In her own words…

01 What do you most miss about campus?
Surprisingly, I miss the hills the most. Walking up to Social Sciences from the Union, University Avenue or Steenbock was a meditative experience; a time to reflect on my work; an opportunity to release the stress of the day; a chance to people watch; and time to catch a glimpse of Lake Mendota.
02 What was your favorite class?
As a graduate student, most of my classes were courses I was really interested in taking — which makes this question really difficult for me to answer. I loved Margaret Schoneninger’s Human Nutrition class; all of the behavior classes taught by Karen Strier; African Pre-History with Henry Bunn; and the transformative courses in science and investigative journalism that I took with Deborah Blum.
03 What is the one thing every UW student must do?
See UW-Madison hockey at the Kohl Center. There are very few venues in life that are that much fun, are packed with that much action and demand that much school spirit. Seriously, for a kid who only went to Madison as a graduate student, and spent her undergrad at a New York City college with little in the way of athletic glee, I left Madison a diehard Bucky Badger fan. And it was all attributable to those hockey games.
04 What advice would you offer to graduating seniors?
Don’t feel rushed. Take your time to figure out what it is you WANT to do. And then make sure you find a job and a career you love. Make sure it’s a job that, if not every morning, at least four out of five mornings a week, you are excited to go to. It took me until I was 30 to figure out that I loved journalism. And nearly every day for the past eight years, I have been excited and happy to go to work. That’s a pretty good way to live.
05 What is the greatest benefit of a UW degree?
Pride. UW is unique. Everyone knows it. Everyone respects it. Everyone feels good about it. It doesn’t put people off or make them uneasy. When someone hears you have a UW degree, they respect it, and they know you are a smart, level headed, unobtrusive, well-rounded human being.
06 What’s next for you and your company / business / profession / service? What do you see happening or hope will happen in the next five years?
That’s a great question and one I’m trying to find an answer for. I took a buy-out from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in July, so, when I finish my year at Stanford, I’m kind of a free agent. I suppose I’d like to see the project I’m working on at Stanford takeoff. And then I’d like to get back to investigative journalism. It’s something I love to do, and something I’ve been missing since leaving the newspaper.
07 What music do you listen to?
I never really grew up. I still listen to the kind of music I did in college and graduate school: The Pixies, Pavement, the Kinks, the Wedding Present, etc.
08 What occupies your free time?
Free time?? I have five-year-old and three-year-old sons. Free time is a thing of the past. Even when I get out for a run, my three-year-old is usually along for a ride in the jogging stroller.
09 Do you prefer Mac or PC?
This is a dangerous question. I’m in a split family: I’m a Mac-user, my husband is a PC-guy. I see benefits in both. I’m just more comfortable with the Mac interface.
10 What was your first job?
My first job was “eye-ball watcher.” My father runs a marketing research company. For years, his focus was on children and their interest in television. His clients included major children’s cereal manufacturers, who were interested in how children were perceiving and reacting to their commercials. My dad would video-record rooms of children watching Saturday morning cartoons. My job — along with my brother, and various temps hired by my dad — would then be to watch these mind-numbingly boring recordings of children watching TV. We would note whether the kids’ eyes were looking at the TV, a slideshow “distractor” my dad had set up, or something else, at five-second intervals.

As a way to stay healthy, people go out of their way to eat foods that are fat-free. But how many people stop to consider if their plastic food containers are BPA-free?

We all should. Because whether we’re watching our weight or not, the foods we eat might not be as unhealthy for us as the containers we’re eating out of. That’s what Susanne Rust and her colleague at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel uncovered during their ongoing investigative series “Chemical Fallout.”

Thanks to Rust’s work, research revealed toxic levels of bisphenol-A (BPA) were found in common household plastic containers billed as “microwave safe.” Her dogged coverage of this issue prompted PBS broadcaster Bill Moyers to compare Rust’s reporting with that of legendary muckraker Upton Sinclair.

It also led to Rust and her colleague becoming Pulitzer finalists, “for their powerful revelations that the government was failing to protect the public from dangerous chemicals in everyday products, such as some ‘microwave-safe’ containers, stirring action by Congress and federal agencies.”

None of these actions and accolades would have been possible if it wasn’t for her UW-Madison education, however. When Rust arrived on campus in 1995, she had one goal: to finish her PhD in anthropology by 2000.

That never happened, as she fell in love with a fellow grad student, bought a home, and got married. Tragically, her husband lost a fight with cancer and died in February 2000. Heartbroken and feeling hopeless, Rust was kept afloat by her relationships with her UW professors and classmates.

And it was in the fall of 2000 that her UW adviser, Karen Strier, convinced Rust to take a journalism class. “The idea and field were foreign to me, but Strier was sure it was something I would love and excel in,” says Rust. “She was right.”

Those classes helped Rust realize that she could use her science expertise and research skills to help others through writing. And in 2003, Rust began her journalism career as a science reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, covering endangered mountain gorillas in Uganda, civil engineering in Rwanda and sustainable agriculture in Costa Rica.

From there, she put her reporting and investigative abilities to work at improving public health. This switch resulted in Rust’s startling BPA findings and other hard-hitting stories involving toxic chemicals in consumer products.

“I have worked to educate people about science through journalism,” she says. “And it was at the UW that I found my calling.”