December

• Megan Sullivan returns to the Upper Midwest Water Science Center (UMid) Administration team while finishing up her degree at UW-Whitewater. Megan last worked for the Center in 2021 as a student trainee, and we are happy to have her back. Welcome, Megan!

January

• Maggie Jaenicke is working with the Web Informatics and Mapping (WIM) group after being a student contractor for 18 months. Maggie is a Geographer and Software Developer and already an important part of several projects from her contracting time. Maggie specializes in front end web development and graphics. She is located in the Twin Cities and works from the St. Paul office.
• Andrew Laws was formerly a student contractor with WIM before a brief stint with Water Mission Area (WMA) in the Integrated Modeling and Prediction Division. Andrew is returning to WIM and the Upper Midwest Water Science Center (UMid) as a Geographer and Software Developer. He brings some existing partnerships with WMA for project work and is a very capable Python developer. He is located in the Twin Cities and works from the St. Paul office.
• Aileen Clarke is working with WIM after being a student contractor for 7 months. With a background in GIS, cartography and graphics, Aileen has begun as a Geographer and Software developer. She specializes in front end web development and will continue on with her important roles in project work started as a contractor. She is located in Madison at the Forest Products Lab office.
• Daniel Rubin is working with WIM as a Project Manager. Daniel worked with WIM as a student contractor for two years and became an integral part of several projects. We are happy to have Daniel onboard again as a full-time employee. Daniel works remotely from Bloomington, Indiana.
• Annie Schultz is UMid's new Supervisory Budget Analyst. Annie was raised in Northern Michigan and earned her bachelor's degree in Resource Ecology from the University of Michigan.  She traveled the country working ornithology jobs until she started a position with USGS in 2004 with the San Francisco field station studying shorebirds and waterfowl (habitat use, diet, telemetry, contaminants, avian flu). After taking on the finances for the field station, she transitioned to providing budget support for other Center principal investigators, and eventually switched to full time budget analyst for the Western Ecological Research Center in FY13.  Despite loving California, it never quite felt like home, so Annie kept a close eye on openings within the Midcontinent Region and was happy to relocate back to Ann Arbor and take the Budget Analyst position in the fall of 2019 with the Great Lakes Science Center. We now welcome Annie to UMid!

February

• Branton Kunz is an IT Specialist with the WIM Team. Branton comes to UMid from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and previously worked for the US Department of Labor. Branton will be helping the WIM team out with system operations and infrastructure work.