Scared. That’s how Madison Berger felt when she made the decision to take on a summer internship with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in faraway Fargo, North Dakota during her undergrad years at TLU. It surely would’ve been hard to believe at the time that one day, she would step into a wonderful career with the USDA. But that would come later.
First, she had to take a leap of faith—and trust the advice of Dr. Alison Bray, Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry at TLU. Berger was a member of Bray’s Team Rice, an undergrad research group, and Bray knew the internship would be a perfect fit for Berger. “When I started at TLU, I wanted to pursue some sort of food science career track but had no experience in that field. The USDA complimented that interest as well as my time with Team Rice,” says Berger. “Dr. Bray was incredibly supportive and really pushed me to relocate for the summer and see what working at the USDA was like.”
That summer, Berger spent a lot of time in the lab, helping with animal care. “I had never participated in a live animal study prior to this internship,” she says. “The scientists there were amazing and shared their experiences working with the USDA.”
The easier path would have been to listen to her fears and stay home that summer. Instead, Berger opened the door to a new world—and the thought of one day working for the USDA stayed tucked away in the back of her mind as she graduated from TLU in 2018 with her bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in biology.
From there, she went on to grad school—beginning at the University of North Texas. She stayed there until 2021, then transferred to the University of Texas at Dallas when her research advisor moved there. In 2023, Berger earned her PhD in computational chemistry.
Back at TLU, she’d met the love of her life Kody Windecker, who is now her husband. “We bonded over plant biology with Dr. Lievens and our love for recreational sand volleyball,” she recalls. “We both ended up attending graduate school in the Dallas area.”
Windecker—whose parents and brother are TLU grads as well—went to Parker University in Dallas where he earned his Doctor of Chiropractic. He and Berger moved to Northern Colorado when Windecker got the opportunity to run one of several very successful chiropractic offices there. “I’ve been lucky enough to be a patient of his and the love and care he takes is truly special,” says Berger. “He wants people to feel their best and focus on taking care of themselves.” The two just celebrated their second wedding anniversary.
Upon arriving in Colorado, Berger worked several non-science jobs, then landed her first position with the USDA in August of 2024. “I was an ORISE research fellow and my work focused on the spread of African Swine Fever virus in feral swine in the U.S.,” she says.
You probably remember the outbreak of avian flu that drove the price of eggs sky high. Well, an outbreak of ASF could have similar devastating effects on the pork supply. Berger’s work with ASF, which can spread rapidly via the feral swine population, involved creating computational modeling of the virus across the landscape and evaluating how effective our current surveillance efforts are at detecting it were it to enter the U.S. For reference, the U.S. is now free of ASF, but it’s recently been detected in the Dominican Republic—so it’s incredibly important to know that our detection efforts are on point.
Berger recently moved into a new position, with USDA-APHIS-VS—that is, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-Veterinary Services sector. She works for the Center for Informatics as a Biological Science Information Specialist, providing data science support and tools to stakeholders like Veterinary Services, agricultural health programs, state agencies, and other USDA branches.
“I have quickly learned that data is being created every second of every day,” Berger says, “when you open a website or an app, buy your coffee in the morning, drive to work, text your friend or stream the latest hit on your favorite music platform. But oftentimes, this data can be messy and unstructured and needs people to help maintain it so that it can be used more effectively.” In Berger’s branch of the USDA, most of the data is animal specific. So the data she’s dealing with involves things like test results for disease, coordinates for surveillance, personnel located at different farms, and vaccines administered. “I really value efficiency in my life, and this work helps achieve that for our country. I know that the work I’m doing to manage this data and streamline the use of it is making other people’s lives easier. That gets me out of bed in the morning!”
And isn’t that ultimately what everyone looks for in a career choice? Work that means something, that matters? It’s the answer to why we pursue the degree, muster the courage to take the internship, and follow the questions until they lead us to the answers.
Which brings us back to Berger’s roots at TLU, back when she joined Team Rice and took Dr. Bray’s advice. “TLU definitely prepared me for my career path,” she says, looking back. “Most importantly, I was surrounded by people who pushed me outside of my comfort zone and that’s why I feel I have been successful. I also value the variety of classes I took while attending TLU because I had the opportunity to really figure out what I liked and disliked.”
TLU was where Berger found her village—where she met her husband and the friends who stood next to her on her wedding day. “TLU was where I really started to figure out who I was,” she says. “I met several professors that I still actively communicate with when big life and career events happen. I found my love for coffee, learned how to swim (properly), developed my love for science, experienced my first big Texas snowstorm, and gained the confidence to jump into opportunities that can be intimidating but are good for me. My time at TLU was truly special.”