UW In The News

Erika Bullock on considering factors that influence learning

UW-Madison School of Education professor Erika Bullock describes how the daily necessities of life — from family and food to housing and health — can impact how children learn in classroom settings.

UW-Madison dance major — the first in the nation — turns 100

University of Wisconsin-Madison President Edward Birge did not want the university to be known as a dancing school.

But after physical education instructor Margaret H’Doubler began teaching dance classes in 1918, that’s the direction things were headed. Hundreds of students signed up each semester, and H’Doubler and her students were being invited to colleges and universities across the country to share their methods.

Birge took away H’Doubler’s travel privileges, to no avail.

What to know about Eric Wilcots, UW-Madison’s incoming interim chancellor

I went into phone-free silence. Something disturbing happened.

“We are often so externally focused that we don’t recognize what is going on in our minds, and when we begin to pay attention to that, it’s genuinely exhausting for most people,” Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin psychologist who studies meditation. It also can make us more anxious, at least at first.

How Bad Bunny took Puerto Rican independence mainstream

How Bad Bunny became the global voice of a generation in crisis — and what it means when resistance becomes profitable. Includes interview with Jorell Meléndez-Badillo, a professor of Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latin American History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s the author of Puerto Rico: A National History. He is also the author of  the history visualizers for Bad Bunny’s DTMF album.

They’re 2 feet tall, born of AI and vying for world soccer domination

UW-Madison Women’s Hockey Coach Mark Johnson adds to Olympic legacy

(Video) The name Mark Johnson echoes through Olympic history with a particular resonance—1980, Lake Placid, the Miracle on Ice.

UW-Madison sophomore launches productivity startup aimed at simplifying student life

Growing up in a first-generation Indian household, Armaan Jain was thrown into activities from a young age — baseball, basketball, soccer and everything but football. The packed schedule forced him to learn time management early, a skill reinforced by parents who deeply valued education and structure.

“From elementary school onward, I had to have systems in place to succeed,” he said. “I learned early that motivation isn’t always there, so you need something that keeps you going anyway.”

Scientists just watched these entities rapidly evolve in Space. They could save our lives

To fill in this knowledge gap, the research team (led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) analyzed two bacterial samples of Escherichia coli (E. coli)—one located on Earth, the other on the ISS, and both infected with what is known as a T7 bacteriophage. Eventually, they found that while the outcome of the arms race remained the same in each location—the bacteriophage eventually infected its bacterial prey—there were distinct differences in how this battle played out between the two samples.

“Space fundamentally changes how phages and bacteria interact: infection is slowed, and both organisms evolve along a different trajectory than they do on Earth,” the authors wrote. “By studying those space-driven adaptations, we identified new biological insights that allowed us to engineer phages with far superior activity against drug-resistant pathogens back on Earth.”

UW-Madison, Immuto partner to target new colorectal cancer treatments

The University of Wisconsin–Madison and Immuto Scientific have teamed up to explore new therapeutic targets in colorectal cancer. According to the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, this collaboration aims to use Immuto’s AI-enabled platform to discover novel treatments for solid colorectal cancer tumors.

Dr. Dustin Deming, a professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, leads the project. “Our collection of patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids enables exploration of tumor biology and therapeutic vulnerabilities in ways that traditional models cannot,” said Deming.

Wisconsin researchers lead natural food coloring breakthrough as industry phases out artificial dyes

Within UW-Madison’s Department of Food Science, Professor Bradley Bolling has pioneered research of anthocyanins, natural pigments responsible for the vibrant hues in fruits like cranberries.

“We want to understand how the pigments in cranberry are stabilized,” Bolling said.

Bolling developed a patented process using lecithin, an emulsifier, to extract natural pigments from cranberries without using alcohol or acetone. This makes the process safer and more environmentally sustainable.

How NIH ending funding for human fetal tissue research could affect studies

Dr. Anita Bhattacharyya, an associate professor of cell and regenerative biology in the school of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she was hoping to apply for a future NIH grant to study human fetal tissue research and will now not be able to do so.

Bhattacharyya explained she currently uses human-induced pluripotent stem cells, which are reprogrammed cells that are similar to embryonic stem cells, in her work. However, the loss of NIH funding for human fetal tissue research could affect future work.

“My reaction was, ‘How are we going to do some of our research if we can no longer use human fetal tissue?'” she recalled to ABC News. “In particular, my lab studies Down syndrome and so we know that in Down syndrome, the brain develops differently to lead to the intellectual disability that people with Down syndrome have.”

Photo of the day: Quilt exhibit

Tarah Connolly, a PhD student at UW-Madison, looks at a quilt from the 1870’s that is on display at the “Find Your Quilt” exhibit in the Ruth Davis Design Gallery in Nancy Nicholas Hall at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis. Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.

PFAS are turning up in the Great Lakes, putting fish and water supplies at risk – here’s how they get there

Written by Christy Remucal, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

How one UW-Madison lab improves sheep’s quality of life

An assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences wants to improve sheep’s quality of life.

Sarah Adcock focuses her research on the welfare of farm animals, including specializing in the docking of lamb tails, a routine procedure on farms that can lead to acute and sometimes even chronic pain for the animal.

UW-Madison’s new center for aging research studies metabolism, biology, genetics and more

“We don’t have the fountain of youth— nobody ever found it,” said Dudley Lamming, co-director of the Wisconsin Nathan Shock Center (WiNSC) and professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “but can we find ways [to] get to the end of our lives, still fit and functional?”

Education has seen unprecedented changes in Trump’s second term

Last year, just as she was finishing a teacher residency program through the University of Wisconsin-Madison, federal funding for the project was cut by the Trump administration.

“So we were in the spring semester and we were all like, are we going to be able to continue?” Lind said. “Are we going to still be able to get our teaching license? Are we going to have to pay this back?”

Could a drug slow aging? UW-Madison researchers seek answers in trial

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are studying whether a drug used for organ transplant patients could slow aging in humans.

Some compelling evidence in recent decades shows rapamycin — also known as sirolimus — can increase the quality and quantity of life in animals, said Adam Konopka, a UW-Madison assistant professor of geriatrics and gerontology.

“This got people really excited that maybe this drug could be used to improve human healthy longevity,” he said.

A new Humanities building and other developments UW-Madison has in the works this year

UW campuses recognized for community engagement

A number of University of Wisconsin schools are being recognized for their community engagement.

UW-Madison, UW-Whitewater, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Parkside and UW-Superior are designated as Carnegie Community Engagement Classified campuses.

5 UW professors reflect on the year when Trump upended federal research

Avtar Roopra’s research has effectively stalled since President Donald Trump started his second term and upended the federal research funding landscape. Agencies have cut projects, delayed grant reviews, fired thousands of federal employees who offer guidance to researchers and reduced the number of new projects getting funding.

“This is like the Holy Grail of epilepsy, what we’ve been looking for for hundreds of years,” Roopra said. “All of it is on hold. It’s extremely frustrating.”

What UW-Madison researchers learned from an experiment in outer space

Vatsan Raman never expected he would send a research experiment to outer space.

“This is like a box that’s sitting on our lab bench one day, and the next day it’s on a rocket that’s going up to (the International Space Station). … It was really quite surreal,” said Raman, an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW-Madison research foundation seeks next ‘diamonds’ amid federal cuts

The organization is set to provide $206.9 million in total support to UW-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research this school year, including $50 million toward research projects and nearly $36 million for faculty, graduate students and staff.

Now in its second century, the nonprofit faces challenges, though. The Trump administration’s widespread cuts to federal research funding could limit the number of discoveries coming to WARF.

Viruses may be more powerful in the International Space Station’s microgravity environment

To better understand how microbes may act differently in space, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria, also called phages — in identical settings both on the ISS and on Earth. Their results, published recently in the journal PLOS Biology, suggest that microgravity can delay infections, reshape evolution of both phages and bacteria and even reveal genetic combinations that may help the performance against disease-linked bacteria on Earth.

“Studying phage–bacteria systems in space isn’t just a curiosity for astrobiology; it’s a practical way to understand and anticipate how microbial ecosystems behave in spacecraft and to mine new solutions for phage therapy and microbiome engineering back home,” said Dr. Phil Huss, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the study’s lead authors.

Gen Zers aren’t talking — and it could cost them

Written by Maryellen MacDonald, a professor emerit of psychology and language sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “More Than Words: How Talking Sharpens the Mind and Shapes Our World.”

January 11, 1887- Aldo Leopold was born

Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa and moved to Wisconsin in 1925. He taught game management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the first courses for it in the country. Leopold is best known for his collection of essays “Sand County Almanac” that explains the way the natural world works and ways conservation could be used to preserve it.

Twin brothers make “Money Magic:” UW professor & his financial adviser twin brother drop children’s book

Quentin Riser pursued academia, earning a PhD and eventually joining the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Human Ecology, where he studies child development and family outcomes. Quinlan went into the financial world, spending nearly a decade at Principal Financial Group before becoming a financial advisor and later leading an insurance business.

“It’s designed to be a two-generational book,” Quentin Riser said. “The kids are going to ask their parents, ‘Mom, Dad, what is estate planning?’ And if the parents don’t know, they’re going to have to go look that up.”

Twenty years on, celebrating the University of Wisconsin’s twin hockey titles

It had never happened before, and it hasn’t happened since — the men’s and women’s hockey teams from the same school winning NCAA championships in the same year. 

But in 2006, both the men’s and women’s University of Wisconsin hockey teams won national titles, and the teams were led by a brother and sister who grew up playing youth hockey in Madison. 

UW-Madison set to finish two new buildings in 2026, start another

tudents are on track to take classes in a new humanities building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall. And the athletics department plans to finish an indoor football practice facility next to Camp Randall Stadium this summer.

As those two projects wrap up in 2026, Wisconsin’s flagship public university also plans to break ground on a visitor and education center at the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, near Picnic Point.

A new Humanities building and other developments UW-Madison has in the works this year