Warren: “Ice cream is about love and unity, and it speaks every language.” Jeff Miller

For Maya Warren PhD’15 (pictured above on campus in 2015), nothing brings comfort like a scoop of double-butter candy pecan ice cream.

“Especially right now,” says Warren, whose job title — ice cream scientist — invariably elicits smiles from those who meet her. “We’re in a really hard time.”

Warren developed the butter pecan recipe at UW–Madison, where she frequently dropped into the Babcock Dairy Store to sample the latest offerings. While writing her food science doctoral dissertation — on ice cream, of course — she often had a pint of cookies-and-cream at her side for inspiration.

These days, she travels the globe helping the frozen aerated dessert industry (as it’s known in decidedly undelicious terms) develop new recipes and expand its market reach. She was previously an international consultant for Cold Stone Creamery. (Her global explorations don’t stop at the freezer case. She and her former UW lab mate, Amy DeJong ’12, PhD’18, won the 25th season of TV’s The Amazing Race.)

Warren also helps startup companies put their best scoop forward: “I think ice cream is going to end up being the next cupcake, where we’ll see lots of shops popping up.”

She developed an affinity for frozen desserts at age six, when she received a kit that magically turned a packet of powder into an ersatz creation. These days, the Los Angeles–based Warren is using ice cream to whip up social change. Last July, she organized “Ice Cream for Change” to coincide with National Ice Cream Day. Warren encouraged ice cream companies and home ice cream makers to help raise funds for organizations battling systemic racism.

“Ice cream is about love and unity, and it speaks every language,” Warren says. “It has no barriers, and it invites all, regardless of race, gender, or class.”

Warren also gives her more than 13,000 Instagram followers no-churn ice cream recipes, meaning a dessert that can be made in a mixing bowl rather than a machine. “Ice Cream Sundays with Dr. Maya” on Instagram Live was born during COVID-19, giving housebound ice cream enthusiasts a lift. Warren’s creations — eight so far, which can be found on her website — are a mashup of flavors that beg overindulgence. Bourbon-vanilla sea-salt-caramel, anyone?

“I put recipes out there to bring smiles to people’s faces and joy to their hearts,” Warren says. “I have vivid memories of ice cream and being a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed little girl, just full of joy.”

Joe Vericker

At a bakery where treats serve the greater good, keeping the fiscal house in order is a sweet gig.

Andy Rosengarden ’97 is chief financial officer of the social enterprise that owns Greyston Bakery, most famously known for the brownies in select Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream flavors. The bakery’s cookies, brownies, and blondies are also sold online and at Whole Foods. (Rosengarden recommends the Snickerdoodle.)

The heart of the bakery is the practice of “open hiring,” the signature effort of the nonprofit Greyston Foundation, which provides a suite of social services in the inner-city community of Yonkers, New York.

“We’re hiring people, no questions asked,” Rosengarden says. “No interviews, nothing. If you want a job, you come in; we give you a job.”

Open hiring is intended to help people who want to work but who struggle to secure jobs that require traditional interviews or background checks. For example, when it comes to filling out job applications, people re-entering the workforce after incarceration or experiencing homelessness can be stymied by questions about a felony record or the lack of a permanent address.

Open hiring, Rosengarden says, can be a path for people to find new opportunities through work — and for life after the bakery.

“We actually like it when people move on,” he says. “Often, they move on for better-paying positions. Also, it allows us to hire more people.”

Rosengarden joined Greyston’s executive team in 2016. After more than 16 years as an auditor and Wall Street investment analyst, he was inspired by his two young children to bring his financial expertise to the nonprofit world.

As the foundation’s CFO, Rosengarden guides the intricate finances of Greyston’s hybrid nonprofit/for-profit organization. He sees to it that corporate donations, community partnerships, and bakery income all go to support programs such as housing, workforce development, 10 community gardens, and about 100 bakery jobs.

He’s also devoting his accounting acumen toward the nonprofit’s expansion effort — the launch of the Center for Open Hiring at Greyston.

“Instead of opening bakeries all across the country or the world, we want to inspire other companies to adopt open hiring,” Rosengarden says. “You have millions of people sitting on the sidelines who want to work. This could change the paradigm in terms of how people are hired, giving [them] opportunities and second chances.”

Danielle Lawry

The Babcock Hall Dairy Plant makes special ice cream flavors to honor notable Badger people and events, and we think their creativity is pretty sweet. Here is a partial list of some of the dairy’s commemorative concoctions.