“In Wisconsin overcrowding is a huge issue. Assigning more people to a room than they’re supposed to, which, of course, affects your sleep,” said Farah Kaiksow, associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who has researched aging and care in prison.
Two University of Wisconsin–Madison professors have been named MacArthur Fellows, receiving one of the nation’s most prestigious honors.
Angel Adames Corraliza studies tropical weather patterns, focusing on atmospheric physics and climate model simulations. He says his research helps improve understanding of the planet and can ultimately save lives.
Sébastien Philippe, the second recipient, studies the harms and risks of building, testing and storing nuclear weapons. Using archival research, data modeling and his experience as a nuclear safety engineer, he examines the damage caused by nuclear testing. His work has influenced policy and improved compensation for people exposed to nuclear radiation.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate is also an author. Her debut novel “Sunny Side Up” narrates the journey of plus-size protagonist Sunny as she powers through life with confidence and humor.
wo more MacArthur fellows were added Wednesday to UW-Madison’s growing list of faculty who have received the prestigious award.
Since 1985, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has granted eight UW-Madison professors the fellowship, which often is referred to as a “genius award.”
Since the fellowship launched in 1981, fellows have included writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers and entrepreneurs. While no institutional affiliation is required, the award went to the following 2025 fellows with ties to a college or university:
Anyone and everyone is being called to roll up a sleeve to support the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s annual homecoming blood drive. The blood drive is part of a nationwide effort and competition through Abbott and the Big Ten.
Funding for a long-term study on the effects of social media on 325 Wisconsin teenagers aged 13-15 resumed on Monday after funding for the study was frozen by the Trump administration in March of this year, according to UW News.
The study is operating on a five-year $7.5 million grant from the National Institute of Health who terminated the grant on the basis that the grant no longer “effectuates agency priorities,” according to UW News.
Where someone lives can shape their health, just as much as the care they receive. That’s why Dr. Amy Kind of her team at UW-Madison have developed the Area Deprivation Index (ADI).
The tool maps health disparities using the impacts of income, housing, education and employment on health.
The Department of Equity, Inclusion and Employee Wellbeing (EIEW) within UW-Madison’s Office of Human Resources (OHR) has ceased operations, a UW spokesperson confirmed Thursday.
UW-Madison has shuttered the equity and well-being department in its human resources office, which worked to retain LGBTQ+ and employees of color.
The university established the Office of Equity, Inclusion and Employee Well-Being in spring 2021 to offer consultation and promote inclusive policies and environments, with a focus on support for traditionally marginalized communities.
“It absolutely puts people in this impossible situation where you’re signed up for a plan that you thought covered your provider and then it turns out it doesn’t,” said Dan Sacks, associate professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While the current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women, UW Health is recommending the vaccine for everyone 6 months old and older.
“We’ve always leaned into the professional societies’ recommendations,” said Dr. Jim Conway, the medical director of the UW Health immunization program and an infectious disease physician with UW Health Kids. “The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians [and] the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology have all endorsed, based on data, that every person over 6 months is eligible and should consider getting these vaccines.”
The EPA could take enforcement action against Wisconsin if the Legislature decides not to approve the rule or comply with federal standards, said Steph Tai, an environmental law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“They could initiate what’s called an administrative order to tell the state to comply, or they could do a civil action against the state,” Tai said.
Strifling added the EPA could offer water systems assistance with co
The University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty hosted a webinar Sept. 30 to examine the impact of housing quality on families and communities — focusing on health, stability and the lasting effects of discriminatory policies such as redlining.
The event featured presentations from senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Erik Hembre, Emory University assistant professor of epidemiology Christine Ekenga and Boston University assistant professor of sociology Steven Schmidt.
Dr. Jim Conway, medical director of the UW Health immunization program and infectious disease physician with UW Health Kids, stressed the importance of vaccines to protect yourself and your loved ones respiratory illness season kicks off.
“By getting vaccinated, you decrease your chances of getting infected, or, if you do get infected, it’s more likely to be a milder case,” said Conway, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “Everyone who can, should get the vaccines, but especially those who are 65 and older or individuals with high-risk factors.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison students will no longer have access to local abortion services, as Madison’s East Planned Parenthood clinic will pause performing abortions in October, forcing students seeking care to travel to the closest clinic located in Rockford, Ill. or independent practices in Milwaukee.
The draft legislation calls for the establishment of a registry at the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. The registry would include a website with annual reports on the incidence and prevalence of Parkinson’s Disease in Wisconsin.
For another Wildlife Wednesday, emeritus professor and UW Extension wildlife ecologist Scott Craven joins us to talk about fall hunting seasons, the cost of poaching, and the latest on wolves in Wisconsin.
Antibiotic drugs are polluting waterways and exacerbating the spread of an infectious fungal disease in frogs and salamanders. We talk to Jessica Hua, an associate professor in UW-Madison’s Forest and Wildlife Ecology Department, about new research on the subject.
In the short term, it will also force patients to rethink their upcoming health care appointments, said Dan Sacks, associate professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“It absolutely puts people in this impossible situation where you’re signed up for a plan that you thought covered your provider, and then it turns out it doesn’t for three months,” he said.
The organization collected its data from several sources, including the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
After years of planning, Wisconsin Air National Guard members from the 115th Fighter Wing have the opportunity to continue clinical training at UW Health in Madison.
“This terrible decision between offering abortion care or receiving Medicaid reimbursement for other services is a decision that, ultimately, is going to affect patients,” Dr. Jenny Higgins, director of the University of Wisconsin Collaborative for Reproductive Equity. “It’s a decision that no healthcare system should have to make.”
The rate of children with profound autism has remained virtually unchanged since the CDC started tracking it, said Maureen Durkin, a professor of population health science and pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Indeed, the highest rate of new diagnoses has been among children with mild limitations, she said.
When the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched a Women’s Physical Education Department in 1912, Wisconsin women did not have the right to vote. Women, only reluctantly admitted to UW-Madison in the first place, faced scientific misconceptions, double standards and restrictions from administration. But the department itself was always years ahead of its time, alumni said, from its early days to its eventual merger with the men’s program in 1976.
UW Health is sharing advice for parents as this week marks Child Passenger Safety Week.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, car crashes are still a leading cause of death among kids. In 2023, UW Health reported more than a 1,000 kids were killed in crashes.
“If they could have been blinded to the study results and rate the quality, I would feel it was more compelling. I feel like these are just their opinions,” said Maureen Durkin, a population health sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
People walked, ran and biked for the tenth annual Badger Challenge fundraiser at UW Health Eastpark Medical Center on Sunday.
The challenge raises money to support cancer research and treatments at the UW Health Carbone Cancer Center.
UW-Madison is getting an extra $13.5 million to add two floors to the lab it’s constructing for a new cyclotron particle accelerator, which can be used to help detect cancer.
The UW Board of Regents approved the revision to the project Thursday, which will create more space to treat patients for cancer and other diseases at the facility, amid a booming biotech industry.
Dan Sacks, an associate professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, said the expected end of enhanced tax credits likely factored into Common Ground’s decision. That’s because subsidies help people who wouldn’t get insurance due to the cost gain coverage, he said.
“Generally, when they take away the subsidies, it’s less profitable to offer insurance,” Sacks said. “It makes sense that an insurer would want to drop out.”
Perry didn’t set out for a career in health care. But while working as an officer with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department, he found himself repeatedly looking in the rearview mirror when transporting men — especially Black men like himself — and wondering, “What could be different to keep you from being in the back seat of this cruiser in the future?”
Potentially fatal, Chagas disease is spread by kissing bugs, a subspecies of assassin bug. But entomologist PJ Liesch returns to explain that Wisconsin’s assassin bugs are not vectors for disease. He also says the recent mosquito outbreak in Milwaukee did not result in the spread of West Nile Virus.
Patients with cancer could be diagnosed and treated in one building if UW-Madison gets approval for its expanded multimillion-dollar cyclotron lab.
Construction for a $48.5 million cyclotron lab between two research buildings next to UW Hospital was expected to start this year, but the university now is seeking the green light from the UW Board of Regents to add more space for patient treatment and research.
Lauren Fields was less than four months into a research project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) when she got an email message from her program officer at the federal agency.
A doctoral candidate in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Fields has been studying the biochemistry involved in the feeding process of a common crab species. She and her faculty supervisor believe the project can shed new light on problems such as diabetes and obesity in human beings.
Amaya Atucha, a professor and chair of the department of plant and agroecosystem sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says many apple growers in northeast Wisconsin are reporting less-than-ideal crops.
“After a cold winter caused potential damage to apple trees, cool spring temperatures led to delayed and slower pollination, resulting in smaller crops in some orchards in Northeast Wisconsin,” Atucha said in her scouting report.
“There’s a whole bunch of studies on violence in the news, documenting the fact that people’s emotional cognitive reactions early on are high, and then as time goes on, the more you are exposed, those cognitive emotional reactions lessen,” said Karyn Riddle, a communications professor at University of Wisconsin who studies violence in media.
Data from AADAPt and other studies offer some clues. In a study published in May, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison analyzed the links between adverse social experiences and vascular injuries in brain tissue.
The team studied 740 brain samples donated to Alzheimer’s research centers. Regardless of race, the brains of people who had lived in disadvantaged neighborhoods or experienced other discrimination over their lifetime were more likely to bear signs of vascular damage, ranging from blocked vessels to hemorrhages.
Timothy Smeeding, professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs, similarly believes that tariffs will influence poverty rates primarily through their effect on prices. The industries most vulnerable, he said, are those dependent on sales, with grocery workers, retail workers and other blue collar professions likely to be hardest hit.
“When the SNAP cuts and Medicaid cuts go into effect, the same people will be hurt as grocery stores sell less and health care costs rise, closing some stores and maybe some rural hospitals and clinics,” he added.
This weekend, the annual fundraiser supporting the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center will take place with a bike, run/walk and community events to honor cancer patients.
The Badger Challenge kicks off this week, bringing the community together to support cancer research at UW-Madison.
Compass, offered at UW Health’s 1102 S. Park St. clinic, provides walk-in care for substance use disorder. The team includes a doctor, physician assistant, nurse, a peer support specialist, a social worker and a medical assistant.
“We work to make sure that we can get people pretty immediate access to any medications that might be needed related to their substance use disorder,” Salisbury-Afshar said. “We also offer some other medical services that we know people who use drugs often really struggle to be able to access. Specifically, things like Hepatitis C treatment, family planning, wound care, STI (sexually transmitted infection) testing and treatment.”
That was the topic of a Cap Times Idea Fest session Wednesday produced by UW Health | Carbone Cancer Center that featured three of their physicians. The discussion drew an audience of hundreds to the UW-Madison Memorial Union’s Shannon Hall.
“Immunotherapy is the concept that our own immune system can not only recognize and fight infections but it can recognize and fight cancer. It just needs a little help,” said Dr. Christian Capitini, who is leading the cancer center as acting director. “We’ve learned over the decades through many discoveries, including here at the University of Wisconsin, that immunotherapy in fact works in people and can translate into therapies that make a difference.”
Scientists at UW-Madison are leading national studies on psilocybin, to determine whether the psychedelic compound could offer lasting relief for mental health and substance use disorders.
UW Health explained Wednesday the virtual nursing program was introduced in July of 2024 to help lower the new-to-practice nursing turnover rate.
Before the implementation of the program, UW Health said new-to-practice NICU nurses had a 38% turnover rate between 2021 and 2023.
“The things we actually worry about are the horses rather than the zebras,” Dr. James Conway says. Conway, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, uses this metaphor to explain that while rare complications — zebras — can occur, it’s important for physicians to first focus on preventing the most common causes of serious illness — the horses. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Conway adds, noting this cliché is truer than ever in countries like Sudan.
UW-Madison professor Jimena Laporta Sanchis wants to help dairy cows beat the heat.
While a 70-degree day is welcome news to most Wisconsinites, it’s approaching a heat danger zone for dairy cattle. Due to cows’ much larger bodies and the immense work they must do to process food through four stomachs and produce gallons of milk daily, they’re more prone to overheating and increasingly vulnerable to climate change.
Parents struggle to help teens deal with online racism. Online racism is different from in-person racism because the people behaving that way usually hide behind fake names, making it hard to stop them. Studies found that teens of color see more untargeted racism – memes, jokes, comments – and racism targeting others online than racism targeted directly at them. But vicarious racism hurts, too.
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.”
Switching from months of relaxation over the summer straight into heavy course loads and overwhelming numbers of due dates is stressful for anyone. Keeping track of a new schedule and planning for the weeks ahead can make adjusting to the new school year seem nearly impossible, and University of Wisconsin-Madison’s current first week setup might be to blame for this syllabus shock.
If your pet is loose in the car, they might do something unpredictable or extra adorable — and that can be a big problem. When “you see someone in the driver’s seat with a small dog on their lap, that is obviously such a big distraction and such a big risk factor for causing a crash,” said Molly Racette, a veterinarian and professor of emergency and critical care at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Written by rofessor of human development & family studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Lexi Westley comes from a family of coaches and athletes. But it took what she calls a “terrifying” experience with a coach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to motivate her to pursue coaching herself.
A little more than three years after coach Mackenzie Wartenberger resigned from her position as head coach of the UW-Madison women’s cross country team, Westley and four of her teammates are coming forward about what they call abusive behavior by Wartenberger.
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.
John Lucey, director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there’s no convincing evidence that raw milk offers tangible nutritional or health benefits when compared with the pasteurized product. But even with the best dairy practices and sampling of milk, the risk of illness is far greater, he said.
“A high percentage of the people who get sick are children,” he said. “That’s the thing that really disappoints me. And scares me.”
Paul Lambert is an oncology professor and director of the McArdle Lab for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Lambert, who studies human papillomavirus, said the Shope virus was the first tumor virus ever discovered. American physician and animal pathologist Richard E. Shope first identified the virus in the 1930s.
“This is not a bloodborne pathogen,” Lambert said. “This virus, papillomaviruses, is transmitted by exposure on the skin.”
Catalina Toma is a communication professor at UW-Madison and says that preventative measures like this are beneficial.
“By some accounts, amongst American teenagers, about a third have suffered some sort of cyberbullying victimization online. And about 15%, according to the latest reports, have engaged in cyberbullying. So these incidents do happen, and there’s a lot of evidence about how damaging cyberbullying can be,” said Toma.
Democrats announced legislation to amend Wisconsin law to prohibit the concealed carry of firearms on college and university campuses in Wisconsin.
The legislation, which has been introduced in previous sessions and failed to advance, would make it a misdemeanor to possess a gun on campus, making the penalty up to nine months in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The new stipulations would not apply to law enforcement or military personnel, nor anyone who possesses a gun on campus with permission.
Leaders with Cardiac on Campus, a student-run organization at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Madison Fire Department and the City of Madison gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the two AEDs on Tuesday.
Researchers from the UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology co-authored a study finding that cold plunge elicits a natural rush of dopamine, similar to what people experience using social media.
In a statement, a spokesperson for UW-Madison said the university “does not yet have clarity on the full impacts of” the ruling, but that it “puts at risk” more than $14 million for biomedical research.
“This figure represents the remaining money on 22 grants that were already approved and underway, which also means the time and money already spent on these projects will potentially go to waste, in addition to the money that will not be recovered,” said UW-Madison spokesperson Victoria Comella.
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
