Jim Conway, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, says health providers in the state are watching the situation closely.
“We continue to sort of be on eggshells, and nervous, because obviously we’ve got some pretty substantial areas of the state that kids are under-immunized,” he said.
“Is rulemaking more a legislative power? Is it more an executive power? And depending on how you answer that, is it constitutional?” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. The research hub filed an amicus brief in the case, supporting Evers.
Richard J. Davidson, founder of the University of Wisconsin Center for Healthy Minds, reflected on the Dalai Lama’s influence on neuroscience.
“When I first met His Holiness in 1992, there were three scientific papers published on the effects of meditation,” he said. “Now there are thousands. This has been a legacy that will live on for many, many years and has transformed our understanding of the human mind and the human heart.”
Donna Friedsam is distinguished researcher emerita and the former health policy programs director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that 1 in 5 Wisconsin residents use Medicaid, which includes programs like BadgerCare Plus and Forward Health.
“About 40 percent of all births in Wisconsin and 40 percent of children are covered by Medicaid, and 60 percent of people in nursing homes on long-term care, or elderly and disabled people,” she added.
Steve Wright, clinical law professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and founding director of the Constitutional Litigation, Appeals, and Sentencing Project, which includes, in part, getting people in Wisconsin prisons needed legal representation.
Wright said lockdowns are likely the cheapest way to prevent catastrophes, but it also means prisoners are unable to venture out of their cells to find relief from the heat without being escorted by correctional officers.
“I’ve been to some of the prisons. On a hot day, you can literally see the steam coming off the ground,” Wright said.
The shape of a cloud, where water accumulates in the cloud, and how dry the air is between the cloud and the ground in different locations, are all factors that might influence how much rain hits the ground in a certain location, according to Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and manager of the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Getting those very precise measurements at those very precise locations is something that we’re still working on, improving that science,” Vagasky says. Progress hinges on more advanced computer modeling and a better understanding of how precipitation forms in clouds.
Studies like Wednesday’s are “ending the guessing game on the health harms from continued burning of fossil fuels,” said Dr. Jonathan Patz, director of the Center for Health, Energy and Environmental Research at the University of Wisconsin. He was not part of the research but said it “combined the most up-to-date climate and health methods and found that every fraction of a degree of warming matters regarding extreme heat waves.”
Jessica Calarco, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison whose research focuses on inequalities in family structures, says the disconnect between millennial dads’ intention and reality can be attributed to two things: “A mismatch of socialization and a mismatch in structure.”
As a society, we haven’t socialized fathers to be caregivers, she says. “We’ve only allowed gender to bend one way. We’ve told young girls they can be anything they want to be. But we’re not encouraging boys to embrace care identities. We’re not giving them baby boys dolls and tea sets.” As a result, “dads can feel underprepared or crowded out, like they don’t belong in caring roles.”
Two researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are part of a new effort to improve understanding of how and why glaciers move the way they do — and to explore efforts to save glaciers and prevent drastic sea level rise.
We talk to a retired UW-Madison biochemist about how his discoveries led to Cologuard and other health screening technology. Then, we talk to a veteran county fair judge. Then, we revisit a conversation about the history of fairs in Wisconsin.
The Black Males in Engineering (BME) video series, led by UW-Madison School of Education faculty member Dr. Brian Burt, recently received a Silver Telly Award in the Campaign – Education & Training category. The honor recognizes non-broadcast video campaigns created for general educational purposes and underscores the series’ impact on addressing critical gaps in STEM education support.
Pablo Moreno-Yaeger, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, who led the research, said: “As glaciers retreat due to climate change, our findings suggest these volcanoes go on to erupt more frequently and more explosively.”
Pablo Moreno-Yaeger from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is presenting the research at the conference, said in a statement: “Our study suggests this phenomenon isn’t limited to Iceland, where increased volcanicity has been observed, but could also occur in Antarctica. Other continental regions, like parts of North America, New Zealand and Russia, also now warrant closer scientific attention.”
“While a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia understandably brings fear and uncertainty, we are living in a time of unprecedented knowledge and more comprehensive care for patients than ever before,” says Dr. Nathaniel Chin, medical director and clinical core co-leader of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Tim Baye, a professor of business development and a state energy and energy finance specialist with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension, said developers have been rushing since November to get planned projects moving in time to qualify for tax credits.
While there may be an initial rush to meet requirements for tax credits in the short term, Baye said he expects the bill will cause a slowdown in renewable development once those incentives sunset.
“We’re going to see a real slowdown,” he said. “It’s going to have a chilling effect.”
rofessor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Regardless of … where a baby is born, we want them to be able to have access to this genomic testing,” said genetic counselor April Hall, who’s an assistant professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
While the Wisconsin dairy industry is known to rely on unauthorized workers (it’s believed about 70% of the workforce is working illegally), the majority in the state actually work elsewhere, said Laura Dresser, a labor economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
From Dresser’s perspective, undocumented workers are especially vulnerable when law enforcement agencies focus more on immigration status and less on violations of workers’ rights.
That culture of fear can create “incentives for some employers to find a way to drive wages and standards down,” Dresser said.
Michael Morgan, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said precipitation forecasting remains “one of the most vexing problems” of his field.
But he said he believed the National Weather Service did its job by giving a general sense of the Texas storm and then providing more specific local forecasts as additional information became available to highlight the most serious potential threats.
“I think the [National] Weather Service forecasts were on point,” Morgan said. “Specifically targeting in locations that are going to receive the maximum rainfall is an incredibly challenging forecast problem.”
When Miso Kwak and Emily Nott met during their early days as doctoral students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a creative and transformative friendship took root.
In 2023, their bond deepened in a feminist disability studies class taught by Prof. Sami Schalk.
“Meteorologists have been launching weather balloons for almost 100 years now. We continue to do it because that is the only way that we get direct measurements of everything that’s going on above us in the atmosphere,” said Chris Vagasky, who manages the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet, or Wisconet, a network of weather and soil monitoring stations across the state.
Written by meteorologist and research program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW Extension wildlife ecologist Scott Craven joins us for another Wildlife Wednesday. Then farmer Richard Cates Jr. shares the land ethic he describes in his new book, “A Creek Runs Through This Driftless Land.”
The Badger Baby Network program was launched in 2024 by University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Medical College of Wisconsin. The two medical schools train neonatologists at NICUs to identify babies that need genetic testing, determine which genomic test to order, and interpret the complex results.
Sometimes genetic professionals recommend testing for newborns if they aren’t responding as expected to medications, have different behaviors, or are born with a congenital disorder, said April Hall, genetic counselor and assistant professor of pediatrics at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine.
Wisconsin’s only bilingual memory clinic is partnering with the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and Public Health for a new elective course aimed at boosting doctor training, prevention and treatment to help with dementia in Latino communities.
Dr. Maria Mora Pinzon, an assistant professor of medicine at UW, leads the research team collaborating with the Latino Geriatric Center Memory Clinic. On WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Mora Pinzon highlighted the center’s over 17 years of experience of working with older Latino adults who are suffering from dementia.
“We could see future cases that argue there is a constitutional right to abortion in Wisconsin and challenge other laws that we have in the state related to abortion,” said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “But those would be a bit more nuanced than challenging an outright ban.”
Advocacy groups could continue trying to litigate whether there is a right to the procedure under the state constitution, said Miriam Seifter, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. But for now, Wednesday’s ruling ends a complicated, three-year conflict over the state’s abortion laws.
“The question all along has been, how do they fit together?” she said.
Slower wage growth has an outsized impact on the cost of services, said Menzie Chinn, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Because services are provided, you know, the main input is going to be labor,” he said.
But Chinn said there are factors that could actually lead to higher wages in the service sector. For instance, employees might ask for higher wages to help them cover the cost of tariffs.
Black women survivors also face an uphill battle to be believed. In a 2025 study conducted by Chloe Grace Hart, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she found that Americans were less likely to say they believed a Black woman describing a sexual harassment experience compared to a white women describing the same thing.
Planned Parenthood had posited that the 176-year-old law conflicts with the provisions in the state constitution establishing a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as well as equal protection. So, the constitutional question goes unresolved, according to Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“And so, I think there will be continued conversations about what constitutional protections we have in Wisconsin,” says Godar. She says that could be future court cases or constitutional amendment ballot questions.
The wave of defaults may also inflict costs on taxpayers. Sending debts to collection comes with administrative costs, says Nicholas Hillman, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “There are inefficiencies in the loan repayment system and the collections system,” says Hillman. “So it’s expensive.” Hillman stressed, however, that the alternative to collections—allowing borrowers to forgo debt payments, effectively canceling the loans—would be far more costly for taxpayers.
Biologists interested in reconstructing the family trees of spiders and their relatives have long sought a complete sea spider genome, said Prashant Sharma of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is an author of the new paper. Because sea spiders are members of a group that are siblings of arachnids on land, characteristics they share with modern land spiders could be traced to a common ancestor.
Dr. Patrick Shahan, trauma and acute care surgeon at UW Health, said last year’s uptick in injuries was also felt in Wisconsin.
“It can be something as small as a hand burn from a sparkler up to really substantial, life-threatening injuries from explosions,” he said. “Things like really severely injured and disfigured hands, especially from people who are holding fireworks when they’re lighting them.”
During a recent training session for crops and soils specialists, plant pathologist Damon Smith with the University of Wisconsin says growers are experiencing weather that is ideal for corn tar spot infection.
“It’s too early to see symptoms now,” he told them, “but it is likely that infections are occurring and that growers need to be vigilant in their scouting of susceptible fields in coming weeks.”
“A new party is going to benefit most from Musk if they can draw on his resources but keep him in the background,” said Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center. “And if he can portray himself as an innovator and a tech entrepreneur — and somebody who is really contributing to the American economy and funding this new operation without being its front person — I think that’s probably going to lead to the most success.”
With the Fourth of July on the horizon, it’s important for residents to keep in mind several fireworks safety tips.
Dr. Patrick Shahan of UW Health is an acute surgeon and an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Sources include: Email interview, Barry Burden, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, June 17, 2025.
We talk about why UW-Madison will offer an Aging Studies Certificate starting this fall. Then, we’ll talk about the worrisome increase in U.S. deaths from alcohol-related liver disease. Then, the Weather Guys return after another widespread heat wave.
Written by ssociate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and tudent in computer science, both a the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The number of Latinos affected by dementia nationwide is expected to rise nine-fold over the next 30 years, according to Dr. Mora Pinzon, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
And to meet this growing need, UW-Madison’s medical school is launching a new course to better train future doctors in culturally competent care. With around 660 students total currently enrolled, the school plays a significant role in training doctors in the state.
“The world’s example for weather services is being destroyed,” wrote Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin, on social media earlier this spring after a round of major changes were announced.
Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, professors in the UW-Madison department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, are guests on WHA radio (970 AM) at noon the last Monday of each month.
Election observation rules are not updated very often in Wisconsin, and these new guidelines are mainly in response to election skeptics who are doubtful about the results of the 2020 election, University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden said.
“It’s taken nearly five years to get a new set of rules to update and make clear some of the things that were bothering people in 2020,” Burden said.
The new Vera C. Rubin telescope in Chile that just started recording images of the night sky has 3.2 billion pixels – that’s billion with a “b” – making it the largest digital camera ever constructed. Interview with Keith Bechtol, an associate professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the systems verification and validation scientist for the Vera C. Rubin telescope project.
Ten or 15 years ago, the destructive insects were mostly a problem in the southern half of the state, but in the past couple of years, that trend has flip-flopped, as their populations shift to more northern parts of Wisconsin, said entomologist PJ Liesch, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.
“Bringing a class action against the government includes incredibly high standards. And they are incredibly expensive as well as time-consuming to do,” said Erin Barbato, the director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “I anticipate there will definitely be more people joining in this or people attempting to be certified and be protected by the injunction, but at this point, it’s hard to see who is going to have the resources to do that,” she said.
Although there were other publications focused on Black lesbians, most were geared toward their own cities, according to Emerald Rutledge, a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose research interests focus on 20th century Black gay and lesbian literature. Aché (1989-1993) and Onyx (1982-1984) — two Black lesbian-focused outlets — were based in San Francisco; Venus (1995-2007) was originally based in Atlanta but eventually moved to New York.
“You could see [the magazines] as a first encounter for people looking for community who may be closeted or socially isolated,” said Rutledge.
Many fruits and vegetables, for example, are a key part of a healthy diet. They’re also high in fiber, which helps prevent constipation, says Chris Manakas, a urologist at University of Wisconsin Health and an assistant professor of urology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Partnering with Forward BIOLABS — one of the many tenants that call the research park home — URP helped create a new shared coworking lab incubator in Madison. Forward BIOLABS offers turn-key life science labs, fully equipped, maintained and supported with networking, training and other growth services aimed at startups.
“With millions of dollars of shared lab equipment, Forward BIOLABS is an ideal place to get started,” said Aaron Olver, managing director of the University Research Park. “And MERLIN Mentors creates customized volunteer mentor teams to help companies achieve liftoff.”
Housing financial stress has been rising among Wisconsin residents, and it is tied to an increase in negative health outcomes, according to a report from the University of Wisconsin-Extension.
The report found that housing instability is linked to worsened mental and physical health and may cause food insecurity, physical exhaustion, hypertension and lowered fertility. While this stress is more common among renters than homeowners, the consequential health impacts were linked more with older homeowners, co-author of the report and associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics Tessa Conroy said.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory released its first images this week.This is the most advanced telescope and camera system available, allowing scientists to study these incredible, high-resolution time-lapse images.
They include a Ph.D. in physics and a UW-Madison professor, Keith Bechtol.
Written by rofessor of Scandinavian Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
University of Wisconsin Law School Professor Robert Yablon, who co-directs the State Democracy Research initiative, told WPR that one can only speculate about why the court didn’t take up the cases. He said it could be that justices felt lower courts are better equipped to handle the factfinding necessary to rule on gerrymandering claims.
Yablon said it’s also possible justices were leery about the U.S. Supreme Court “looking over its shoulder” and potentially overturning any ruling they make on the map guiding elections for federal lawmakers.
“They are expected to arrive from slightly below the horizon, where there is not much Earth for them to be absorbed,” Justin Vandenbroucke, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was not involved in the research but peer-reviewed it, tells CNN’s Ashley Strickland. Models predict these pulses would come in at angles of only one to five degrees below the horizon—these came through the ice at a much sharper 30 degrees, leaving researchers unable to identify their origins.
While rare, it’s important for people to be aware of meteotsunamis because they can be dangerous, said Chin Wu, a professor at University of Wisconsin in Madison who has expertise in meteotsunamis.
“The potential dangers are the water levels fluctuating back and forth, particularly once the water levels go up and go down as I see in the video. Once the water level goes down, they will drag the people out of the beaches and cause drownings.”
LGBTQ+ community members came together at a pride picnic at the UW-Madison Red Gym on Wednesday. June is recognized as Pride Month, and the picnic, hosted by the UW Madison Gender and Sexuality Campus Center, was a way for the community to celebrate.
“It’s just our way of celebrating Pride Month. Being together as a community, welcoming students, community members, faculty and staff to come together,” said Sanders Weinberg, program coordinator for the Gender and Sexuality Campus Center.
As an attorney leading a law clinic that helps immigrants facing deportation, Erin Barbato knows her clients often face the bleak prospect of being deported to countries where they are not safe.
Attorneys at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Immigrant Justice Clinic, which Barbato is the director of, regularly travel to the Dodge County Detention Facility — the only facility in the state serving as immigration detention center — to offer people free consultations and information about their rights.
UW-Madison political science professor Mark Copelovitch explains how today’s rise in authoritarianism and protectionist policies mirrors the 1930s backlash against globalization. He warns that pushback against democracy and global trade often go hand in hand.
A true shift in what parenting means is more likely to come when raising kids isn’t categorized along the lines of “his” and “hers” at all, said Jessica Calarco, professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Gender is more fluid than we give it credit for,” Calarco said. “Often these tropes become increasingly stereotypical the more they get used.”
“With county fairs, there’s always a lot of movement of cattle whether it’s within the county or if there are open shows,” Jerry Clark, a crops and soils educator with UW-Madison’s Division of Extension, said. “These cattle are moving across county lines and so it’s just another way that fairs are doing their part.”
