College of Letters & Science
Seth McGee led a community science outreach even on Sunday 9/13/2026, inviting students from across campus to net, catch, tag, and release monarchs. A select few monarchs that qualified were also fitted with a solar powered radio tag, enabling more data collection on monarch migration than the standard paper tags alone. Check out the photo …
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 …
Theju Vembakkam, who graduated with a BS in Neurobiology in 2023, is one of 16 Badgers selected as ’26-’27 Fulbright Scholars. The grant will allow Vembakkam to pursue research on antimicrobial resistance in Laos. Read More.
By Elise Mahon This past July, the Wisconsin State Herbarium and Botanical Club of Wisconsin hosted their 8th annual foray. Over the course of three days, a total of 46 volunteers explored habitats throughout La Crosse County, Wisconsin to document their flora. Each year the foray is held in a different region of Wisconsin, inviting …
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
Peatlands are powerhouses when it comes to improving water quality, minimizing flood risks, providing habitat and storing carbon. Yet, most people are unaware of these important ecological places. Researchers and students from UW–Madison and UW–Green Bay hope to change that. 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 …
By Elise Mahon Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison recognize a new species of baobab tree, Adansonia bozy, unique to Madagascar, according to a study published in the journal Taxon. Previously, members of A. bozy were classified within a different species of Malagasy baobab, Adansonia za. While both species look similar, careful genetic analysis revealed …
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 …