For the first time in 42 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison will launch a new college.
In 1983, the college opened the School of Veterinary Medicine so students could learn how animals and humans relate.
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.
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.”
AI-generated tracks already make up nearly one in five uploads on some platforms, said Jeremy Morris, a media and cultural studies professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, raising concerns about royalty dilution and algorithmic bias.
“Streaming is the new record-store shelf,” Morris told Axios, adding that algorithms now determine which artists get the best placement.
Written by rofessor of information at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Howard Schweber, a UW-Madison professor who studies constitutional law, said it is widely accepted that Congress, as the branch of government that holds the power to tax and spend public funds, sets the terms of federal grant restrictions.
What is debated is how much power the president has to alter those terms after Congress has appropriated funds to federal agencies, he said.
According to Kenneth Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, federal grant funding has followed a predictable structure of laws and contracts for decades. Trump’s declarations are challenging the limits of constitutional law, he said.
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.
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.
Gary Lupyan, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, also emphasizes the importance of context in understanding hitherto unseen words. “Words like ‘horrendible’ in Wicked, by virtue of being so close to a conventional English word, can be understood when first encountered,” he says. “Especially if they’re also used in a context where one might expect a familiar word, such as ‘horrible.’”
In fall 2026, UW-Madison will launch the state’s first undergraduate major in public policy. Students will be able to earn a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science in public policy from La Follette.
“Our point here is not to change anybody’s values, but to have students exercise their intellectual muscles to hear different points of view with the hope that when they enter into the workforce, they will be more amenable and curious about other points of view,” said La Follette School Director Susan Webb Yackee. .
‘Lab culture: A recipe for innovation in science’ by Dr. Ahna Renee Skop, Crystal Xin Qing, Hareem Rauf, Dr. Diana Chu
This cookbook — written in-part by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, a student and an alumnus — is a collection of more than 75 recipes and stories from more than 120 scientists from around the globe who are connected with the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s IF/THEN Ambassadors program.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department is offering tips to help protect property while residents are away for the holiday season.
They emphasize the importance of creating an inventory of important documents and expensive items before departure. You can take photos or record videos showing your valuable items, including your electronics. This documentation can be crucial in the event of theft or damage.
“If you are a consumer worried about what’s going to be happening to your food, housing or health care expenses, you might start to cut back on the categories that are less essential or in the categories where you have options,” said Tessa Conroy, associate professor and economic development specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Years living with an autoimmune disease meant it was a matter of when, not if, Adam Barnes would need a liver transplant. That time was approaching after he was hospitalized for a blocked bile duct in 2024. The idea of seeking a living donor came up but there was something about it that turned him off.
Barnes, the University of Wisconsin senior associate athletic director for business operations, initially didn’t want someone else to go through the danger of elective surgery and a painful recovery to benefit him.
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.”
Extending enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Marketplace plans was what Democrats were holding out for in the government shutdown that ended on Nov. 12. The continuing resolution put forth by Republican lawmakers ended up passing without that extension, and ACA policyholders are girding for premium hikes that could more than double.
“There’s really no uncertainty about that — it’s basically pretty straightforward, simple math,” said Justin Sydnor, a professor of risk and insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business. “The way the tax credits work is that they’re tied to a share of the percent of your income, and the enhanced tax credits increased or decreased the share you would have to pay, and increase the income range for people who are eligible. So they’ll definitely go up. The share that you’re responsible for paying goes up if those subsidies expire — how much depends a lot on your income level.
While a fuzzy microfiber suit, red-and-white striped Motion W sweater and 30-pound head are standard issue, it is up to the people inside the costume to make Bucky Badger unique.
In anticipation of the 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2 premiere of the new historical PBS Wisconsin documentary narrated by comedian Charlie Berens — Bucky! — we tracked down former Bucky Cecil Powless to unmask what it takes to become the chaotic and infectious icon of energy that is beloved by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the entire state.
It’s more uncertain this year somewhat because of the government shutdown but also because of some other factors moving around in some of these markets,” said Jeff Hadachek, assistant professor of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Generally, I anticipate prices will be higher, but the question is: ‘How much higher?’”
Tomas Dodds, journalism professor and founder of the Public Media Tech Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hopes to help local journalists understand the implications of AI in the newsroom by providing a variety of resources, such as training sessions and workshops.
“In the newsroom, you don’t know how your colleagues are using AI,” Dodds said, adding that the Public Media Tech Lab would facilitate discussions in the newsroom where coworkers could disclose how they use it and create AI usage policies from these discussions.
Families across the country are asking that same question when it comes to childcare, as the yearly costs for daycare are becoming comparable to a year’s rent in many places. How did childcare become so expensive, and how might everyone benefit if the government provided more support to parents? Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Jessica Calarco, and Senior Fellow at the Think Tank Capita Elliot Haspel are here to help Brittany find out.
The state budget passed this summer increased the UW system’s budget by $256 million but came with strings, including requiring all core general education courses be transferable between UW campuses and satisfy general education requirements at the receiving institution by fall 2026.
Universities of Wisconsin students will have an easier time transferring general education credits from one campus to another after the Board of Regents approved a new core general education policy this week.
Assistant drum major Arista Whitson helps lead the University of Wisconsin-Madison Marching Band in collaboration with drum major Caleb Monge. For every Badger football game played at Camp Randall, the band performs a pregame, halftime and fifth quarter performance celebrating their legendary tradition with energy and precision.
A former Miss America and Wausau native will take the podium as the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s winter commencement keynote speaker, UW officials announced Wednesday.
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.
A new collaboration between UW-Madison, Microsoft, and TitletownTech is set to boost scientific research in Wisconsin. The partnership will leverage advanced AI tools to help researchers tackle major challenges more efficiently.
The UW Board of Regents on Nov. 19 approved controversial changes to a teaching workload policy despite some criticism and concern from faculty.
Under the proposal, full-time instructors would be required to teach at least 24 credits every school year, or four three-credit classes each semester. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, where professors are expected to produce more research, the minimum load is 12 credits per year, or two classes per semester.
Former Miss America and UW-Madison graduate Grace Vanderhei will be back at UW-Madison’s commencement — less than three years after she celebrated her own graduation — as the university’s winter commencement speaker.
The UW Board of Regents on Wednesday approved minimum teaching requirements for Universities of Wisconsin professors and a redesign of general education courses to make them easier to transfer between schools.
Written by Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.
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.
Local pharmacies across the state are playing a bigger role in preventing people from dying from opioid overdoses, largely because of the work of a Madison-based program that started one year ago. The Wisconsin Opioid Overdose Response Center estimates it has brought more than 185,000 residents into contact with a variety of expanded services since launching last year.
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.
“Research shows we can actually train our attention and our meta-awareness, and that this is a learnable skill,” says Richard Davidson, PhD, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founder of the Center for Healthy Minds.
‘Fill the Hill’ at UW-Madison kicked off at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 9. The event is the university’s largest fundraising day, allowing donors to gift money to student groups for 24 hours.
To celebrate the event, a flock of flamingo rubber duckies will be dumped into the fountain at Library Mall at 9 a.m. on Friday Oct. 10. Participants can rescue them with a net and keep the ones they catch.
Thousands of pink plastic flamingos will once again cover Bascom Hill as the University of Wisconsin–Madison celebrates its 13th annual Fill the Hill fundraiser.
The Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association hosts the event each fall as part of the University’s day-of-giving campaign. Each donation of $5 or more adds another flamingo to the growing flock on the hill.
Despite worries over rising temperatures, it turns out anglers have a greater effect on fish populations than global warming. That’s according to a new study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We found that for the majority of the populations so far fishing has far more greater impact than warming on the fish populations,” said Luoliang Xu, postdoctoral researcher at UW-Madison’s Center for Limnology.
To purposely further adhere his politics and his art, Bad Bunny involved University of Wisconsin-Madison associate professor of history Jorrell Meléndez-Badillo in the DtMF album rollout. The distilled history lessons from Meléndez-Badillo’s acclaimed book “Puerto Rico: A National History” were used as visualizers and displayed onscreen during the Residencia. His anti-colonial storytelling clarifies moments like the SCOTUS Insular cases, which afforded Puerto Rican U.S. citizens only some constitutional rights. He also emphasizes that these decisions were made in the early 1900s, when both journalistic coverage of Puerto Ricans and public intellectual discourse of them (including the President), was almost unilaterally disparaging and racist. This proliferated the idea that Puerto Ricans could never be American because of their “ignorance, laziness, and inferior ability to self-rule” (Melendez-Badillo, ch. 6).
wo more MacArthur fellows were added Wednesday to UW-Madison’s growing list of faculty who have received the prestigious award.
Since 1985, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has granted eight UW-Madison professors the fellowship, which often is referred to as a “genius award.”
Two UW-Madison professors have been named MacArthur Foundation fellows, called “genius awards,” for their work in studying weather patterns in the tropics and investigating the effects of nuclear weapons.
UW-Madison professors Ángel F. Adames Corraliza, who is an atmospheric scientist, and Sébastien Philippe, a nuclear security specialist, were selected Wednesday for the prestigious fellowships. Fellows receive $800,000 paid out over five years for any use.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named atmospheric scientist Ángel Adames Corraliza, 37, and nuclear security specialist Sébastien Philippe, 38, as recipients of the prestigious MacArthur fellowship. Also known as the “genius grant,” the national award is given annually to a small group of people across a range of disciplines who show exceptional creativity in their work and future ambitions.
For Ángel F. Adames Corraliza, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the award is also a recognition of the talent and grit coming from Puerto Rico, where he is from, despite the hardships his community has endured. His research has uncovered many new findings about what drives weather patterns in the tropics, which may eventually help improve forecasting in those regions.
Adames said usually one of his classes would be ending right when the foundation would publish the new class of fellows, so he was planning to end the lecture early to come back to his office. He said he’s having trouble fathoming what it will be like.
“I am low-key expecting that a few people are just going to show up in my office, like right at 11:02 a.m. or something like that,” he said.
Since the fellowship launched in 1981, fellows have included writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers and entrepreneurs. While no institutional affiliation is required, the award went to the following 2025 fellows with ties to a college or university:
It’s no secret that Wisconsinites love fishing. But who knew the effects of local anglers on our fisheries were outpacing that of climate change?
That’s exactly what a new study from postdoctoral researcher Luoliang Xu and Prof. Olaf Jensen at UW-Madison’s Center for Limnology found. The discovery was published last week in the journal Science Advances.
“Warming and fishing are happening at the same time, and they both can strongly affect the fish populations,” Xu said. “So the intention of our study is to try to tear apart these two factors.”
This fall, as temperatures plummet to -50°C (or -58°F) at the South Pole, a team of UW-Madison scientists and engineers will embark on an adventure to the frozen desert. Their goal: drill seven holes through a mile and a half of Antarctic ice to complete a revolutionary upgrade to the world’s coldest neutrino telescope.
“Whoever had the idea of drilling holes a mile and a half into a glacier was crazy,” says Vivian O’Dell, project manager for the IceCube Upgrade. “Completely nuts. And yet it works.”
There’s a sweet spot for lawn chores like seeding, said Doug Soldat, a professor and turfgrass extension specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“If you wait too long, you run the risk of a hard frost coming and killing some of the seeds that you planted,” Soldat said.
Where someone lives can shape their health, just as much as the care they receive. That’s why Dr. Amy Kind of her team at UW-Madison have developed the Area Deprivation Index (ADI).
The tool maps health disparities using the impacts of income, housing, education and employment on health.
Thirteen winners have been announced in the UW-Madison 2025 Cool Science Image Contest.
Winning snapshots include photos from professors, students, and specialists.
“When the peaks in Yosemite National Park are ice-free, we will be the first humans to lay eyes on that,” Andy Jones, the study’s lead author and a Ph.D. candidate in geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an interview.
While heat pumps in the US have traditionally been associated with warmer locations, they are starting to become more feasible for colder climes. “You can pretty much buy a heat pump for most climates in the US and it can lower your energy bills,” Allison Mahvi, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Popular Science. Some of Mahvi’s research focuses on how to make more efficient heat pump systems for cold climates.
Sam Frank, the head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison startup Realta Fusion’s theoretical physics team, Kai Shih, a Realta scientist, and Aaron Tran, a UW-Madison postdoctoral researcher, have spent years designing a model that shook up the order of the fusion world.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin highlighted the arrival of a record 8,500 freshman, even as she warned of looming challenges tied to federal and state funding and free speech scrutiny in a student media roundtable Tuesday.
For nearly a century, Trout Lake Station in Boulder Junction has been at the center of environmental research in Wisconsin. Now, a new documentary aims to show how the year-round field station’s work extends far beyond lake shorelines.
Operated by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology, Trout Lake Station has been supporting research since 1925.
PBS Wisconsin Education, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education, recently launched Whoopensocker, a new educational resource collection for upper elementary learners that provides an on-ramp to writing through group games and scaffolded lessons.
Whoopensocker was first developed as a six-week teaching artist residency by Erica Halverson, a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at the UW-Madison School of Education. Halverson teamed up with PBS Wisconsin Education to make a multimedia version of the program that’s accessible to more educators around the state and in spaces where an artist residency may not be available.
“What we study is thinking about new technology that would be a way to start up future fusion devices. And it’s really looking at, how do you reduce the cost and complexity,” said Steffi Diem, an assistant professor at UW-Madison and principal investigator of the Pegasus Three experiment. “And our technology looks at building. It looks kind of like a small lightsaber that injects, you know, the fuel in it, and then we capture it by a magnetic field.”
When the University of Wisconsin-Madison launched a Women’s Physical Education Department in 1912, Wisconsin women did not have the right to vote. Women, only reluctantly admitted to UW-Madison in the first place, faced scientific misconceptions, double standards and restrictions from administration. But the department itself was always years ahead of its time, alumni said, from its early days to its eventual merger with the men’s program in 1976.
UW-Madison continued its rise in the latest U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges rankings for 2026, moving up one spot this year to 12th among public colleges.
In the national rankings released Tuesday, UW-Madison also swung up by three places as 36th overall out of 438 universities across the country. UW-Madison previously has ranked higher and also lower — in the 2025 rankings the university was 39th overall and it was 35th overall for 2024.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison opened the new Computer, Data and Information Sciences (CDIS) building at the start of the fall semester, bringing together three of the campus’s fastest-growing majors under one roof and establishing a hub for research, education and outreach in technology.
People walked, ran and biked for the tenth annual Badger Challenge fundraiser at UW Health Eastpark Medical Center on Sunday.
The challenge raises money to support cancer research and treatments at the UW Health Carbone Cancer Center.
A construction robot is getting its footing, using the Kellner Family Athletic Center’s construction site, next to Camp Randall on the UW-Madison campus.
