Achieving the designation is only half the battle, said Anthony Hernandez, educational policy studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The other half is competing against a pool of more than 500 other Hispanic-serving institutions for federal funding.
Direct, free and easy to use online filing was blocked for two decades in a lobbying campaign by the tax preparation industry, ProPublica reported in 2017. Former University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Don Moynihan has also written an account of how the original free-filing program hobbled.
WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” checked in with Christy Remucal, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, about whether Madisonians should be concerned, and if so, to what degree.
Extended periods of supervision after release from prison do little to improve public safety, according to Cecelia Klingele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School professor of criminal law. The long terms “may interfere with the ability of those on supervision to sustain work, family life and other pro-social connections to their communities,” she wrote in a 2019 study examining 200 revocation cases.
“Fewer, more safety-focused conditions will lead to fewer unnecessary revocations and more consistency in revocation for people whose behavior poses a serious threat to public safety,” she added.
On today’s show host Douglas Haynes sits down with Heather Swan to talk about her new book “Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnections.” Heather Swan is a poet, writer, and lecturer in the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s English Department. Her book tells stories of human-insect connections through the lens of science and art, with a focus on the way we can connect across species.
Photodynamic therapy, used to kill skin cancer cells, may also be effective for healing burn wounds. That’s what our guests, UW-Madison surgeon Angela Gibson and medical physics professor Brian Pogue, hope to confirm through their newly funded research.
Beyond partnerships between the utilities, Alliant is also working with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison College, Shell Global Solutions U.S. and the Electric Power Research Institute.
Oliver Schmitz is a professor in nuclear engineering and engineering physics at UW-Madison and director of the university’s Clean Energy Community Initiative. He said the Clean Energy Community Initiative helped Alliant craft its proposal for federal funding, and is providing support to the community benefits portion of the plan.
For those who are able to seize the moment, the attention can serve as a type of political currency to open doors and build credibility within the Democratic Party, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism professor Michael Wagner.
“Politicians are ambitious. Politicians who are local leaders in places where there’s a national convention have an opportunity to parlay that ambition into some dollars, into some connections. But it’s not a silver bullet to the next step up the political rung,” Wagner said.
Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the Fed increased interest rates to slow the economy and bring inflation down — and it looks like it’s working.
“They wanted to put the brakes on the economy,” Deller said. “They didn’t want to slam the brakes. That’s what happened in the early 1980s (when) inflation was so out of control.”
Citizen scientists are hobbyists and passionate amateurs, and data they generate is as valuable as anything produced by professional scientists. UW-Madison Arboretum Citizen Science Coordinator, Annie Isenbarger, described citizen science as a way of “deepening the average person’s connection with the natural world.”
Kasey Keeler, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, joined WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” to discuss the reports.
Keeler teaches civil society and community studies as well as American Indian and Indigenous Studies. She is also an enrolled tribal citizen of the Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians and Citizen Potawatomi.
Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Elections Research Center attributed the success of donations to Wikler.
“Under Ben Wikler, the state Democratic Party has become one of the most prolific parties for fundraising in the country,” Burden said of the state party’s chairman. “During the height of the pandemic, he organized online events featuring celebrities and other notable figures to attract interest and donations from across the country. Protasiewicz is now benefitting from the national network of donors that has built up since 2020.”
Written by Jay Hill, vice president of Advanced Technologies at GE HealthCare, and Anjon Audhya, senior associate dean for basic research, biotechnology and graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Kurt Paulsen said he can understand that perspective, because for current residents, the market seems to be in good shape.
“We’ve lived in our house for a long period of time, it’s gone up in value,” said Paulsen, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of urban planning. “And we refinanced our mortgages at less than 3%. So for the majority of people who are already here, it does not look like there’s a housing crisis, right?”
But Paulsen, who researches housing policy and has written two of Dane County’s housing needs assessments, has many data points ready to illustrate the extent of the housing problem.
In 2021, the Tribal Elder Food Box program began in response to a shortage of food for Native elders, said Carolee Dodge Francis, who chairs the department of civil society community studies in the school of human ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
For more than a decade, Christine Whelan was known around the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus as the “happiness professor.”
Now, “happiness” is one of Whelan’s least favorite words.
With 22 million pounds of microplastics finds its way into the Great Lakes every year, two UW-Madison projects seek to detect and stop the pollution. We’re joined by assistant professor Haoran Wei and Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Ginny Carlton to talk about their efforts to address the problem.
“Either the messaging from Republican and conservative leaders did not fully penetrate or the confusing legal language led some Republicans to vote ‘no’ rather than enact something they were unsure about,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center. “Democrats did put some money into the campaign to defeat the amendments and their message appears to have reached their primary voters.”
Eighty years later, Stevens was finally buried in Florida National Cemetery. His daughter attended the service in March, along with Ryan Wubben and other members of a University of Wisconsin-Madison group who helped find Stevens’ remains.
“It’s an interesting feeling that the success of your project results in a funeral,” said Wubben, the field physician for the University of Wisconsin Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project.
Federal regulators have convinced a jury and a judge that Google illegally quashes competing browsers and apps. Could consumers benefit if Google is forced to give up its monopoly power? UW-Madison IT Specialist Beth D’Angelo joins us to talk about this and more in our tech update.
“Turnout is going to be quite uneven across the state, just depending on whether there’s something of interest that’s really got voters’ attention or not. That unevenness is probably going to determine whether these issues end up passing or not,” said Barry Buden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center. “These are big choices made by a relatively small number of folks.”
Cary Bloodworth, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School professor, told Public Investigator that she hasn’t seen a blanket policy for juvenile records like this one before.
However, she said there are some advantages to such policies, like maintaining a minor’s privacy. The goal of the juvenile justice system is focused on rehabilitation, she said, rather than punishment.
State law provides an exception for news organizations that request law enforcement records about children and youth for “the purpose of reporting the news,” as long as they do not publish their identities.
While the amendments are most clearly aimed at power over undesignated and unanticipated federal dollars, they could impact other types of funding, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative.
“It’s been a very quiet contest in a district that is not likely to elect a Republican anytime soon,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said of the GOP primary race. “But this is at least an opportunity for the party to pick a favorite and try to make a stab at winning a difficult seat.”
Almost no one will cast a vote because of a celebrity endorsement alone, according to Michael Wagner, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But he said endorsements serve other purposes, like energizing blocks of voters, earning free media attention and shaping a narrative about the campaign.
“When the stories are about Kamala Harris being Brat and Tim Walz Midwestern dad memes, they aren’t about the things that candidates would rather not answer questions about on the campaign trail,” Wagner said.
In February, March, and May of this year, Wisconsin led the nation in “inflation adjusted hourly earnings growth,” the release said, citing data from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That means “wages are going up faster than prices” — a very good thing, said Ross Milton, an assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in state and local finance.
“From the birth outcomes to respiratory and cardiovascular issues, wildfire smoke is a big problem in public health,” said Dr. Jonathan Patz, a professor and former director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Strong social connectedness is a “protective factor” against depression and promotes stress resilience, said Shilagh Mirgain, UW Health distinguished psychologist. That makes it almost imperative to make friends, she said. She also said the health impacts of loneliness are as bad as smoking a dozen cigarettes a day. Friends help the immune system function more effectively and encourage a stable mood.
Written by Christine Durrance ,a professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies health economics and policy, with particular interests in risky behavior, including substance use and the opioid crisis; maternal, infant, and reproductive health; child maltreatment and domestic violence; and competition in health care markets.
On the health care page, Hovde doesn’t explicitly say he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, rather that the health care system is “deeply flawed and in need of reform.”
The webpage “has many inaccurate statements and misrepresentations of data,” said Donna Friedsam, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies health care policy and reform.
When Tracey Holloway studied Madison’s air quality last year under a contract for Madison Gas and Electric, she walked away surprised that “transportation and coal-fired power plants weren’t a bigger part of the pie.”
Holloway is a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of energy analysis and policy, and a science advisor to Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. The mayor announced the installation of the new monitors on July 22.
Allison Prasch, a political rhetoric scholar from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, thinks Walz’s approach to policy might be refreshing for voters turned off by the extremes.
“Walz has an ability to speak to voters in such a way that it brings the focus back to what we might call kitchen table issues — cost of child care, grocery budget, thinking about health care — and I think that that has a way of connecting with voters who understandably are exhausted by this looming, never-ending cycle of existential crisis,” Prasch said.
“I think Democrats have had a messaging problem,” said UW-Madison political rhetoric scholar Allison Prasch. “There is this narrative that ‘we know what’s best for you,’ and if you vote for (former President) Donald Trump, you’re stupid or you don’t pay attention. And that’s just incorrect, and the more that you communicate that to voters, the more they won’t want to listen to you.”
Richard J. Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, notes that even modest amounts of meditation—under 10 hours of practice in beginners—can change brain plasticity. But he cautions against commercializing the jhanas prematurely. “People saying this benefits them is all well and good, but without real scientific evidence, we have no idea,” he says. “Anyone trying to monetize this should raise red flags.”
“The idea that we’re breaking heat records, having record floods — this is all consistent with what scientists have been projecting for decades. But the terminology is still what we used in the 1900s: ‘natural disasters,'” said Tracey Holloway, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member of Science Moms. “We’re building terminology that captures the reality of what’s happening.”
Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Walz was “mostly likely to have a positive electoral impact in Wisconsin” out of the final handful of candidates Harris had considered. He said Walz “conveys more of a working-class background” that could appeal to rural voters around the Midwest.
“He is best positioned to relate to Wisconsin voters and will be a familiar figure to people who live in northwest Wisconsin and are within the Twin Cities media market,” said Burden, who is also director of UW’s Elections Research Center.
“There’s very little authority behind these positions,” said Richard C. Keller, a historian of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who wrote a book about extreme heat in Europe. “They can issue recommendations, they can help establish policy, but they’re going to have a very hard time enforcing those policies.”
WRN’s Bob Hague spoke with University of Wisconsin Political Science Professor Yoshiko Herrera about the risks for Americans in Russia, and the complex negotiations leading the release of American and European hostages in exchange for Russian criminals.
The science comes together in a “balancing act for women,” according to Dr. Stav Atir, assistant professor in the Management and Human Resources Department at the University of Wisconsin School of Business, who has studied how gender affects the way we talk about professionals.
Atir was lead author of a study that found people were more than twice as likely to describe a male professional by surname in “high-status” fields, including politics. In the medical field, other research indicates that female physicians are more than twice as likely to be called by their first names instead of “doctor,” compared with their male counterparts.
The Perseid meteor shower is active from about the end of July to the end of August, said James Lattis, director of the UW-Madison Space Place. Wisconsinites have the best chance of seeing the meteor shower Aug. 12-13. The moon sets just after midnight, leaving the skies dark.
After nearly forty years of serving southern Wisconsin, UW Health’s MedFlight has expanded its services by creating a third satellite base in Janesville.
We talk with a member of the Governor’s broadband task force about hurdles to more people adopting the service. Then we discuss the tricky balance between managing pests and promoting pollinators. And a disabled UW student and advocate reflects on Disability Pride Month coming to a close.
Though Rust Belt states can be mapped out, Simeon Alder, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said it’s not all about geography.
“It’s a set of industries that happened to be concentrated around the Great Lakes,” Alder said.
“Every time the numbers drift a little bit further down, it does worry me,” said Dr. James Conway, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the medical director of UW Health’s immunization program. “That means there’s that many more kids that are vulnerable.”
Howard Schweber, who for years taught political science and law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told WPR that Wisconsin once had a reputation for having “mostly apolitical courts, but that fell apart in the 2000s.” He said he believes the politicization of state Supreme Court elections started in 2007 with the election of conservative Chief Justice Annette Ziegler.
“It really took the Democrats Wisconsin a long while to realize that these were not your father’s judicial elections anymore, and they have indeed become highly politicized,” Schweber said. “Because, just as with the Supreme Court, people realize that if you can capture the court, you can promote your ideology in a very effective way.”
Karen Oberhauser, professor emeritus in entomology with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told “Wisconsin Today” this data on insecticides is “exciting” because it measures the impact humans have on monarchs and other species.
“A lot of people come up to me and say, they’re just not seeing as many monarch butterflies as they have in the past,” she said. “(This study) is really our ability to dig into the data and think about the changing practices in agriculture.”
When opposing politicians discuss immigration and crime, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Michael T. Light said they often “talk past one another.”
“Very often these tools can invent false facts,” said UW-Madison Assistant Professor Annette Zimmermann. “That’s very misleading and very dangerous, particularly in professions that impact a lot of people.”
Zimmermann researches the ethical implications of AI at UW. She says it’s crucial to give workers a seat at the table when making decisions about how to use AI.
Gregory Nemet, professor of public affairs at UW-Madison, and Morgan Edwards, associate professor of climate policy at the school, are two of the lead authors on the 222-page report. Titled “The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal,” it is the second in a series of annual reports and shows how steep the battle against climate change is.
In 1996, Congress added language to include the distribution of child pornography over the internet, not just the mail. This section is important to pay attention to, said Howard Schweber, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Let us assume, in the moment that Donald Trump wins reelection … a Trump Justice Department could choose to enforce the law and make it an actual crime to post on the internet any information about abortion,” Schweber said.
On a sunny fall morning, as he strolled to work along the Howard Temin Lakeshore Path near the Memorial Union, Jake Vander Zanden looked into the water and noticed something you don’t typically see in October: the beginnings of an algae bloom. The director of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Center for Limnology was both fascinated and concerned.
“That’s really unusual — even for Lake Mendota, which has a lot of algae blooms — to see significant blooms late in the season,” Vander Zanden says. “We’ve been seeing that more lately.”
Somesh Jha, a computer science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison researching artificial intelligence, said the rapid development of AI is expected to lead to more efficiencies in the workplace. But he said it could also lead to job losses in some industries, as well as lead to the creation of new jobs.
He praised the task force for taking on “questions, like, ‘okay, what are we doing now that can be done much more efficiently using AI? And what new positions which we might need, given that new capability?’”
Madison is one of the most populous areas of the country where the local transit agency is run entirely by a city, according to Chris McCahill, managing director of the State Smart Transportation Initiative housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Madison Metro is not necessarily in a sustainable position, especially as we face population growth,” McCahill said. “But that is true of all major transit agencies across the country.”
County fairs around the state have already gone through the additional testing requirements for avian flu this summer. The Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory has received nearly 400 samples every week since June, according to director Keith Poulsen.
Poulsen said they could accommodate more tests, but there hasn’t been the demand.
Murv Seymour talks with Stephen Kantrowitz at the Wisconsin Historical Society about his writing on Black and Indigenous struggles, the politics of racism and the importance of learning about history.
The Weather Guys, Steve Ackerman and Jon Martin, are back to put into context just how hot and wet this summer has been in Wisconsin. They’ll also explain why more severe weather events are becoming the new normal.
A legislative study group has been formed to discuss the future of the Universities of Wisconsin. We talk to two committee members, a state senator and a UW-Green Bay professor, about what’s at stake for higher education in Wisconsin.
There is a limited number of weather reporting stations in Wisconsin, leaving some areas like New Berlin in data gaps.
A new weather station network run by University of Wisconsin-Madison is hoping to change that. It is called WiscoNet and New Berlin just got one of the newest weather stations.
Mauriel Rodriguez Curras and UW-Madison ecology professor Jonathan Pauli collected DNA from foxes’ and martens’ scat and hair to investigate spatial, dietary and behavioral habits before wolves were introduced, within the first year of introduction and as packs coalesced on the island.
“Repeated messages tend to be stickier than things you only see once,” Dr. Michael Wagner, director of the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Daily Cardinal. “Seeing the same kind of misinformation over and over, is more likely to have a sustained effect on somebody’s attitudes.”
