Making History

Meet Scott Barrell: a former student whose research led to a bow and arrow showdown in the campus quad. Scott isn’t your average college student; he’s a bright and hardworking individual who wanted to be challenged, so he tackled ground-breaking research and found someone on campus to help him do it. That ‘someone’ was Greg Aldrete, a highly regarded and well-decorated History and Humanistic Studies professor here at UW-Green Bay.

When combining Barrell’s love of all things Alexander the Great with Aldrete’s historical prowess and insane archery skill set, you’re bound to make history. When Scott learned that there were only a few dozen literary mentions and no surviving samples of Alexander the Great’s armor, he was intrigued and set out to re-engineer the Linothorax – an ancient linen-and-glue armor shrouded in mystery.

After many builds, trials, errors and reconstructions, the Linothorax – and Scott – survived an arrow to the chest at close range from Professor Andrete’s compound bow. Since their first glimmer of success, Scott and Greg have gone on to present at the Archaeological Institute of America, win a Best Poster Award, be featured in a TV docu-series and publish a book.

Barrell and Aldrete’s story isn’t a rarity here at UW-Green Bay. There are professors and students all over campus that are working towards a better future for us all, albeit sometimes by unconventional means.

Dr. Amanda Nelson is passionate about helping students reach their potential in and out of the classroom. As a first-generation college student, Nelson values the hard work and dedication that UW-Green Bay students bring to their research projects. She partnered with students and Green Bay swim coaches to conduct a study analyzing biomechanical errors in swimmers’ freestyle strokes. Some of her students study the effects of exercise training on animal neuropathways; doing everything from implementing training programs for rats, to processing nervous system tissue and analyzing neuronal changes.

Her connections with medical facilities in Northeast Wisconsin – Aurora BayCare, the Green Bay Packers and Cerebral Palsy Inc. to name a few – allow her to provide her students with connections that can jumpstart their careers. Dr. Nelson also teaches at the Medical College of Wisconsin-Green Bay medical school and is a Certified Athletic Trainer.

Dr. Ryan Martin is a psychology professor that takes his love for researching anger and collaborates with his students to continually evolve what we know about the emotion. He hosts psychology- and anger-themed podcasts with students and other faculty, encourages student research presentations through PSI Talks and even took a team with him for his TEDx talk in 2018. Dr. Martin doesn’t just limit himself to collaborating with students; he’s one of the UW-Green Bay professors that founded the annual Excellence in Psychology Instruction Conference (EPIC).

Aiming to provide professional development for high school psychology teachers, the EPIC conference not only equips teachers with the most cutting-edge research and pedagogies but also allows UW-Green Bay to better understand the perspective of high school teachers and incoming students. Martin is striving towards a better higher education connection for everyone.

Every university has amazingly talented faculty who are making strides in their research, but at UW-Green Bay, our faculty want you to transform the world right alongside them. This is your chance to make history. So, the only question left to answer is what problem will you champion at UW-Green Bay?