Wisconsin Institute for Discovery

Join us for our first Faculty seminar of the season this Monday, September 14th at 2pm as David Baum presents "The evolution of evolution: How chemistry becomes biology during origins of life". Orchard View Room, Discovery Building, UW–Madison campus. Free and open to the public.

Happy Pride 2026! Today and everyday!

The L&S Honors Program has selected Dr. Karen Schloss @kbschloss.bsky.social as a 2026 Excellence in Honors Thesis Advising awardee! 🎓🏆

Get ready to LOL and geek out! 🤣 Join us for a night of Sci-prov at the Discovery Building on April 29th at 7pm. Who knew science could be so ridiculously funny? 🤯 Admission is free, but don't be a lab rat - register at go.wisc.edu/wid-sci-prov!

On 4/24, SoundWaves wraps up the academic year exploring scale with Astronomical Scale. How can we understand the hugeness of the universe? How do we build the robotics to explore the universe? How did the ancients view the universe? Also, hear the out-of-this-world sounds from Twisted Metal.

SAVE THE DATE! WID Seminar Series: 'Modeling parasite life cycles in mice and microfluidic devices' presented by Laura Knoll and introduced by Elebeoba (Chi-Chi) May. April 21 at 1pm in the Orchard View Room, Discovery Building. Light refreshments served. Free and open to the public.

Tommasi's paper, "Efficient Nonviral Integration of Large Transgenes into Human T Cells Using Cas9-CLIPT," was chosen based on its novelty, innovation, & scientific significance. A member of WID's Saha lab, she will receive the award at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy's meeting in May.

Registration is open for the @UWMadison Data Science Research Bazaar on March 19, with more events throughout the spring. Don’t miss this opportunity to build connections, learn, and share ideas with fellow data fans! bazaar.datascience.wisc.edu #UWResearchBazaar

Congrats WID faculty member, Claudia Solís-Lemus, the 2026 recipient of the Robert R. Spitzer Teaching Excellence Award recognizing an individual who has significantly enhanced the quality and impact of instruction in CALS through outstanding teaching practices, pedagogy, or other accomplishments.

Save the date! WID Seminar Series: University Driven Entrepreneurship introduced by Jon Eckhardt. March 17 at 1pm in the Orchard View Room, Discovery Building. Light refreshments served. Free and open to the public. Remote option available. uwmadison.zoom.us/j/98293855424

Save the date! Our final talk of the Productive Failure Series! 'When Antibiotics Fail', March 18th, 7pm, Discovery Building De Luca Forum. @wildtypemc.bsky.social Marc Chevrette and Tiny Earth's Sarah Miller discuss lifesaving drugs: how they are discovered & what we can do to keep them potent.

Congratulations Discovery Fellow, @nanli.bsky.social for earning a Vilas Associate Award! The competition recognizes new and ongoing research of the highest quality and significance. Recipients are chosen competitively by the divisional Research Committees on the basis of a detailed proposal.

David Fields (UW-Madison Department of East Asian Studies) and Rob Nowak (UW-Madison Computer, Data & Information Sciences) will explore what happens when AI technology falls short. They’ll discuss what failure in AI can teach us, and how it can inspire innovation, critical thinking, and resilience.

Wisconsin Institute for Discovery congratulates Dr. Cassandra Leech who was recently honored with the Wisconsin initiative for science literacy award for communicating PhD research to the public.

WID is excited to announce @sroyyors.bsky.social Lab has created a software tool that can help reveal biological pathways of a notorious pathogenic fungus. Aspergillus fumigatus, which is found worldwide, can infiltrate a human body and quickly overwhelm the immune system. go.wisc.edu/012826roy

Failure is often seen as a setback—but in science and entrepreneurship, it can be the spark that drives breakthroughs. In this 1st installment of our Productive Failure Mini-Series, explore how missteps, unexpected results, and strategic pivots shape discovery, strengthen ideas, & fuel innovation.

SAVE THE DATE! Part 1 of our Productive Failure mini-series! Crossroads of Ideas: How Failure Fuels Innovation. Featuring @sahakris.bsky.social, @jon-eckhardt.bsky.social, and Adhira Sunkara.www.eventbrite.com/e/crossroads...

Long before science caught up, Vincent Van Gogh sensed a connection between melancholy and microbes. Now, 135 years later, WID, @centerhealthyminds.bsky.social, PRECISE, and MIT have a project that investigates the microbiome’s role in human well-being and the power of interdisciplinary research.

In collaboration with @enginlab.bsky.social, Khahani Eynullazada, a grad student from @sroyyors.bsky.social Lab identified gene regulatory networks capturing shared and perturbation-specific stress pathways in Type 1 diabetes using GRN inference tools on scRNA-seq data from in vivo mouse models.

TONIGHT! ❄❄❄Due to the predicted inclement weather, we are also offering a virtual attendance option (uwmadison.zoom.us/j/91451748806).❄❄❄

SAVE THE DATE! This Crossroads of Ideas conversation will pull back the curtain on quantum science, revealing its surprising role in shaping the present, and the future, we all share. Presented in celebration of 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology.

Join us on November 21 at 10am for WID Discovery Fellow Bilge Mutlu to share his research 'Designing for Integration: Bringing Embodied AI into the Real World'. A truly timely presentation open to the public. More info on WID Faculty Seminars at wid.wisc.edu/all-events/w...

Join UW–Madison’s David Drake and Carroll University’s Mindy Waite to explore the relationship between humans and animals, both wild and domestic. How retrofitting animals into the human world has enabled new insights into behavior, adaptation, and the possibilities for living together.

Our director @johandelsman.bsky.social weighs in with @nytimes.com essayist @katrinamillerphd.bsky.social about the value of basic research and its relation to the #NobelPrize.

We congratulate Chandrani Kumari from the @sroyyors.bsky.social Lab for her first place poster at the 2025 UW–Madison postdoctoral symposium.

Shaoqin "Sarah" Gong creates novel biomaterials and nanomaterials, bridging engineering with materials science, chemistry and the life sciences. #WARF100 @uwchancellor.bsky.social‬ @widofficial.bsky.social‬ https://www.warf.org/commercialize/uw-madison-inventor-profiles/gong/

Why work with WARF? "It is extremely challenging to be a professor and work to translate technology from your laboratory to the commercial sector. WARF has drastically facilitated this process," says Randolph Ashton, CEO and co-founder of Neurosetta. #WisconsinInnovates

Congratulations to WID faculty member Rupa Sridharan on earning an H.I. Romnes award.

Congratulations to WID Discovery Fellow, Tim Kamp on his WARF named professorship.

Congrats to Giulia Scimonelli from the @sahakris.bsky.social Lab. The research award, funded by grants from Brittingham Wisconsin Trust, Knapp Bequest, and UW Division for Teaching and Learning, allows her to study T Cell Phenotype Enrichment Through mRNA Delivery for Enhanced CAR-T Manufacturing.

Congratulations to WID: undergraduate researchers, Tianyi Xu, Solís-Lemus Lab; and Nolan You, Yin Lab for recently being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. We acknowledge your hard work in your labs and contribution to our institute.

CLS stormed Capitol Hill Thursday, delivering our message of the terrible consequences from abrupt terminations of grants. www.coalitionforlifesciences.org/cls-calls-on... @needhibhalla.bsky.social @johandelsman.bsky.social

My department did a story about a new optimization course I’ve been working on- Something between “Intro modeling” and “Nuts and bolts of methods/theory” that I felt was missing engineering.wisc.edu/news/new-adv...

Final WID Seminar of the semester! Join us on April 29 at 1pm for Schloss Lab presenting Perceptual semantics for visual and haptic communication. More info at wid.wisc.edu/all-events/w...

Please share the letter from the Coalition for the Life Sciences re termination of ongoing NIH grants. It's a breach trust betw researchers and govt, bad for trainees, potentially fatal for patients in clinical trials, and diminishes the US science. www.coalitionforlifesciences.org/cls-calls-on...

THIS FRIDAY! Featuring Christopher Taylor on piano.

Join us on April 22nd! We are part of the Earthfest Celebration!

Welcome back home @wildtypemc.bsky.social! We are beyond excited for the reunification! 🧪🏒🥅🧀

Now would be a great time to reserve your seat for our final SoundWaves of the season taking place at the beautiful Hamel Music Center, Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall (740 University Avenue) on April 11th at 7:30pm. Invite your friends and make a night of it! go.wisc.edu/soundwaves

Strong column from @nytimes.com editorial board. “The people who are attacking higher education are talking nonstop,” said Holden Thorp. “And the people leading higher education are not saying very much.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/o...

You will not want to miss this. Shruthi Magesh is brilliant.

Proud to have you represent!

Congratulations to Claudia Solís-Lemus! The Bassam Z. Shakhashiri Public Science Engagement Award recognizes one University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty member and one academic staff member for excellence in engaging the public with STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) research.

Mark your calendars! The @johandelsman.bsky.social lab presents Finding simplicity in complex systems: Signaling in a model #microbial community on March 18 at 1pm. If you can't make it to the seminar in person, please join us at the link in the QR code. Either way, see you there!

TONIGHT!

As a former Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, our director Jo Handelsman has first-hand knowledge of the damage these cuts would inflict.

The response of the science community to the last month is not about one statement or action. It's about all of us with our different frames. For Science's part, we are doing what we have always done and have no plans to change. My thoughts on what we can do. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

You won't want to miss the final installment of our Crossroads of Ideas: Microbiome Mini-series on 3/4, 7pm in the Discovery Building, DeLuca Forum. Dr. Richard Davidson and @johandelsman.bsky.social discuss their inspirational research on the gut-brain superhighway. go.wisc.edu/crossroads-o...

Congratulatesions to Rupa Sridharan on her promotion to full professor.

THIS MORNING AT 9:00! Listen to @johandelsman.bsky.social speak on Wisconsin Today about the struggle with scientific funding and the ripple effect it will have on everyday Americans. www.wpr.org/shows/wiscon...