College of Letters & Science
Professor Hiroshi Maeda worked with CALS scientists to create a sustainable and healthy red dye from soy beans. Read more in the latest edition of Grow Magazine, produced by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Photo by Michael King/UW CALS
By: Elise Mahon A new approach to mitigate harmful wind erosion, sand and dust storms uses land potential to better match land management practices with the needs of a particular area. The paper was recently published in Land Degradation and Development by UW–Madison assistant professor Kristina Young. Drylands cover over 40% of the Earth’s surface …
Daniel Spalink is a plant systematist and biogeographer. He integrates genetics with data on plant occurrences from global databases and herbaria around the world to improve our understanding of biodiversity. Spalink completed his PhD in the UW–Madison Botany Graduate Program in 2015 and jumped at the opportunity to return to campus as an assistant professor. …
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.