Bryce Richter

An Olympics watch party or a Badgers watch party? The answer was both for the Union South crowd who saw the U.S. women’s hockey team defeat Canada in the gold medal game in February. Throughout, the TV broadcast cut to this watch party at the Sett, where fans cheered for the 11 Badgers representing both countries — including Hilary Knight ’12, who scored the dramatic game-tying goal for Team USA.

McIntosh: “It is bittersweet to leave the University of Wisconsin, a place that has had such a profound impact on me as a student and as an administrator.” Jeff Miller

In April, Chris McIntosh ’04, MS’19 resigned as UW–Madison’s director of athletics to become the Big Ten Conference’s first deputy commissioner for strategy.

McIntosh served five years as director and has been a UW athletics administrator since 2014. He played offensive tackle on the Badger football squad and served as captain for consecutive Rose Bowl–winning teams before entering the NFL.

“It is bittersweet to leave the University of Wisconsin, a place that has had such a profound impact on me as a student and as an administrator,” McIntosh said.

During McIntosh’s tenure as director of athletics, Badger teams won several conference and national titles. The overall student-athlete graduation success rate is 91 percent.

“While helping to establish a strong foundation for success in all sports moving forward, Chris has always represented our institution with high character, professionalism, and Badger pride,” said former Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. “We should all be pleased that he will bring this integrity and commitment to his new position as he will play an instrumental role in the future of the Big Ten Conference and thus in the future of Wisconsin athletics.”

Marcus Sedberry, who had been the UW’s deputy athletic director, general manager, and chief operating officer, stepped in as interim director of athletics. Sedberry joined the Badgers in 2022 after senior-level experience in the SEC, Big 12, and NFL. The search for a new director of athletics will begin under Interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots.

Director Erin Barbato ’02 currently has her hands full, given recent changes to immigration policy. As battles play out in Congress and the courts, the center is trying to provide trustworthy information and representation to people caught up in detention, deportation, and family separation.

Politics aside, Barbato and her students come to know their clients as human beings who deserve due process. She gets emotional when discussing their struggles, and she does her best to assure them that “they’re not alone in this world.”

What are some of the services you provide for the immigrant community?

Before the Immigrant Justice Center started, there were no nonprofits providing legal services to the immigrants held at Wisconsin’s Dodge County Detention Center. We offer pro bono services for people in deportation or removal proceedings. Most of the cases we take are for people applying for asylum because they can’t return to their home country for fear of persecution.

We also have programs for unaccompanied children and survivors of international human trafficking as well as broader audiences who want to understand the rights of immigrants and community members. The goal is to provide as much trusted legal information as possible and to provide representation when we have the capacity to do so.

What’s unique about the Immigrant Justice Center?

We’re the only immigration legal clinic in a state that’s considered a legal desert for immigration attorneys and resources. So we provide critical opportunities for students to learn how to practice immigration law while also serving the community in Wisconsin. We offer information to people who otherwise would be all alone and face deportation without any legal representation. That makes a huge difference, because if someone who’s detained is represented by an attorney, they’re three times more likely to receive protection from deportation.

What kinds of law students are attracted to the Immigrant Justice Center?

Every year, we have more than a hundred students who apply for our 10 spots. So there’s a huge desire to learn how to practice immigration law. Many want a career that has a direct impact on human lives. They’re all highly intelligent, engaged, compassionate students, which is a dream come true for me. Every year, I see them making a true difference and learning about the power of their law degree. Graduates are extremely competitive in the field because of the level of experience they receive while they’re in the clinic.

How have recent changes to immigration policy affected the center’s work?

We’re seeing changes on an almost daily basis, and we’re constantly trying to figure out how new policies are affecting our representation. We’ve seen clients deported without due process. We have a few clients who received asylum from Afghanistan, and they should be eligible to apply for their green cards at this point. But they’re in limbo.

How have the students responded?

It’s been hard for students to see what our clients are facing. They’re people we learn to care for. We know their stories, and to see them face even more struggles is really difficult. But the students are grateful for the opportunity to support the people we serve. All we can do is continue to provide ethical and caring representation. We find a lot of meaning in that.

What is a fair way to deport people when that’s necessary?

We have ways to ensure due process in deportation proceedings, but right now, many people are being deported without the opportunity to present their case in front of an immigration judge and have a fair and full trial. I believe we need universal representation so everyone facing deportation would have an immigration law attorney with them. And this is especially true for children who are forced to represent themselves in front of an immigration judge while fighting a government-trained attorney.

In your view, what should U.S. immigration policy look like?

I don’t have an answer to what it should look like, because these decisions need to be made by our country. Congress has to consider our priorities and make any changes to the laws. But I do think we should all work together to find a way to treat people with humanity and to recognize that we are stronger with humane processes and policies.

91 percent of survey respondents said the university prepared them for that next step in their career path. Althea Dotzour

According to a UW survey, 90 percent of respondents who earned a bachelor’s degree from UW–Madison in 2024–25 are now employed, engaged in entrepreneurship, serving in the military, contributing through volunteer organizations, or pursuing continuing education. And 91 percent of survey respondents said the university prepared them for that next step in their career path.

Katie Cervenka ’25 is employed as a communications and development associate for Wisconsin’s Driftless Area Land Conservancy and was quickly able to put her degree in life sciences communication and wildlife ecology to work.

“Beyond academics, a close-knit community and career development within my college helped me build confidence early in my career,” Cervenka says. “Internships, networking opportunities, and leadership roles gave me the experience and mentorship to step into the professional world with purpose.”

The survey, known as the First Destination Survey, found that recent graduates took jobs in 46 states as well as 36 countries outside the U.S., with a median full-time salary of $73,000.

More than a quarter of 2024–25 graduates who responded to the survey had plans to continue their education, with law, business, and computer sciences noted as the top three fields.

The graduates’ success reflects both their hard work and the university’s commitment to preparing students with the skills they need beyond their undergraduate education. Thanks to UW–Madison’s many career service offices and close partnerships with industry, the university is nationally recognized for preparing students for their next chapter after graduation.

The study participants who saw the ads with vote-suppressing messages on Facebook were 1.9 percent less likely to vote in the election than people who did not see the ads. Jaime Espinoza

Messages intended to suppress votes can be precisely delivered to particularly vulnerable and consequential groups of people via social media and keep millions of them from casting ballots. A new UW study is the first to quantify the effect of such microtargeting on voter turnout.

A team led by Young Mie Kim, UW–Madison professor of journalism and mass communication, recruited more than 10,000 people across the United States — a group representative of the country’s voting population. They were asked to install an app that captured every ad they viewed for the six weeks leading up to the November election in 2016.

The study participants who saw the ads with vote-suppressing messages on Facebook were 1.9 percent less likely to vote in the election than people who did not see the ads.

The most common targeted message suggested an election boycott would send the strongest message to politicians. The ads’ creators used Facebook’s microtargeting advertising features to reach mostly nonwhite, voting-age people in hotly contested states in the presidential election. Those Facebook users received four times as many vote-suppressing ads as their white neighbors.

While a 1.9 percent shift in the behavior of some voters is small, the researchers say, so were the margins of victory in many states in 2016. Extrapolated across the country for the 2016 election, the effect of the ads may have kept about 4.7 million people from voting.

Congressional investigators showed that many of the ads the research team identified were purchased by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian digital disinformation operation. They used terms including “Martin Luther King Jr.” and “African American Civil Rights Movement” to target nonwhite voters on Facebook and discourage them from voting.

None of the vote-suppressing ads were purchased by groups that had filed reports with the Federal Election Commission. Strengthening and enforcing federal regulations on disclosing the source of political messages could provide important context for targeted social media users.

“Voters should be able to understand who is trying to influence them, especially whether it is foreign influence,” Kim says.

The system could pave the way for safer, more comfortable care in settings ranging from neonatal units to in-home recovery. Pexels

UW–Madison computer scientists are pioneering a new approach to health monitoring: using radar to measure breathing and heart rate without physical contact to the patient. Their system could pave the way for safer, more comfortable care in settings ranging from neonatal units to in-home recovery.

When you think about monitoring heart and breathing rates, you likely picture a wearable device — a wristband, chest strap, or sticky patch connected to a maze of wires. But what if monitoring your breathing or heart rate didn’t require contact at all?

For UW–Madison computer sciences professor Suman Banerjee, that prospect is a near possibility. In collaboration with researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and with support from the National Science Foundation, his team is developing a system — called MEDUSA — that uses radar to monitor vital signs without touching patients at all.

Banerjee has long been interested in ways that contactless technology can support health care. “In the neonatal intensive care unit, the very devices that monitor fragile infants can also cause skin abrasions, introduce infection risks, or become tangled,” he notes. For adults, wearables can be uncomfortable or even inaccurate when poorly fitted.

Contactless sensing offers an appealing alternative. Because radar waves can detect small chest movements, they are able to infer vital signs such as breathing and heart rate without attaching anything to the body.

Existing radar systems struggle to detect vital signs outside of controlled lab settings because people naturally move around, turn away from the sensor, and change their posture throughout the day.

MEDUSA overcomes this problem by placing several radar units throughout a room, creating a multiview system that detects vital signs even when some sensors lose line of sight. Custom hardware combined with tightly integrated software separates vital signs from other movements. The result is a system that works in real-life patient settings.

The long-term goal is to make radar hardware more compact.

“We’ve shown that this distributed approach works,” Banerjee says. “Now we want to make it feasible for environments like the neonatal intensive care unit.”

Wilcots, who’s been part of the UW campus since 1995, steps in as interim chancellor. Althea Dotzour

On May 17, Eric Wilcots became UW–Madison’s interim chancellor. He succeeds Jennifer Mnookin, who left to become president of Columbia University.

Wilcots has served as the dean of the UW’s College of Letters & Science since 2020. He’s been part of the UW–Madison campus since 1995, when he started as a lecturer in the astronomy department before joining the faculty a year later.

In another key leadership change, John Zumbrunnen has been named UW–Madison’s provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. The provost is the university’s chief academic officer and second-ranking official, supporting its teaching, research, and outreach mission.

Zumbrunnen had served as interim provost since last June, following Charles Isbell Jr.’s departure to become chancellor of the University of Illinois–Urbana–Champaign. Over the past 18 years, Zumbrunnen has held a variety of academic and administrative leadership positions at UW–Madison.

“I am excited to continue the valuable work of the Wisconsin Idea, which will guide me not only as a foundational value, but as a perennial challenge to create a positive impact in the world through excellence in research, education, and service,” he says.

The goal was to create a framing document that could identify clear shared priorities, position UW–Madison as a leader in addressing the challenges and opportunities of our time, and define the university’s mission for the years ahead. Althea Dotzour

Last year, UW–Madison began a collaborative, cross-campus process to envision its future through the creation of a new strategic framework. The goal was to create a framing document that could identify clear shared priorities, position UW–Madison as a leader in addressing the challenges and opportunities of our time, and define the university’s mission for the years ahead.

The strategic framework is grounded in the Wisconsin Idea — the notion that the university’s teaching, research, and service should extend far beyond the boundaries of campus — and guided by the Badger Way.

If the Wisconsin Idea is the UW’s “why,” the Badger Way is its “how.” It describes how the university approaches its work: with curiosity, humility, integrity, tenacity, civility, and a touch of playfulness. It also expresses the commitments that individuals make to one another in community: practicing civility; embracing complexity; fostering connection; and supporting all Badgers as they learn, grow, and pursue excellence.

Together, the Wisconsin Idea and the Badger Way are foundational to the framework and its four strategic priorities: delivering unrivaled educational experiences to prepare students for their future; discovering, creating, and innovating to change lives; convening and collaborating for the public good; and cultivating a culture of excellence to ensure a resilient future.

The framework is, by design, not a plan. It is intentionally high level, allowing the UW to adapt, evolve, and remain resilient in the face of change. The work of bringing the framework fully to life will happen through school, college, and division strategic plans; campuswide initiatives; and collaboration among students, staff, faculty, alumni, and partners.

The strategic framework came together with help from the Visioning Committee, a group of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and campus partners who helped shape a vision defined by the collective aspirations and needs of UW–Madison now and into the future. This group helped lead more than 40 community conversations, gathering input from many faculty, staff, and students on draft concepts that reflected UW–Madison’s strengths and opportunities.

Visit strategicframework.wisc.edu to learn more about the strategic framework as UW–Madison embraces its future.

Tamplin has faced roadblocks with federal research funding. Jeff Miller

John Allen’s cover story, “The Two Owens,” traces a poignant connection. Owen Petrzelka is a child who died from a rare brain cancer, and Owen Tamplin is a UW–Madison researcher trying to ensure that the boy’s death was not in vain. I predict that you’ll be inspired by Tamplin’s efforts to better understand the terrible disease called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

I also predict that you’ll be disheartened by the roadblocks Tamplin has faced with federal research funding. Changing policies have threatened his grants, cut him off from key research partners, and caused uncertainty in his lab. “It makes it very difficult to plan, to recruit people,” Tamplin says.

In 2025, the university saw a 17 percent decline in federal research funding. Over the same period, 145 federal grants were terminated or subject to stop-work orders, with $27 million in lost funding. Since then, however, we’ve seen progress. Legal challenges have helped reinstate some of the grants, and some of the major proposed cuts to federally funded programs have been stemmed. Our Summer issue shows UW researchers charging ahead, with breakthroughs in medicine, astronomy, agriculture, and artificial intelligence, among other fields.

In “The Two Owens,” Owen Petrzelka’s mother pleads for “something meaningful” to come from his death. With an assist from UW research, hopefully it still can.