Staff Bios

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, family and her wonderful fiance Iain.

Since completing her MA in Arts Management at Columbia College in Chicago, Kendra has served as internship coordinator to Columbia's Arts Managemnet department and acting collections manager of the Fashion Study Collection. Kendra's interest in collection development and preservation motivated her to return to school and pursue her MA in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and certificate in Artifact Collection Care from the University of Chicago. In addition to her work at Scout, Kendra teaches management courses at Columbia and volunteers as a researcher for the US National Herbarium, Smithsonian Institution. She also enjoys reading, vegan baking, and traveling with her husband. 

An Ohio native, Sara transplanted to Madison to obtain her Masters in Library and Inforamtion Studies. After completing her degree in May 2012, she continues to work for Scout creating metadata. When not at work, she can be found running, biking, playing board games with her husband Ryan, or reading an eclectic collection of literature. Sara also spends time as a "feline friend" at the humane society and playing with her own gray tabby named Comet. 

Chris is an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin Madison double majoring in Life Sciences Communication and Environmental Sciences. When he isn't studying during the school year he travels the country competing in the legal battle known as Mock Trial.  In his free time Chris also enjoys gardening, biking, listening to audiobooks, visiting family, and camping. Whenever he has time, Chris loves to visit his childhood home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Chris is also a registered bone marrow donor, and was honored to donate last winter.

Originally from Green Bay, Kyle moved to Madison in 2011 to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison in pursuit of a degree in Computer Science and Computer Engineering. In addition to working at Internet Scout, Kyle works in the UW-Madison Human-Interaction Laboratory, where he writes code for robots and Kinects. When he has free time, Kyle enjoys learning popular songs by ear and playing them on piano; playing basketball, football, and soccer; running long distances; and laughing until it hurts. He can often be found pondering philosophical things like the meaning of life; learning everything about anything; and enjoying music, movies, books, and pretty much all forms of popular culture. 

Debra Shapiro was an Internet Cataloger at Internet Scout from 1998 to 2000, and is now an instructor at UW-Madison's School of Library and Information Studies, where she teaches in the areas of organization of information, online searching, and web design. Prior to coming to Scout, Deb was a photo archivist, and her undergraduate degree is in art history, so she contributes reviews of art, museum, and pictorial web sites to The Scout Report. That undergraduate degree in art history prepared Deb for about 15 years of restaurant work, which gave her a long-lasting love of cooking and recipe development, that you can read about on her blog, Deb's Lunch.