Having graduated in 2001 from the College of Arts and Communication, with a B.A. in music education, Lisa Werner has gone on to inspire the students of St. Bruno Parish school in Dousman, Wisconsin. This year she is also nominated to receive the 2025 UW-Whitewater Distinguished Alumni award. She has traveled from Antarctica to the oceans to the high reaches of the atmosphere in a zero gravity simulating plane. Next, she plans to head to Senegal to learn authentic African drumming techniques.
Photo provided by Lisa Werner
Throughout all of her journeys, Werner has conducted numerous small scale experiments and lessons. Werner expressed how important these excursions are to her student’s experience. “I really want to let students know that music connects to everything. The connections that music has really spoke to my soul,” Werner said, “ It is part of every history, time and culture.”
Dr. Glenn Hayes, Director of Bands at UW-Whitewater, says this passion is no surprise. He knew Werner back when she was in middle school, attending summer band camps at UW-W. “She’s a rockstar,” Hayes said, “She has taken music and put it at the forefront of the STEM world” Werner now directs one of the UW-W summer camp bands. Recently, she had the band utilize a technique she experimented with on her zero-g experiment with NASA.
Werner had been accepted into the NASA mission on a whim. At the time, NASA did not list music education as a valid option for their mission grant. Werner applied anyways. “What do you have to loose?” Werner said, recounting her choice. Now, NASA includes the music field as a valid category of music in their educational experience.
“I was really surprised,” said Werner, “It is like making your parents proud.”
There is a push among educators to make STEM into STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics.) Hayes continued later, “She’s a rockstar! She has taken music and put it at the forefront of the STEM world” Werner’s efforts have helped drive the Arts to the front of these exploratory trips that would usually be reserved for science teachers. She has made an appreciable change in NASA educational programming going forward.
“Don’t tell yourself no if you are considering things,” Werner said, “I was thinking there was no way a music teacher from Wisconsin would be picked to go to Antarctica, but look what happened. Go for it, you have nothing to lose.”
