Category: UW Experts in the News

The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced four finalists in the search for the campus? next director of university libraries Wednesday…Each candidate will visit campus in the coming months to present themselves to the community and answer questions.

When Larry Landweber was growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the 1950s, he competed on his high school math team. But he never imagined he would become a leader in a technology that has dramatically changed the world. Yet Landweber, 69, the John P. Morgridge professor emeritus of computer science at UW-Madison, is one of 33 people from nine countries who were the first to be inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame last April in Geneva.

A new Marquette Law School Poll finds President Barack Obama leading former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney 51 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in Wisconsin. Five percent remain undecided or declined to state a preference, while 1 percent said that they would vote for a third party.

Both candidates suggested such numbers were far from their thoughts amid a crisis, but ?that?s just not true,? according to Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin.

Noted: Dr. Michael Kim, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told ABC News that a better emergency room experience for children could lead to less fears of the medical system for them in the future.

Quoted: “This is an epic showdown between two people who have deep roots in the state,” University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Barry Burden said. “It?s been heavily negative, particularly in the advertising, but it?s also carried on into the debates.

Prominent scholars and professors from around the country convened at a China Town Hall meeting Monday night to focus on the impact of social media on U.S.- China relations.

Noted: But after a few years of hard work, Lawrence, who has a master?s degree in community economic development, said he began to feel pulled more toward the trenches. So he started Fathers, Families and Healthy Communities on his own in 2010 and brought in as a senior adviser Kirk Harris, a University of Wisconsin professor and expert on how to help men become more responsible fathers.

Quoted: ?As a whole, we don?t know a lot about what controls tropical storm size.?- University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist Clark Evans

Quoted: Timothy Van Deelen, a wolf expert at the University of Wisconsin, said the state will have a hard time managing such a small population. He said that even minor mistakes can be destabilizing and lead to uncontrolled population growth or collapse.

Quoted: “Sometimes there?s what we call the ?Model of the Year,? ” says Christopher Velden, a senior researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison?s Space Science and Engineering Center.

Noted: In Wisconsin, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor David Canon, Baldwin?s sexuality “certainly has not been an issue in the campaign in any big way.”

Quoted: ?You can?t take a breath without seeing a political ad right now,? said Michael Wagner, a political expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. ?If you haven?t seen a political ad in Wisconsin, you must not own a TV set.?

Quoted: ?The Republicans clearly believe that the state is still in play,? said Barry Burden, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: Connie Flanagan, a developmental psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says voting is habit forming. ?Once you?ve made your first vote, it becomes part of your routine,? she said. ?Everyone you know votes. It feels like a moral and civic obligation.?

Quoted: Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who conducted the research based on Census Bureau and county records.

Quoted: Dietram Scheufele, life sciences communication professor, and Katy Culver, journalism and mass communication professor.

Quoted: Adrian Treves, founder and director of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Conservatives are grumbling about early voting.

In a column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Christian Schneider, a fellow at the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, compared early voting Wednesday to watching only the first three-fourths of a movie.

Quoted: “You don?t measure the greatness of a military by the end number of pieces of hardware you possess. You judge it by the capability it possesses,” said John W. Hall, an assistant professor of U.S. military history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noted: That said, it could have simply been Mr. Romney trying to show a friendly persona, said Dietram Scheufele, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The last debate between President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney may not have provided a clear winner but provided insight into both contenders? views on foreign policy.

Quoted: Early voting isn?t new, but it?s caught on quickly, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: ?We can talk to infants, but at least initially they aren?t going to understand what the words mean,? said Dr Paula Niedenthal, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin who led the study.

Quoted: Barry Burden, a University of Wisconsin political scientist who studied early voting in his state, early voting is just “a convenience for people who likely would have voted anyway.”

Quoted: “For all we know, it could be the obesity that makes (the children) have higher BPA levels,” says Ellen Connor, an associate professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Quoted: “These kinds of food systems can generate jobs,” as well as help small farms, noted Sharon Lezberg, associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “There?s a whole host of benefits.”

Noted: Thompson?s electability was once assured based on his name recognition and vast likability in the state as a moderate conservative dating back to his years as governor. That shifted during the Republican primary, when he took hard right positions that many perceived as catering to national trends in his party, says Dennis Dresang, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Those positions helped Baldwin portray him early in the race as unreliable and dogmatic.

Noted: Joseph Peterson, a professor in the University of Wisconsin geology department, and his colleagues took CT scans of the skulls and compared the distribution of lesions to those on the skulls of birds, crocodilians, and mammals – particularly mammals with horns.

Noted: University of Wisconsin?Madison ecologist Stephen Carpenter has for years studied how critical transitions can be used to keep invasive species from overtaking healthy habitats. Using the food chain at Peter Lake on the Wisconsin?Michigan border as a test bed, Carpenter and his colleagues over several years introduced dozens of largemouth bass into the algae-infested water.

A new Marquette Law School Poll finds the presidential race tied in Wisconsin, with President Barack Obama at 49 percent and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 48 percent among likely voters. The race for U.S. Senate is also a dead heat, with former Governor Tommy Thompson at 46 percent and Rep. Tammy Baldwin at 45 percent. Two weeks ago, before the first presidential debate, Obama held an 11-point lead and Baldwin was narrowly ahead by four percentage points. The new poll was conducted October 11-14, before the second presidential debate.