Health Research That Allows People to RISE (Thrive)

Christine Seroogy is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the E. Richard Stiehm Endowed Chair in Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology. Christine grew up in Green Bay and received a BS in Microbiology from UW–Madison. She completed her medical education at the University of Minnesota, UC San Diego, Harvard Medical School, UC San Francisco and Stanford. She joined the faculty at UW–Madison in 2003. She cares for children with immune deficiencies and her research is focused on understanding how environments shape the immune system.

Mentoring Positives is a program open to K-12 students in Madison’s Darbo neighborhood. The program promotes positive youth health and well-being by focusing on building trusting relationships, introducing social-emotional learning and developing life skills through mentoring, athletics and social entrepreneurship… it includes a youth entrepreneurial program that produces Off the Block pizzas and salsas.

Will Green, Mentoring Positives Executive Director

Tonya Mathison, Wisconsin Partnership Program Administrative Director

Dr. Suzana Salcedo is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine. Trained as a microbiologist in Porto, Portugal, she earned her doctorate from Imperial College London (UK). After postdoctoral training and some years as a staff scientist in Marseille, France, she established her independent research group in Lyon before relocating to the U.S. Her research focuses on how bacteria evade the immune system and persist inside host cells to cause disease. Dr. Salcedo’s team studies important human and veterinary pathogens, including Brucella, a leading cause of zoonotic infections worldwide, and Acinetobacter baumannii, a multi-drug-resistant nosocomial threat. By uncovering the mechanisms of bacterial infection and the host responses, her group aims to help develop new strategies to combat these pathogens.