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

Data Science Research Bazaar

The Data Science Research Bazaar brings together researchers from diverse fields who use data, computing, and software in their work. The 2026 theme—Meaning in the Metrics: Communicating Research Insi...

bazaar.datascience.wisc.edu

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

Deciphering the Regulatory Network of a Pathogenic Fungus

Image credit: Katherine Baldwin  In a new study, researchers from the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID)

go.wisc.edu

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.

Researchers at UW–Madison Receive Major Grant to Study the Link Between Mental Health and the Microbiome

Vincent van Gogh - Self-portrait with bandaged ear (1889, Courtauld Institute) Long before science caught up, Vincent Van Gogh sensed a connection between melancholy and microbes. In a letter

wid.wisc.edu

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.

How disabling one gene protects mice against Type 1 diabetes

UW–Madison researchers have discovered a mechanism that could one day help people at risk of developing the metabolic disease.

news.wisc.edu

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.

Nobel Prizes This Year Offer Three Cheers for Slow Science

nytimes.com

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.