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 yoga and barre, knitting, reading way too many murder mysteries, and hanging out with friends, her fabulous family including her talented brother Isaac, and her wonderful husband Iain.

As a tender young undergraduate at UW-Madison, Corey studied electrical engineering and computer science with an emphasis on processor design. This lead naturally to a stint at the Forest Products Laboratory where he helped build robots that squished samples of building sealant while being outside. From there, Corey mastered science and then doctored philosophy in the department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. His research used computer modeling combined with field data to examine trade-offs between growing space efficiency and species diversity among different silvicultural systems, and to elucidate the long-term developmental trajectory of northern hardwood forests subject to natural disturbances. He also enjoys hunting 4+ leaf clovers, teaching his daughter useful phrases like 'existential angst', eating the delicious food his wife makes, revising his spam filtering system, lusting after beautiful pens, and contributing to various free software projects (primarily FreeBSD).

Hailing from historic Ripon, Wisconsin Molly attended college in Iowa and then headed north to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here, she spent several years teaching in a variety of settings, most recently as an adult educator. Molly was eventually lured back to her home state by the opportunity to pursue graduate studies. She completed an M.A. in Educational Policy Studies in 2017 and wrote a thesis examining the history of adult education and print culture at the Wisconsin State Prison. She is currently working on her Master's in Library and Information Sciences. When not writing or studying, Molly enjoys listening to new music, visiting the Chazen Art Museum, perusing local bookstores, and exploring new places by foot. 

Coming from Shandong, China, Kirk came to Madison to pursue a degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is enthusiastic about web development, both front end and back end.  When not working, Kirk enjoys traveling, watching horror movies, trying all kinds of food, and petting cats. Even though he never skied before, he quickly fell in love with this sport after coming to Madison. 

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.