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Category: Research

Early-career trans researchers reconsider their futures amid lost funding and fear

Posted on
STAT News

Researchers with a few more years of experience are more protected, but still facing setbacks. Fátima Sancheznieto is an associate researcher at the University of Wisconsin who studied biomedical sciences for her Ph.D., but now focuses on education and social science research. Before the Trump administration began cutting federal research funding, she was looking for faculty positions as an assistant professor — now she’s put that search on hold.

“You always have the — I don’t want to call it imposter syndrome, but — imposter phenomenon of, ‘Do I really belong here?’” Sancheznieto said. “When you start to notice maybe that you’re not getting as many job offers or career advancement opportunities and things like that — is it because I’m out and transgender?”

Americans drank more milk in 2024, reversing a decade-long decline

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Wisconsin Public Radio

Leonard Polzin, dairy markets and policy outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension, said whole milk has benefited from the diet craze around protein, driven in large part by health and fitness influencers online.

“The more protein, the better. Consumers are all about that,” he said. “The other portion is kind of a shift towards healthy fats too. So for example, cottage cheese is having a real moment right now.”

A Leopold legacy lives on through phenology | Paul A. Smith

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I had the privilege of visiting Nina Leopold-Bradley in late 2010 at her home in the Wisconsin River valley near Baraboo.

It was no ordinary interview.

Rather than meet at the nearby Aldo Leopold Foundation office, she insisted I come to her private residence and join her friends and family assembled for the holidays. As Nina, then 93 years old, described it, there were just “20 humans at the table, five dogs and four guitars.”

‘The next step:’ UW-Madison details $80 million college focused on AI

Posted on
WMTV - Channel 15

 For the first time in more than 40 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is launching a new college.

Approved by the UW Board of Regents on Thursday, the “College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence” is set to open in July.

“We see the new college as kind of the next step,” UW-Madison Interim Provost John Zumbrunnen said. “We envision it as a hub around computing, data and AI on our campus, but really beyond our campus too.”

UW-Madison’s new Hub envisions seeding students’ startups across Wisconsin

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

Surrounded by tools and wires in his lab at UW-Madison, Luis Izet Escaño holds up a tiny object, 3D-printed with metal powder in a device he created. It’s a little product that could lead to something much bigger, and he’s crafted it through his startup company.

That effort is getting some help from a new program at UW-Madison, through which he gets some seed money from the university and one year of training, with the help of campus experts, to get his company out of the door and pitch it to real-world investors.

America is awash in conspiracy theories. A Missouri researcher says ‘radical empathy’ can help

Posted on
NPR Kansas City

Conner and researchers Saverio Roscigno, of the University of California, Irvine, and Matthew Hannah, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, write in the forthcoming “QAnon: Capitalism and the Crisis of Meaning” that participating in QAnon means interacting with what they call gamified systems that are “strategically engineered to increase the likelihood that users will engage with them.”

This means the internet offers spaces to share ideas and encourage participation, but also “capitalizes on psychological mechanisms to hook and hold its followers,” they write.

UW-Madison’s proposed AI-focused college gets Regents’ OK

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Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison has the go-ahead to start a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

The UW Board of Regents on Thursday gave UW-Madison permission to move the School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences (CDIS) out of the College of Letters and Science and transform it into the new college.

UW Board of Regents approves new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence

Posted on
The Badger Herald

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents approved the reorganization of the School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences to create a new, standalone College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence during its December meeting on Thursday.

Improv classes enhance medical students’ interpersonal skills at UW-Madison

Posted on
Channel 3000

he University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health has used improv classes to help medical students develop their interpersonal skills, combining performing arts and health-related fields into a six-week course.

Amy Zelenski, a professor of medicine at the school, teaches an elective class in improvisational theater. She is no stranger to the performing arts scene, as she has a background in theater.

UW receives approval to move L&S’s largest majors to new AI-focused school

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The Daily Cardinal

The University of Wisconsin-Madison received approval to separate the school’s largest and fastest-growing majors into a new college focused on Artificial Intelligence and computing ahead of next fall.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted unanimously Thursday to authorize creation of a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence (CAI) at UW-Madison, the first new academic division since 1983, when UW-Madison created the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Why UW-Madison is creating a new college focused on AI

Posted on
The Cap Times

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is set to create a new college for the first time in more than 40 years.

The Board of Regents — which oversees UW-Madison and Wisconsin’s 12 other public universities — approved a proposal Thursday to establish the College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

Is my morning coffee climate friendly?

Posted on
The New York Times

A study led by Andrea Hicks, the director of sustainability education and research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, yielded similar results, concluding that single-serve coffee pods have a similar environmental impact to drip-filter and French press coffee.

“I was surprised when we first found this, after reading all of the popular press saying that single serve coffee pods were terrible for the planet,” Dr. Hicks said. “It seems the public has a hard time believing this, as well.”

Early study results show landfill runoff in Wisconsin has high PFAS levels

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Early results of a new study show landfill runoff contained the highest levels of PFAS among liquid wastes sampled statewide in Wisconsin.

Since 2023, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been collecting and analyzing samples from four waste materials that could be potential sources of PFAS in groundwater, which provides drinking water to two-thirds of state residents. It’s also a source of drinking water for around 800,000 private wells.

UW-Madison proposes moving L&S’s largest majors to new AI-focused school

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

The University of Wisconsin-Madison wants to separate the school’s largest and fastest growing majors into a new college focused on Artificial Intelligence and computing.

The University  of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will vote  Thursday on the creation of a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence at UW-Madison, meeting materials show.

Exact Sciences sale could benefit both companies, local economist says

Posted on
The Cap Times

Madison leaders and economists are still working to predict all of the major changes that could take place with the sale of local cancer diagnostics company Exact Sciences to Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories, which was announced late last month. But one local economist and business analyst says the merger is likely to be a net positive for both companies. Dan Olszewski, director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, studies mergers and acquisitions in prominent companies.

Early study results show landfill runoff in Wisconsin has high PFAS levels

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Early results of a new study show landfill runoff contained the highest levels of PFAS among liquid wastes sampled statewide in Wisconsin.

Since 2023, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been collecting and analyzing samples from four waste materials that could be potential sources of PFAS in groundwater, which provides drinking water to two-thirds of state residents. It’s also a source of drinking water for around 800,000 private wells.

Teaching assistant receives UW fellowship for second consecutive year: a look into his research

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

PhD candidate Morgan Henson received the Gulickson fellowship for the second year in a row, an award given to graduate students working to improve the teaching experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His research focuses on how far-right political movements use digital platforms and media to gain political support. Outside the classroom, Henson is making a different kind of impact: helping his fellow teaching assistants.

Archaeologists in Wisconsin unearth an ancient ‘parking lot’ with 16 dugout canoes — including one that’s 5,200 years old

Posted on
Smithsonian Magazine

For the past few years, Thomsen has been collaborating with the preservation officers with the Ho-Chunk Nation and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, as well as Sissel Schroeder, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Products Laboratory. Together, they’re unraveling the mysteries of the Indigenous canoes, which are some of the oldest surviving specimens of their kind in eastern North America.

Don’t let politics tear Thanksgiving apart. Talk it out.

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The good news amid the rancor is that people are not only studying why we’re so polarized, but they are also working on ways to fix it. I learned that fact during my recent interview with Susan Yackee, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW–Madison.

The school is launching a new undergraduate public policy program in the fall of 2026, including a required course titled Advancing Public Policy in a Divided America.

In it, students literally practice talking across ideological divides. “If I don’t work out my bicep, it’s just not gonna get strong, right? It’s the same thing with our students and their skills in talking across differences,” Yackee told me. “[It’s] super easy for them to be siloed in their own little social media environments and not hear or have to interact with people that think differently than them. So we’re gonna force that in the class.”

WARF increases UW research investment with $206.9 million

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) announced a $206.9 million commitment on Nov. 13 to support research and innovation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in FY26. The commitment is one of the largest annual investments in the university’s history and marks the celebration of the foundation’s centennial celebration and federal research funding uncertainty.

UW-Madison’s new center studies the link between aging and diseases

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison researchers at a new federally funded center on campus will examine how aging influences diseases, such as cancer and neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s.

The Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging will fund new research that examines how metabolic changes associated with aging are linked to disease. The center’s researchers aim to develop improved treatments or methodologies that physicians can use to better address their patients’ conditions.

The polar vortex is about to bring a wild weather pattern change

Posted on
CNN

It’s still not certain there will be a major winter blast, but scientists are watching for colder than normal conditions to develop in the mid-latitudes — where most of the world’s population resides — over the next month or so. Once the polar vortex is disrupted, it can take a month or more to recover, said Andrea Lopez Lang, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We can see more active and shifted storm tracks and increases in cold air outbreaks in regions across the Northern Hemisphere,” she said in an email.

Honda invests in soil carbon removal credit scheme to offset emissions

Posted on
Newsweek

University of Wisconsin Madison Division of Extension’s Crops and Soils program defines a carbon credit as, “a certified, tradable carbon offset that is exchanged under a cap and trade system of emissions regulation.” Under that system, companies are allotted a certain number of credits to offset their emissions impact. Farmers who have generated their own credits may sell them to companies who, in turn, may release more harmful emissions into the atmosphere.

Researchers examine the professional skepticism of audit partners

Posted on
Forbes

The research team examined the audit reports of 19,200 financially distressed companies in Belgium between 2008 and 2017. The vast majority of the companies examined were private companies, as is the case with most Belgian companies. The study is authored by Kris Hardies from the University of Antwerp, Sanne Janssen of the Court of Audit, Ann Vanstraelen of Maastricht University, and Karla M. Zehms from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

UW-Madison wants to conduct more research with the Department of Defense

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

As the pot of federal funding for research at universities and colleges continues to shrink, UW-Madison’s campus leaders are positioning the university to grow its work with the Department of Defense.

That doesn’t mean UW-Madison researchers will be at the forefront of developing new bombs, said Vice Chancellor for Research Dorota Grejner-Brzezińska.

Microsoft partners with UW-Madison, Princeton to accelerate AI scientific discovery

Posted on
Channel 3000

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.

UW-Madison secures $13.5 million boost for cancer research accelerator

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents approved a request from University of Wisconsin-Madison on Sept. 18 seeking an additional $13.5 million to make space for a cancer research project.

Originally budgeted at $48.5 million, researchers at the Wisconsin Institute for Medical Research found the new structure requires significantly more complex infrastructure, adding $13.5 million to construction costs. The building will  support a cyclotron particle accelerator, [brief definition], and will be ready in 2027 according to UW-Madison’s request.

Overfishing has greater impact on midwestern fish populations than climate change

Posted on
The Badger Herald

A recent University of Wisconsin study found that overfishing is hurting the Wisconsin and Minnesota fish population more than climate change.

Most species of fish are impacted primarily by overfishing, though climate change has a detectable impact on the upper midwest region of the United States, co-author of the study and associate professor Olaf Jensen said. “When we compare the magnitude of [climate change and fishing], for most species, fishing is still having a much larger impact than warming,” Jensen said.

UW-Madison wants to grow defense research — but not build weapons

Posted on
The Capital Times

Vice Chancellor Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska wants the University of Wisconsin-Madison to conduct more research with the U.S. Department of Defense — with a caveat.

“I’m not thinking of us going directly to classified (research) and developing new weapons. There’s so much good work we can do that benefits … society but also provide national security,” said Grejner-Brzezinska, who oversees UW-Madison’s $1.7 billion research operation.

UW-Madison pioneers cancer detection research

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

According to University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Zachary Morris, the university has experts in nearly every area of a rising field of cancer research called theranostics.

Morris, a faculty member at the School of Medicine and Public Health and Chair of the Department of Oncology, leads the UW-Madison Initiative for Theranostics and Particle Therapy. He told The Daily Cardinal the theranostics field has quickly been gaining traction over the past decade, and UW-Madison is poised to be at the forefront.

Most Wisconsin schools protect students from discrimination against everything but this.

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A study of Wisconsin school board policies has found that nearly all districts have policies protecting students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and the vast majority protect students from discrimination based on gender identity.

“I don’t think there’s enough work that describes the environment that we’re in.  But then the project gained some urgency when we started hearing from educators across the state about the need for some sort of description of the state of guidance affecting teachers and students,” said Mollie McQuillan, lead author of the school board policy research and an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at UW-Madison.

Wisconsin joins clinical trial to see if AI can catch more breast cancer cases

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The trial, led by the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Davis will look at hundreds of thousands of mammograms at UW Health and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s medical school, as well as academic medical centers in four other states. Wisconsin researchers say it’s an important foray into better understanding both the potential benefits and drawbacks of using AI in cancer screenings.

University of Wisconsin psychology professor Gary Lupyan: If you talk to yourself out loud, you’re probably this type of person

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As

Talking to oneself out loud—known in psychology as “self-talk” or “thinking out loud”—is a common and beneficial behavior, not a sign of irrationality. Rather than indicating madness or social isolation, self-talk serves as a powerful cognitive tool with a range of psychological benefits. Gary Lupyan, associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, explains that this practice can improve memory and concentration, challenging the stereotype that talking to oneself is a symptom of instability.

In one experiment, participants who named objects out loud were able to locate them more quickly than those who remained silent. As Lupyan explains, “Even though we all know what a banana looks like, saying the word out loud helps the brain activate additional information about that item, including what it looks like.” Verbalizing names or thoughts engages both visual and contextual processing in the brain, enhancing identification and recall.

 

Wisconsin rarely grants compassionate release as aging, ailing prisoners stress systems

Posted on
Wisconsin State Journal

“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 UW–Madison professors awarded prestigious MacArthur ‘Genius grants’

Posted on
WKOW - Channel 27

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.