
Meet the 2015-16 Outreach Scholars
Laura Gregor
Country: Kenya
Language: Spanish
Presentation topics: health education, Moringa Tree, health delivery
Laura is a first year graduate student in the department of Population Health Sciences. She is interested in how gender affects sexual health behaviors.
Sagan Friant
Countries: Nigeria, Uganda, Sierra Leone
Languages: Nigeria Pidgin English
Presentation topics: Primate conservation, zoonotic diseases, game hunting, parasite transmission.
Sagan is a Ph.D. candidate at the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and a parasitology and vector biology trainee in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences. Her work aims to develop public health strategies that simultaneously benefit human health and wildlife.
Marguerite Heckscher
Country: Tanzania
Languages: Swahili and Shambaa
Presentation topics: Art, theatre, healing rituals, images of the body in different contexts
Marguerite Heckscher is a trained theater actress with longstanding interests in matter-spirit / body-object relations in African ritual contexts. She is a Ph.D. candidate in African art and performance at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sami Lamine
Country: Tunisia
Languages: Arabic and French
Presentation topics: Cartoons, alternative expressions, popular culture
Sami Lamine is a graduate student and a Teaching Assistant in African Language and Literature. He is interested in an anonymous Tunisian cartoonist whose work obliterates social norms and criticizes politics and religion without boundaries.
David Lukhachi
Country: Kenya
Languages: Swahili, Luo, Luhya
Presentation topics: Using popular culture for social and political healing, narratives of dressing, oral literature
David Lukhachi is a graduate student in the African Languages and Literature Department. His current project looks at the use of folklore among entertainers in Nairobi, Kenya.
Aleia McCord
Country: Uganda
Presentation topics: Trash treasures, reusable energy, recycling, small business management
Aleia manages W2E‘s educational programs and microbiology research activities. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Environment and Resources program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Learn more
Oladipupo A. Oyeleye
Country: Nigeria
Languages: Yoruba, Hausa, Nigerian Pidgin English
Presentation topics: Oral literature, African American – literature, postcolonial African literature, language acquisition
Oladipupo (a.k.a Dipo) Oyeleye is a second year doctoral candidate in the Department of English. He has served as a cultural consultant for African Studies Program procuring cultural materials and engaging in outreach events on and off campus.
Olusegun Soetan
Country: Nigeria
Languages: Yoruba, Nigerian Pidgin English
Presentation topics: Nollywood, spirituality, healing rituals, Yoruba Ifa
Olusegun Soetan is a dissertator in the department of African Languages & Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation focuses on Nollywood amateurs and the new cinematic trends in Nigeria.