College of Letters & Science
By Elise Mahon Daijiang Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, has been granted a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build new tools that will help scientists understand, analyze, and forecast urban biodiversity. Cities around the world continue to expand with more than half of the world’s people living …
Zach Feiner is a fisheries ecologist and new assistant professor in the department of Biology. He not only studies how fish respond to changes in their ecosystem, but also what those changes could mean for anglers. Since Feiner’s days as an undergraduate right here at UW–Madison, the Wisconsin Idea has guided his work. Now that …
UW fungi researchers across many disciplines have created a world-class supergroup to improve our lives. Professors Ken Cameron and Anne Pringle are both featured in this On Wisconsin Magazine story. Read more
Words: Elise Mahon | Photos: Sarah Friedrich One hundred million years ago, long before human intervention, ancestors of grasses, like wheat, rice and maize generated “bypasses” of chemical pathways that are used to create two critical compounds: lignin and starch. These more efficient pathways could explain why grass plants are so successful in nature and …
Kristina Young joined the UW–Madison faculty in January 2026 as an assistant professor of climate change ecology. As an ecologist, she studies how human land use reshapes ecosystems, with an eye toward sustainable land management and methods to halt and reverse land degradation. Before joining the College of Letters & Science, she worked for the …
Professor Seth McGee and graduate student Joseph Walston have each been recognized for their outstanding mentorship of undergraduate students.
Professor Ellen Damschen joins WPR’s The Larry Meiller Show to discuss why biodiversity matters in Wisconsin, and what scientists are doing to conserve plant and animal life. Listen to the episode.
UW researchers turn to the tiny copepod for a big discovery, showing that gene location influences natural selection.
We welcomed Professor Shan He to the Botany Department in Spring 2025. We asked her to answer a few questions to help us get to know her. Below are her answers. Please describe your research. My research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that regulate the photosynthetic algal CO₂-concentrating mechanism (CCM), which mediates approximately one-third of …
We welcomed Professor Jack Satterlee to the Botany Department in Spring 2025. We asked him to answer a few questions to help us get to know him. Below are his answers. Please describe your research. I’m fascinated by plants’ remarkable ability to adapt their morphology to solve diverse challenges. Across evolution, many plant lineages have independently converged …