Category: Research

research related stories

Paint the Plant Red: a natural alternative to synthetic food dyes

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

Considering land’s potential to improve mitigation of degradation, wind erosion, sand and dust storms

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 …

Making research less daunting: Bio 152 prepared undergraduate for prestigious research fellowship

Zaira Malloy-Salgado, a senior majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology, spent the summer as an inaugural HHMI Cech Fellow. The program matches students with HHMI scientists conducting fundamental research to advance our understanding of biology and health. Over the course of nine weeks, Malloy-Salgado worked a full time research position in an immunology lab at …

Faculty Q&A: Daniel Spalink uses systematics and collections to study global plant biodiversity

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. …

Magical Monarchs at the Biocore Prairie

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 …

NSF Career Award supports Daijiang Li’s efforts to build a global database of urban biodiversity

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 …

Plant enthusiasts joined the Wisconsin Herbarium’s 2026 Foray in La Crosse County, Wi

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 …

Faculty Q&A: Zach Feiner studies fisheries to sustain them for both anglers and the ecosystem

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 …

Ken Cameron and Anne Pringle featured in On Wisconsin “Mighty Mycology”

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

UW researchers train future scientists and educate communities about wisconsin’s peatlands

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.