Edward Almasy
Co-Director

e-mail:ealmasy@scout.wisc.edu
phone: 608.262.6606

After publishing his first shrink-wrapped software package for the original Apple ][ at the tender age of 18, Ed spent most of the next six years tinkering with photons before being sucked into the Internet vortex in 1987. Since then he has been involved in various Internet-related ventures and high-tech startups before finally ending up herding virtual cats at Scout. When not sitting in front of a computer and/or pontificating on novel new ways to use the Internet, Ed can often be found boating, snowboarding, writing and playing and dancing to music, or maybe just driving around with the top down.

Rachael Bower
Co-Director

e-mail: bower@scout.wisc.edu
phone: 608.262.6587

Born in NYC and having spent most of her life east of the midwest, Rachael moved to Madison in 1995 to work for the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin. After many years in Wisconsin she has finally learned to appreciate domestic cheese, fish icing, the true meaning of the phrase "wind chill factor" and her uncle Luke's hotel in Mexico. With a background in communications and library science, and having gone from academia to Internet-startup-land and back again, she brings strong project management, organizational, and fundraising skills to Scout. It also doesn't hurt that she has a wicked sense of humor and the ability to throw a fabulous dinner party with less than a day's notice. When not at Scout she spends her time practicing and teaching yoga, knitting, reading way too many murder mysteries, and hanging out with friends and family.

Andrea Coffin
Metadata Specialist

e-mail: acoffin@scout.wisc.edu
phone: 608.265.9453

Don't let the title fool you; "Metadata Specialist" is just a new fangled way of saying "Librarian," and, lookout, she'll shush you. When she's not busy being a fancy librarian, Andi can be found reading books, looking at nature, singing in the car, performing kitchen witchery, agonizing over word and number puzzles, obsessing over old buildings and weather phenomena, spending time when her husband and big-boned cat, and thinking about language and the weird ways people use it.

Chanda Halderman
Managing Editor

e-mail: chalderman@scout.wisc.edu
phone: 608.265.8042

Chanda Halderman has a background in business management, recruiting, outreach, and training in both the corporate world and academia. Her undergraduate career was spent at the University of Kansas where she developed a lifetime obsession with Kansas Jayhawk Basketball (2008 National Champions, by the way). When she is not hard at work on the Internet Scout projects AMSER and ATE Central, Chanda spends her time with her beloved husband Andy and her German Shepherd, Max. Born in Northern Wisconsin, Chanda is enjoying the return to her home state after over 20 years in Kansas and is trying to prove to her husband and herself that it really is not that cold. As outreach coordinator with Internet Scout, she enjoys spreading the word about AMSER and ATE Central and meeting good folks at conferences around the country. She also enjoys the camaraderie of her coworkers and shares their enthusiasm for providing access to free, high quality, online educational resources.

Tim Baumgard
Web Developer

e-mail: tbaumgard@scout.wisc.edu

Tim Baumgard is majoring in Computer Sciences and is a Web Developer for the Scout Project. When Tim isn't attached to his computer he enjoys biking, spending time with friends and new Apple products. His favorite TV shows are Futurama and Red Dwarf and his favorite books include The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos.

Corey Halpin
Web Developer

e-mail:chalpin@scout.wisc.edu

When not wrangling code at Scout, Corey is a graduate student in Forest and Wildlife Ecology working with computer growth models and trying to figure out newer and better ways to cut digital trees as this seems to bother people less than cutting real ones. As a tender young undergraduate, he studied Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with an emphasis on processor design. It made him sad when Compaq killed the Alpha He quickly realized that he is not Type-A enough for a career in engineering. When not at work, he enjoys helping his wife Melissa to lead their three little ducklings around at various zoos and playgrounds. In his copious amounts of free time, he is an occasional contributor to various software projects (mostly FreeBSD and Fink), and sometimes enjoys sleeping.

Max Grinnell
Editor, The Scout Report

e-mail: grinnell@scout.wisc.edu

Max Grinnell's fascinations include urban governance, urbanism, and globalization, in particular the interactions between institutions of higher learning and their regional, national, and international context. Before joining Scout he attended the University of Chicago where he received his AB (history and geography) and AM (community development). Some of his favorite authors include Augustine, Robert Lowell, Robert Penn Warren, and Michael Chabon. While currently Max is the editor of the Scout Report, he has also had his share of unique experiences over the past few years, including riding a camel along the Atlantic Ocean in Morocco, working for Amtrak, and attempting to sell the Hotel National Des Invalides to a group of unsuspecting tourists. In addition, Max decries the flagrant pretensions of some who are found wandering the halls of academe, most notably in this fine repartee from the 1997 film, Good Will Hunting.

Bryan Schneider
Internet Cataloger

e-mail: bschneider@scout.wisc.edu

Bryan Schneider is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying library and information science. Before graduate school, Bryan spent his undergraduate years at Ripon College. At this small liberal arts college, Bryan received a BA in economics and history, but his fondest memories of college are rooted in short shorts, golf courses, and the crisp fall air of collegiate cross country. Bryan now stays busy by running marathons, exploring library science, riding his bicycle, going to an unhealthy amount of concerts and taking care of his two goldfish. Internet Scout has provided Bryan the opportunity to explore applied mathematics and science and keep things legit in the world of metadata.

Kyle Manna
System Administrator

e-mail: kmanna@scout.wisc.edu
phone: 608.262.6592

Kyle traded in his G.I. Joes for a computer and a keyboard early in his days. He stumbled upon Linux in high school, and Kyle instantly became hooked. Soon after, Kyle received his driver's license and found his best excuse yet for being broke: his Pontiac Fiero. Kyle is currently a computer engineering major at UW-Madison where he works his hardest to keep those pesky 2's out of the bit stream of 1's and 0's that rule our world. In his free time, Kyle helps the UW-Madison Formula SAE racing team keep their electrons in check.

Rusty Lalkaka
System Administrator

e-mail:rlalkaka@scout.wisc.edu
phone: 608.262.6592

Rusty was born and raised in NYC and came to Wisconsin because "it's awesome." Rustam minds Scout's servers, seeing if he can win his crusade against spam and the transient gremlins that share his office. He is majoring in economics, Chinese, and computer science. When he's not confusing dialects, deflation, and data structures, Rustam enjoys scuba diving, whining about Badger football, gloating about Yankee baseball, and reading the Internet.

Emma Schneider
Administrative Support

e-mail:eschneider@scout.wisc.edu

Currently a Latin American Studies and Spanish major at UW Madison, Emma hopes to one-day figure out what to do with these disciplines. She just spent six months studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina and is lamenting the return to a bi-polar climate. Emma volunteers as a BRIDGE partner to a lovely foreign exchange student here on the Madison campus and also translates documents into Spanish for a local community center. When not studying or toiling away as Administrative Assistant for Scout, she can usually be found reading, writing, skiing, or wishing she had the money to travel the world.

Debra Shapiro
Contributing Editor

Debra Shapiro was Internet Cataloger at the Scout Project from 1998 to 2000, and has gone on to teach librarians how to do new things with technology at the continuing education program at UW-Madison's School of Library and Information Studies. She'd mostly rather be looking at pictures on the Web, so she contributes reviews of art, museum, and pictorial web sites to the Scout Report. When she's not doing either of those things, she is most likely to be cooking, as evidenced by Deb's recipes.

Emily Schearer
Internet Cataloger

e-mail: eschearer@scout.wisc.edu

Emily is currently a graduate student at UW-Madison's School of Library and Information Studies. She also studied German and History at UW-Madison as an undergraduate. In her free time, Emily enjoys reading, soccer, cooking and daydreaming about what things will be like when she is a rich and famous librarian.