Showing NASA how different cells respond to radiation could help the agency build better equipment. Hannah Lyons

How will radiation affect astronauts who travel to Mars? UW–Madison postdoc Kaylin Didier and Professor Bill Schrage in the UW School of Education’s Department of Kinesiology are exploring that question, thanks to a NASA grant. Didier exposed immune cells in flasks to proton radiation, which is the type predominately encountered in space travel.

Radiation exposure can have numerous physical effects, from nausea and burns to cell damage and an increased likelihood of cancer. Showing NASA how different cells respond to radiation could help the agency build better equipment, such as radiation shields, as well as potential medical interventions before, during, and after traveling to Mars.

“It’s exciting to be a part of something that will benefit all astronauts as they prepare for the journey to Mars and to support their long-term health when they return home,” Didier says.

Didier used cells taken from both men and women to help determine how radiation might affect astronauts’ immune cells differently. She hopes that the research will also help people closer to home — for instance, patients undergoing proton radiation treatment for cancer.

The recommendations call for establishing a signature on-campus entrepreneurship unit. Danielle Lawry

UW–Madison is positioning itself to strengthen entrepreneurial experiences, drawing on the findings and recommendations of a study commissioned by Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin.

The comprehensive plan outlined in the study aims to create a thriving entrepreneurial environment, leveraging the university’s existing strengths and capabilities along with its ongoing commitment to fostering entrepreneurship across campus.

Mnookin has made entrepreneurship a key priority for the university. In 2023, she charged a working group, composed of entrepreneurial and innovation leaders from campus and industry, with reviewing current practices and making recommendations.

“The UW already is a thriving hub of innovation and entrepreneurial excellence, and we have an opportunity to make it even stronger,” Mnookin says. “This report, and its recommendations, provide a roadmap not just to unify our existing programs, but to chart a new direction to further empower our entrepreneurial community to lead in ways that truly differentiate us on a national and global scale.”

Titled Empowering the Wisconsin Idea: The Future of Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the report delineates four recommendations: commit to excellence in entrepreneurship; establish campus leadership and structure to bolster entrepreneurship; create a culture to promote and celebrate entrepreneurship; and expand access to capital.

The recommendations call for establishing a signature on-campus entrepreneurship unit to coordinate efforts and foster collaboration among partners, industry, students, alumni, and faculty. They also call for streamlining policies to reduce barriers for entrepreneurs, as well as exploring investments in new physical spaces to foster entrepreneurship and engagement with outside expertise.

The UW’s prayer and reflection spaces allow students, staff, faculty, and visitors to “gather themselves and collect the internal resources needed to meet each moment of their day.” Althea Dotzour

UW–Madison has had a map of prayer and reflection spaces on campus, but there was no process for keeping track of changes, communicating with site administrators, or advertising new offerings. Now, the Center for Interfaith Dialogue is trying to change that.

Established in 2023, the center is devoted to supporting students’ religious and spiritual life. One of its first initiatives has been to take over administration of the map, along with creating a video tour to help students learn about the variety of prayer and reflection spaces at the Memorial Union, Engineering Hall, and other locations. The map and video are available online at interfaith.wisc.edu.

“These prayer and reflection spaces within the community can be seen as an oasis for students, staff, faculty, visitors, and others to gather themselves and collect the internal resources needed to meet each moment of their day,” says center staff member seigen johnson.

The map’s 13 designated spaces include Union South’s new foot-washing station in the third-floor bathroom. Foot-washing stations are particularly significant to Muslim students, who may use them to perform ritual washing before prayers.

“We prioritize our five daily prayers in our everyday lives,” says Diyaa Manasrah x’26, president of the UW–Madison Muslim Students Association. “We may have to step out of class and pray, sometimes in the middle of the street or inside a random building. But having these prayer and reflection spaces means we can go to designated areas and pray with our friends, as well as have a safe and clean space to pray. It truly does mean a lot to me, as well as the Muslims all across campus who step into these spaces.”

While some people use the prayer and reflection spaces several times a day, others can stop in spontaneously for a moment of rest and quiet reflection. As part of UW–Madison’s campus, they are not specific to any one religion or tradition.

As enrolled members of federally recognized Wisconsin tribes, Mason (left) and Gavin White Eagle will have the full cost of an undergraduate degree covered by the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program. Bryce Richter

Brothers Gavin x’26 and Mason x’27 White Eagle are among the beneficiaries of UW–Madison’s new Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program. The initiative offers financial support to cover the full cost of pursuing an undergraduate degree for state residents who are enrolled members of federally recognized Wisconsin Indian tribes.

The commitment covers not only tuition and fees but also housing, meals, books, and other educational expenses. It was offered to current students as well as incoming freshmen and transfer students. In this inaugural year, the White Eagle brothers are two of 73 undergraduates in the program.

“The Tribal Promise is our commitment to ensuring that Indigenous students have the opportunity to receive a top-notch education here at UW–Madison,” says Carla Vigue, the university’s director of tribal relations. “But it’s also a way to get Indigenous students to bring their talent, their voice, and their unique perspective to campus. UW–Madison is a better place because of it.”

The program is not based on financial need and is funded by private donations and other institutional resources rather than taxpayer money.

The White Eagle brothers grew up in Auburndale, Wisconsin, and are enrolled members of the Ho-Chunk Nation. Gavin is a junior majoring in legal studies and communication arts, and Mason is a sophomore kinesiology major. The two are first-generation college students.

Gavin, who aspires to attend law school and possibly work for the Ho-Chunk Nation, sees the Wisconsin Tribal Educational Promise Program as a big step forward for UW–Madison.

“The university is always talking about how it is located on Ho-Chunk land,” he says. “Well, this is them actually doing something about it. It’s a hopeful sign for the future.”

Mason, who is interested in being an athletic trainer, says the financial aid has been a huge relief. And both brothers think the program will inspire other Indigenous students to set a goal of attending UW–Madison.

“We want to be good role models and good representatives of this new initiative,” says Gavin, “so that it is here for other Native students when they need it.”

The customized mobility devices were distributed to families and clinics. Alex Holloway/College of Engineering

Last semester, dozens of UW–Madison volunteers created assistive mobility devices for toddlers as part of a “makeathon” at the Grainger Engineering Design Innovation Lab. The recipients were children who aren’t yet big or old enough for standard wheelchairs.

Volunteers worked on fabric seat cushions, assembled frames, and used a laser etching machine to add designs to the wheels. They distributed six mobility trainers to families and four to local clinics.

“We had information about the kids and the kinds of cartoons or music they like, and we put some of those into elements like the wheel cover designs so they will have something that’s tailored to them specifically,” says Peter Noonan ’24, MSx’25, a mechanical engineering graduate student who helped organize the makeathon.

Makeathons primarily draw students but are also open to staff, faculty, and alumni. About 50 people participated in the 2024 initiative. Makeathons encourage collaboration across disciplines and allow volunteers to use the equipment in the Design Innovation Lab while working toward a common goal. The lab coordinated with the UW’s doctor of physical therapy program to host last year’s event.

Madison-based architectural firm Erdman was a supporting partner for the makeathon, and CEO Rustin Becker joined in the volunteer efforts.

“This has been a wonderful opportunity to work with the students, who are leveraging their skills to actually bring something together and see the impact it’s going to have for the children who get these chairs,” Becker says.

Bryce Richter

UW–Madison plays a leading role as a research and education partner for national cybersecurity. Last semester, the university welcomed a delegation from the United States Cyber Command, which is responsible for the Department of Defense’s cyberspace capabilities. They participated in talks, visited research labs, and toured Morgridge Hall, the future home of the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences. The building is set to open this summer.

Warner: “I want students to feel like they have someone in their corner who understands that this process can be very stressful.” Joel Ninmann/University Housing

Officially, Erin Warner ’95 oversees Off-Campus Housing Services as an assistant director in the Division of University Housing. Unofficially, she strives to be everyone’s Badger mom. In helping students negotiate Madison’s complex and sometimes anxiety-inducing housing market, she brings to bear whatever is needed — TLC, common sense, tough love. Sometimes she sounds like a therapist, other times a 911 operator.

“Okay, first I need you to take a deep breath and stop panicking,” she told a distraught undergraduate who approached her at a recent campus housing forum. The student was having difficulty finding an affordable apartment. “No one has ever gone homeless on my watch, and I’m not about to let you be the first.”

The Division of University Housing established the Off-Campus Housing Services unit in 2023 to help students and families navigate Madison’s increasingly challenging, highly competitive housing market. The effort, which built on a previous program in Campus and Visitor Relations, now has a designated office and full-time staff member.

Warner is the mother of two Badgers, Jamie ’24 and Chase x’26. She approaches her job squarely from the perspective of someone who’s been there, experienced that.

“Trust me, if there was a way to make it complicated, my Badgers found it,” she says. “When I tell students and families that I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way, I truly mean it.”

Warner prefers meeting students wherever they are — the Starbucks at Smith Residence Hall is a favorite spot. She reviews budgets and housing options and offers suggestions on how to find properties that might make the most sense for them.

“I want students to feel like they have someone in their corner who understands that this process can be very stressful,” she says.

And to all the Badger parents out there across the country or across the world, Warner wants you to know she’s on it.

“I hope that if one of my children ever ends up in your backyard, you’d do the same.”

UW research has proved the feasibility and safety of using stem cells in the first congenital heart disease-like monkey model. Danielle Lawry

Stem-cell treatment may one day delay or prevent the need for heart transplants, and a UW–Madison collaboration with Mayo Clinic is paving the way.

A research team led by Marina Emborg, professor of medical physics in the UW–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, and Timothy Nelson, physician scientist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found that heart muscle cells grown from stem cells can integrate into the hearts of monkeys with a condition resembling congenital heart disease.

The researchers used human induced pluripotent stem cells, which are cells collected from human donors, coaxed back into a stem cell state, and then developed into cell types compatible with heart muscle. They transplanted the cells into rhesus macaque monkeys with a surgically induced heart defect, and the cells successfully integrated into the muscular layer of the heart.

“We delivered the cells to support existing cardiac tissue,” Emborg says. “Our goal with this particular study, as a precursor to human studies, was to make sure that the transplanted cells were safe and would successfully integrate with the organization of the surrounding tissue.”

The research proved the feasibility and safety of using stem cells in the first congenital heart disease–like monkey model.

Now, as a professor in the UW School of Education, Burt has drawn on 10 years of research for Black Males in Engineering, a web initiative that aims to increase the number of Black men in STEM.

“Black males make up only 2 percent of graduate students in STEM, and it’s been stagnant for more than five decades,” Burt says. “So even with millions of dollars going toward changing these numbers, it isn’t working.” What is the Black Males in Engineering project?

It’s a website that has articles based on my work with Black male graduate students, along with five short videos. With each video, there’s an interactive handout that offers context, statistics, and a series of questions for reflection. Parents, K–12 teachers, advisers, and college faculty can use them with individuals or groups.

Each video and handout targets a different audience. For example, one set talks about how to play with children and increase their curiosity. Another handout offers a question for college advisers: “What assumptions do I make about what talent, brilliance, and high achievement look like?” This asks them to reflect on whether they think talent and brilliance have a color, a race, a gender. Throughout the project, we’re asking people to interrogate their assumptions.

How can your approach lead to progress?

The website is a tool for conversation and self-reflection and also something that can be put into action with workshops, panels, and community events.

My barber was a panelist at one of our events, and it was touching to hear his response to the videos. He wondered if he might have gone into STEM if he hadn’t been disciplined as a child for breaking things and putting them back together — if somebody had helped him to think of that as an asset rather than as something bad. The videos also made him reflect on how he might have parented his sons differently. So the project is giving people hope.

What is a key takeaway from Black Males in Engineering?

Increasing the number of Black males in STEM would increase the number of brilliant thinkers who could contribute to solving the nation’s and world’s grandest challenges. Everyone — parents, siblings, peers, mentors — can play a role.

North America’s oldest dinosaur was the size of a chicken. Gabriel Ugueto

How and when did dinosaurs first emerge and spread across the planet more than 200 million years ago? That question has been a source of debate among paleontologists faced with fragmented fossil records. The mainstream view has held that the reptiles emerged on the southern portion of the ancient supercontinent Pangea, called Gondwana, millions of years before spreading to the northern half, named Laurasia.

But now, a newly described dinosaur whose fossils were uncovered by UW–Madison paleontologists is challenging that narrative, with evidence that the reptiles were present in the northern hemisphere millions of years earlier than previously known.

The UW team has been analyzing the fossil remains since they were discovered in 2013 in present-day Wyoming, an area that was near the equator on Laurasia. The creature has been named Ahvaytum bahndooiveche, and its fossils are estimated to be around 230 million years old.

“We have, with these fossils, the oldest equatorial dinosaur in the world — it’s also North America’s oldest dinosaur,” says Dave Lovelace PhD’12, a research scientist at the UW Geology Museum who co-led the work with graduate student Aaron Kufner ’16, MS’21, PhDx’25. (See our story Fabulous Fossils.)

It took years of careful work by Lovelace and his colleagues to analyze the fossils, establish them as a new dinosaur species, and determine their estimated age.

“It was basically the size of a chicken but with a really long tail,” says Lovelace. “We think of dinosaurs as these giant behemoths, but they didn’t start out that way.”

Lovelace and his colleagues performed high-precision radioisotopic dating of rocks in the formation that held the dinosaur’s fossils. They also found an early dinosaur-like track in even older rocks, demonstrating that dinosaurs or their cousins were already in the region a few million years earlier.

“We’re showing that the ideas we’ve held for so long — supported by the fragmented evidence we had — weren’t quite right,” Lovelace says. “We now have this piece of evidence that shows dinosaurs were here in the northern hemisphere much earlier than we thought.”