UW In The News

UW research examines AI’s role in journalism

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.

Kids are expensive. Do they have to be?

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.

New UW gen ed policy may ease transfer process. But will it erode campus autonomy?

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.

New general education policy will make transferring between UW campuses easier

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.

Q&A: UW Marching Band member details tradition, performance within the ensemble

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.

Miss America, Wausau native to speak at UW-Madison winter commencement

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’s new center studies the link between aging and diseases

UW-Madison, Microsoft, TitletownTech team up to boost Wisconsin research with AI

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.

New UW faculty workload policy could hinder faculty recruitment, professors say

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 returns to UW-Madison as commencement speaker

UW Regents pass workload requirements, redesigned gen eds

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.

Americans want to restore civility. A new UW-Madison major will help.

Written by Susan Webb Yackee, a professor of public affairs and director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.

Microsoft partners with UW-Madison, Princeton to accelerate AI scientific discovery

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.

UW-Madison center enlists community pharmacies to prevent overdoses

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.

Most Wisconsin schools protect students from discrimination against everything but this.

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.

7 benefits of meditation, and how it can affect your brain

“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.

13th annual ‘Fill the Hill’ at UW-Madison kicks off, raising thousands for student causes in 24 hours

‘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.

In the 608: ‘Fill the Hill’ returns to UW-Madison with flock of pink flamingos

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.

Fishing plays greater role on Midwest fish populations than warming, study finds

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.

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl 2026 halftime show could finally bring Puerto Rican history into the spotlight

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).

These UW-Madison faculty have been awarded MacArthur fellowships

2 UW-Madison professors named MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ fellows

MacArthur 2025 ‘genius’ grant winners include 2 UW-Madison professors

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.

Meet the 22 artists, scientists and authors who will each get $800,000 MacArthur genius grants

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.

Many 2025 ‘Genius’ Fellows affiliated with universities

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:

• Atmospheric scientist Ángel F. Adames Corraliza, an associate professor in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for investigating the mechanisms underlying tropical weather patterns.
• Nuclear security specialist Sébastien Philippe, assistant professor in the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for exposing past harms and potential future risks from building, testing and storing launch-ready nuclear weapons.

Fishing is impacting fishery populations more than climate change, new study finds

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.”

UW scientists prepare for final IceCube expedition

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.”

Tips for proper lawn care this fall, according to a Wisconsin turfgrass specialist

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.

Tool developed at UW-Madison helps map health disparities nationwide

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.

Winners announced in Cool Science Image competition

Thirteen winners have been announced in the UW-Madison 2025 Cool Science Image Contest.

Winning snapshots include photos from professors, students, and specialists.