Skip to main content

Category: UW-Madison Related

Meet the editor leading the Journal Sentinel’s new Neighborhood Dispatch team

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, she came to Milwaukee with seven years of journalism and communications experience, entering into a role that champions local communities and participatory news media.

She was previously based in Kansas City, working at Kansas City PBS, and her work can be found in the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Magazine, Kansas City Star and more.

Dr. Justice Castañeda, Jamaal Eubanks to be honored with 2026 City-County MLK Humanitarian Awards

Madison 365

The awards are given annually to community members who embody “the values of service, equity, and justice that Dr. King championed.” Gift Akere, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, pursuing a degree in electrical engineering, will be honored with an MLK Humanitarian Award in the category of “Youth Leader.”

5 Wisconsin connections to the Golden Globes, which airs Sunday

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Carrie Coon – a University of Wisconsin-Madison grad who performed with the Madison Repertory Theatre, American Players Theatre and Renaissance Theaterworks – was nominated for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role on Television for her role as Laurie Duffy in “The White Lotus.”

The HBO program led all shows with six nominations, including best drama series.

Asthma puts too many kids in ER. Study explores tie to climate change.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Better bike lanes, electric buses and more charging stations for electric cars – these are all ways cities can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change.

But for those who think curbing the planet’s warming is a lofty goal, two Wisconsin researchers are trying to show how these actions can improve human health – and perhaps prevent Milwaukee residents from scoring worst in the nation in one key measure.

How acting classes help UW-Madison med students relate to patients

Cap Times

Gabby Mullally, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is applying for residencies and plans to specialize in anesthesiology. She knows she would be working with patients during times of heightened anxiety, namely right before someone undergoes surgery.

That’s why she took an improv theater class this past semester.

10 Universities of Wisconsin research projects notable in 2025, from AI to zebrafish

Wisconsin State Journal

As uncertainty around federal funding for researchers at the Universities of Wisconsin is expected to continue into the new year, their new discoveries will, too.

From a new eco-friendly way to create plastic to meeting the person behind the state’s insect research, the findings across the UW system didn’t slow down in 2025.

Jerry Apps, chronicler of Wisconsin history and rural life, dies at 91

Wisconsin State Journal

The “Old Timer” is gone.

Jerry Apps told the Wisconsin stories of barns, cheese, one-room school houses and circuses. He encouraged children to eat rutabagas, made regular appearances on Wisconsin Public Television and Radio and, when he was not writing from his home in Madison or teaching at UW-Madison, could be found on his farm property in Waushara County, where deer roamed and he grew potatoes in his garden.

Apps, an award-winning author and one of the most prolific storytellers in Wisconsin history, died Tuesday at Agrace Hospice in Fitchburg. He was 91.

Lights, camera and action in Wisconsin

Madison Magazine

Starting Jan. 1, Wisconsin will have a film incentive program and film office, both efforts to attract moviemakers to the state.

This means we might get a few more iconic big-screen moments in familiar places, akin to seeing downtown Madison in 1994’s “I Love Trouble,” Milwaukee County Stadium in 1989’s “Major League,” the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus in 1986’s “Back to School,” the many Wisconsin backdrops in 2009’s “Public Enemies” or the car chase scene filmed near Daniel Hoan Memorial Bridge in Milwaukee in the 1980 classic “The Blues Brothers.”

Why some majors are harder to get into than the college itself

Chicago Tribune

In the Midwest, Indiana, Purdue, and Illinois show similar bottlenecks. In the Northeast, Northeastern’s combined engineering-CS programs have become harder to crack than many Ivy divisions. Even the University of Wisconsin, once known for broad access, now reports sharply lower admit rates in engineering and data science.

For parents and students, the message is sobering: the real competition may not be “between” colleges, but “within” them.

New Dane County population projections see growth accelerating

The Cap Times

A group of local planning and demography specialists known as the Regional Data Group estimate the county will have 887,000 residents by 2050, an increase of roughly 58% from the 2020 census count of 561,504.

The Regional Data Group includes staff from the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission and the Greater Madison Metropolitan Planning Organization, along with the city, county and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its projections take into account local development patterns and expects much more room for population influx.

Wisconsin’s 32 Most Influential Black Leaders for 2025, Part 4

Madison 365

Deana Wright is the director of older adult programs for MTZ Charitable Organization, Inc., where she oversees programming and services for nearly 300 Black older adults in Madison, and is the founder and president of The Wright Place, a nonprofit focused on culturally responsive, participant-centered programming for aging adults. She previously served as diversity and inclusion manager at NewBridge Madison, where she expanded access to culturally responsive programming, and later worked in outreach with the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, supporting recruitment of Black older adults into brain health research studies. Wright is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and serves as an appointed commissioner on the City of Madison Equal Opportunities Commission.

Who is Akmal Nasrullah Nasir? A brief primer on the low-key leader now heading one of the toughest ministries

Malay Mail

With top grades, he was offered a scholarship to study in the United States.

After completing a preliminary course at the International Education College in Shah Alam, Akmal spent four years at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earning a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science and economics.

This means Akmal is essentially equipped with the skills of a financial risk manager, trained to study the financial impacts of uncertain future events.

Dane County school safety group grew after Abundant Life shooting

The Cap Times

Chuck Moore is executive director of Impact Christian Schools, a nonprofit supporting more than a dozen Christian schools in Wisconsin, including Abundant Life. Since the shooting at Abundant Life last December, Moore said most of the training received by the nonprofit’s members was initiated by Dane County Emergency Management.

“There have been so many strategies across the country, and every (shooting) seems to have a unique component,” said Moore, who holds a Ph.D. in education leadership and policy analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Every one has a new thing, and we’re trying to have best practices.”

Who are the key legal players on both sides of the Judge Hannah Dugan federal trial?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Frohling oversees the federal team. He has spent most of his career as a prosecutor. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School and working as a law clerk and in private practice, Frohling joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee in 2000. He was Acting U.S. Attorney when the case was filed. He returned to his position as First Assistant U.S. Attorney when former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel was named interim U.S. Attorney in November.

Wisconsin’s 32 Most Influential Black Leaders for 2025, Part 1

Madison 365

Maurice Thomas is chief operating officer at Greater Holy Temple Christian Academy, a 4k-8th grade Christian school in Milwaukee. He is an alum of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and expects to earn a master’s degree in education leadership from Harvard in 2027.

Jerry Jordan is a nationally-known painter working in the style of contemporary realism. He counts the unsung artists of the Harlem Renaissance as his artistic role models. By day, Jordan is an academic and multicultural advisor with the UW-Madison School of Education. He holds a degree in art from UW-Whitewater.

Dr. Bashir Easter is founder of Melanin Minded, a company that aims to empower Black and Latino communities by culturally appropriate resources and support for individuals affected by Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias. He began his career in elder care nearly 15 years ago with Milwaukee County as an elder abuse investigator, human services worker, and dementia care program specialist, and later served as associate director of the All of Us Research Program at UW-Madison.

 

Trump promotes economy amid signs of a job market slowdown

Bloomberg

Flagship universities are typically the oldest, largest, and best-funded public research institution in a state, and an examination of those schools across the country find a wide variation in the nonpayment rate on federal student loans. The highest rate is at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, at 19%. The lowest rate — 4% — is found at the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. On average, across the 50 states, the nonpayment rate is around 8.5%, or 1 in 12 attendees of flagship public institutions, according to government data. Among the Ivy League schools, some of the most elite universities in the country, the rate ranges from 3% to 5%.

Cora Weiss, lifelong champion of social justice, dies at 91

The New York Times

After graduating from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York, she enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, she met a newspaper editor leading an effort to recall Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the crusading anti-Communist who was attacking the loyalty of political opponents. She helped set up the Madison headquarters for a campaign called “Joe Must Go” and began going door to door to gather signatures for a petition.

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

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.

The new college version of “The dog ate my homework”

Psychology Today

This is one of those moments where I can really say I did walk a mile and trudge uphill in the snow to find out about a grade. I was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and when professors posted grades, it was on a sheet outside their office door, and since we didn’t have email, we just relied on when they said they might be posting the grades. It was common to arrive at the door and find that nothing was posted yet. We did not bang on the door, asking why it had taken a little longer. We didn’t march to the provost’s or president’s office and demand to talk to someone about our complaints. Instead, we walked back downhill, picked up a coffee, and headed home. A day or two later, we would try again. And if we had questions about those grades, we checked the syllabus for when the office hours were and planned to see the professor then.

TikTok trends show we still don’t know what we want from men

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

If the bear trend reflects fear, the performative male trend reflects distrust. It started as a parody of a certain kind of man: someone who performs “wokeness” for social approval. What stands out, though, is what these videos don’t show. They rarely show the turn, i.e. the moment where the performance is revealed as manipulation. Instead, they stop at the aesthetic: tote bags, curated sensitivity, painted nails—like the real-life performative male contest held at my alma mater, UW–Madison, earlier this fall.

The math legend who just left academia—for an AI startup run by a 24-year-old

The Wall Street Journal

Ono is an outlier whose career has been untraditional since the very beginning. As a child, pressure from his parents made him so miserable that he didn’t finish high school. Without a diploma, he still went to college, developed his passion for math and taught for decades at the University of Wisconsin and Emory before moving to UVA in 2019. He also led the nation’s top research program for elite undergraduates and mentored 10 winners of the Morgan Prize, including his new boss.

With his sculptures full of natural splendor, artist Truman Lowe could make wood look like water

Smithsonian Magazine

Lowe earned an undergraduate degree in art education from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1969 and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973. During his graduate program, Lowe studied sculpture, glassblowing, ceramics and other art forms that would go on to influence his work: a catalog of earthy, curved sculptures built from organic materials.

Medical Sciences Orchestra keeps music alive on campus

The Daily Cardinal

Musicians in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health perform classical music with surgical precision as part of the Medical Sciences Orchestra. Founded in 2018 by fourth-year medical student Joohee Son, the orchestra provides a chance for new operations for students, faculty and alumni in the medical field.

UW-Madison seeks approval to break school of AI, computing into separate college

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison is seeking to break its computer school out into a separate college that will focus on computing and artificial intelligence — a move the university says will position the institution as a leader in AI. The UW Board of Regents will vote Thursday on whether to move the UW-Madison School of Computer, Data, and Information Sciences (CDIS) out of the College of Letters and Science into a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

To help their kids ‘climb the ivy,’ Chinese mothers uproot their families for Silicon Valley schools

San Francisco Chronicle

Her older son, 20, is now studying computer science at Santa Clara University. Her younger one, 18, is a computer engineering student at the University of Wisconsin. In school, they played in a jazz band and cultivated their love for music. These are things, she believes, they couldn’t have had in China. Gao couldn’t spend the last year of her father’s life with him due to the pandemic, but, “I have no regrets,” she said. “Because I see my kids.”

A first look at The Center for Black Excellence and Culture

The Cap Times

Leaders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are excited about the Center, Gee said. The chancellor and provost recently toured the building.

He said the Center is developing partnerships with six university departments and that UW leaders “believe we can help sell the university as a place for students, researchers and faculty.” “I love that, but the other piece is if we connect (with) Milwaukee, Beloit, Racine, and we unite those Black communities so that we set agendas together, we dream together, we celebrate together.”

Dick Cheney’s power, controversies and legacy

USA Today

Dick Cheney was a Westerner. He grew up in Wyoming. He was a college dropout at one point, seemed a little at loose ends. Then he married Lynne Cheney, his wife, who set him straight. She was a very disciplined person from then, at that point and forever. He went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin seeking a Ph.D. never got the Ph.D. He got an internship in Washington, and there he found his path working first as a congressional aide and then as the youngest White House chief of staff ever working for President Ford.

It’s time to break up the programmatic accrediting agency monopolies

Inside Higher Ed

As John D. Wiley, former provost at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, correctly noted almost 20 years ago, “We are already seeing this very phenomenon of degree inflation, and it is being caused by the professions themselves! This is particularly problematic in the health professions, where, it seems, everyone wants to be called ‘doctor.’ I have no problem whatsoever with the professional societies and their accreditors telling us what a graduate must know to practice safely and professionally. I have a big problem, though, when they hand us what amounts to a master’s-level curriculum and tell us the resulting degree must be called a ‘doctor of X.’ This is a transparently self-interested ploy by the profession, and I see no conceivable argument that it is in the public interest. All it does is further confuse an already confusing array of degree names and titles, to no useful purpose.”

Honda invests in soil carbon removal credit scheme to offset emissions

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.

Dean Emerit of Nursing Linda D. Scott passes away at 69

The Daily Cardinal

Dean Emerit of the School of Nursing Linda D. Scott died Monday at the age of 69, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced Tuesday.

Scott stepped down as Dean just six days ago due to health reasons, moving her retirement up from June 2026. She was the first Black dean of the College of Nursing — and the eighth dean ever — and spent almost ten years in the role, being appointed in July 2016. She led expansions to the program as well as the school’s centennial celebration.

Governor candidates Tom Tiffany, Josh Schoemann call for changes to UW, including tuition freeze

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In the Republican race for governor, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann has some big ideas for the state’s public universities.

He said he is open to eliminating tenure protections for professors, would consider closing a four-year public university and sees merit in spinning off the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the Universities of Wisconsin, also known as the UW system.