The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation will give nearly $207 million to UW-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research to boost research and future facility costs, the university announced Thursday.
As darkness fell over the state capital Oct. 25, Makeela Magomolla, Tayah Dean and George Whitney led a group of more than 40 people on the winding paths of UW-Madison’s Lakeshore Nature Preserve.
Microsoft, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Princeton University, and the New Jersey AI Hub, announced a unique partnership with TitletownTech to accelerate scientific discovery.
This new model will combine the agility of a startup, the technology of a global company, and a university’s expertise.
Local pharmacies across the state are playing a bigger role in preventing people from dying from opioid overdoses, largely because of the work of a Madison-based program that started one year ago. The Wisconsin Opioid Overdose Response Center estimates it has brought more than 185,000 residents into contact with a variety of expanded services since launching last year.
Last year, a U.S. Navy veteran received a lung transplant at UW Health, giving him another chance at life.
David Peabody, a former anti submarine warfare technician, began his journey when he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2010. Years of declining health brought the Louisville native to Madison, where he was referred to UW Health and the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, one of only three VA hospitals performing lung transplants nationwide. Madison is home to the largest VA lung transplant program in the country.
University of Wisconsin-Madison psychologist Markus Brauer studies how social groups interact, and he told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that the state’s political divisiveness helps explain some of the trust issues.
“If there are people who belong to other political parties, then there is the possibility that they may not share the same common values, which then undermines trust,” Brauer said. “So generally, partisan strength and perceived political polarization actually undermine social trust in others.”
Allison Daminger was in graduate school when she learned that men and women use their time differently: On average, men spend more time on paid work, and women spend more time on unpaid work.
“I remember wondering whether the time-use numbers were telling the full story,” says Daminger, who is now an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “What about differences in how men and women use their mind on their family’s behalf?”
The new building for the School of Computer, Data, and Information Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has opened its doors.
This facility, called Morgridge Hall, brings various departments together under one roof for the first time. It inspires collaboration, as students and colleagues can simply bump into each other in the hall and get ideas for projects they are working on.
UW-Madison students Wednesday morning shuffled into their first day of classes in the university’s newest building — funded entirely by private donations — to house its growing School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences.
Morgridge Hall, a $267 million, 343,000-square-foot facility, is UW-Madison’s largest privately funded building and puts all the disciplines seeing the most growth at the university under one roof.
“Honeybees are like livestock,” Hannah Gaines Day, a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who studies how pollinators interact with the environment and agricultural operations, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.” “They’re like little, tiny livestock that the beekeeper is taking care of, and so they have someone looking out for them and feeding them and giving them medicine if they need it if they’re sick. But the wild pollinators don’t have that.”
Laura Dresser, a co-author of the report and High Road Strategy Center associate director, said in a statement that the 2025 data shows “some real strengths for working Wisconsin owing to the strong recovery from pandemic shutdowns.”
“Long-standing inequalities are still with us, and federal policy puts substantial clouds on the horizon,” Dresser said. “I’m especially concerned about the administration’s attacks on the integrity of federal economic data.”
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health professor and dean Jon Audhya considers how deep cuts to federal research funding are affecting scientific work and training of students.
“I think it is always hard to come down on the side of ‘no, this technology should not be used in this space,’” said Jeremy Morris, a professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I think the more interesting question is ‘how do we use it and how does that come to define the things we listen to?’”
Johanna Oosterwyk, manager of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s instructional D.C. Smith Greenhouse, says that in general, fall is a great time for planting divided perennials, since the weather is cooler and there is usually plenty of rain to help plants establish. “This applies to digging up and dividing existing plants as well as planting new ones,” she adds.
Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has studied how best to teach African American students. She told us an encouraging teacher can change a life.
“Many of our young people have their ceilings lowered, that somewhere around fourth or fifth grade, their thoughts are, ‘I’m not going to be anything special.’ What I think is probably happening at St. Mary’s is young women come in as, perhaps, ninth graders and are told, ‘Here’s what we expect to happen. And here’s how we’re going to help you get there.'”
Hera Salehi’s adjustment to college life wasn’t easy. Salehi grew up in Afghanistan. Although she had been living in the United States for a while, she had trouble finding her place when she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison two years ago.
But Salehi saw how student groups and organizations helped nurture community at the large Midwestern university. It inspired her to start the Afghan Student Association to help connect other Afghan students and the larger community.
Written by ssistant professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Sure, there are other marching band houses on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus: Tuba Haus, Clarinest, Pi Palace (for the saxophones), Bone Zone (trombones). Nine in all. But only Trumpet Haus — Thaus, for short — lays claim to being the unofficial game day hype committee. This is where a lucky few trumpet players in the UW Marching Band call home.
“So far, Wisconsin’s summer has been warmer than average and also wetter than average,” said Amanda Schwabe, a climate outreach specialist with the Wisconsin State Climatology Office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Across the state, we’ve been about two degrees warmer than the average and the state has also been about 25% wetter than average.”
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently discovered a flaw in how NASA and other space agencies design and test rovers for exploring the moon and beyond.
UW-Madison professor at the School of Pharmacy Mary Hayney praised the vaccine and said it is very safe.
“We have a long history of using it,” said Hayney. “It will be great to have that convenience to be able to administer the vaccine to yourself in the comfort of your own home
“A lot of the participants in our trials have tried one or more different types of either behavioral treatments or pharmacological treatments,” Christopher Nicholas said. “They’re looking for another option.”
He’s optimistic psychedelics paired with therapy will give patients a new tool. He worked on a 2023 study that found participants’ depression scores improved about six weeks after a single dose of psilocybin.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named the best college in Wisconsin for 2025, according to a recent report from Niche.
The school rankings website analyzed more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the U.S. for its 2025 Best Colleges in America report and related state reports.
Written by ssistant professor of natural resource economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 1873, just before becoming a student at the University of Wisconsin, La Follette heard Edward Ryan, soon to become the state’s Chief Justice, give a commencement speech. Ryan bluntly defined the central questions of the coming era: “Which shall rule—wealth or man; which shall lead—money or intellect; who shall fill public stations—educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?” This question would animate La Follette’s career as he tried to live up to UW president John Bascom’s insistence that students accept the obligations of citizenship and their duty to serve the state.
As part of a pilot program called Wisconsin Rural Scholars, high school students from seven small and rural high schools around the state spent a week at UW-Madison in mid-June aimed at introducing them to the college environment. The program is funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant and was free for students to attend.
Written by rofessor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Written by Anthony Hernandez, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UW-Madison) who received a research award from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation for his study on leadership in Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
UW’s newly expanded $174 million facility offers plenty of high-tech tools and advanced care options—but it’s the heart behind the work that stands out.
“Across the nation, there’s a shortage of veterinary technicians and staff in the veterinary profession,” said Dr. Chris Snyder, hospital director. “Giving an opportunity to welcome them in and to see what cutting-edge veterinary care can look like—and what a career working in a teaching hospital can be—and how rewarding that is to be able to train others.”
Keith Bechtol, an associate professor in the physics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has been involved with the Rubin Observatory for nearly a decade, is the project’s system verification and validation scientist, making sure the observatory’s various components are functioning properly.
He said teams were floored when the images streamed in from the camera.
“There were moments in the control room where it was just silence, and all the engineers and all the scientists were just seeing these images, and you could just see more and more details in the stars and the galaxies,” Bechtol told NBC News. “It was one thing to understand at an intellectual level, but then on this emotional level, we realized basically in real time that we were doing something that was really spectacular.”
The excitement inside of a University of Wisconsin-Madison lecture hall Monday morning was comparable to a room full of sports lovers ready for the start of the Super Bowl.
“I think we’ll learn a lot about what the capabilities of various A.I. protocols are from how well we can get them to generate material that’s of interest,” said Jordan S. Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who is part of a team applying for an Exponentiating Mathematics grant. “We have no intuition yet about which problems are going to be hard and which problems are easy. We need to learn that.”
Neurosurgeon and professor Mahua Dey is concerned her team’s effort to develop a glioblastoma vaccine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison could stall as sweeping actions by the Trump administration to curb federal health funding trickle down to individual labs.
When Ava You applied to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she looked to see if she could major in Korean.
“Honestly, I was a little disappointed considering they had a Chinese and a Japanese major already, but not Korean,” said You, an incoming sophomore at the flagship campus.
That will soon change when UW-Madison introduces a bachelor’s degree in Korean Language and Culture this fall. The Board of Regents, which oversees UW-Madison and the state’s 12 public universities, granted final approval this month. UW-Madison will be the first school in the Universities of Wisconsin to offer an undergraduate program in Korean.
A person can feel anxious on a Sunday for two reasons, said Jack Nitschke, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. You’re anticipating plans for the upcoming week, and the future is inherently uncertain.
UW-Madison history professor Sasha Maria Suarez describes programs by tribal nations, K-12 schools and higher education institutions to teach Wisconsin’s Indigenous languages to learners of all ages.
Written by James Pikul, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UW-Madison.
Chuck Nicholson is an associate professor of agriculture and economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He said 20% of the milk produced ends up outside the U.S.
Nicholson said he doesn’t expect the dairy export market with China to be significantly impacted for the time being and that’s a good thing for Wisconsin.
“Cheese is definitely important as an export product, and it’s obviously quite important in Wisconsin. The other part about that is that with cheese typically comes whey, and we’re also a major exporter — from the State of Wisconsin — of whey products, and China is also a major market for our whey products as well,” Nicholson said.
