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Saha and Mutlu Named Engineering Moonshot Co-Leaders

Two Wisconsin Institute for Discovery faculty members have been named co-leaders of UW–Madison College of Engineering's Engineering Moonshots, an initiative gathering expertise from across campus to find solutions in areas of personalized medicine, autonomous systems, fusion energy, quantum technologies and sustainable resources.

Kamilov Gives Plenary Talk at ICIP 2026

WID Discovery Fellow Ulugbek "Bek" Kamilov was recently a plenary speaker at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), held Sept. 13–17 in Tampere, Finland. The conference is one of the largest international gatherings focused on image processing, bringing together about 1,000 researchers and industry professionals. Kamilov, the Leon and Elizabeth Janssen Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UW–Madison, spoke about how advances in generative modeling are changing the way researchers approach computational imaging problems.

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Inaugural Microbiome Symposium Showcased Interdisciplinary Work Enabled by Campus Germ-Free Mouse Facility

UW–Madison’s new Gnotobiotic Shared Resource (GSR) is expanding opportunities for researchers to study the microbiome in germ-free and gnotobiotic mouse models. The centralized facility was established with a $1 million gift from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research’s Microbiome Initiative. The GSR was recently highlighted at the WID-hosted UW–Madison Microbiome Symposium, where this year’s “Gut-Brain Axis” theme reflected the work of many researchers using the facility to study how the gut microbiome may influence neurological function. “The GSR is an amazing gift to the campus,” says Wisconsin Institute for Discovery director and GSR user Jo Handelsman. “Relatively few campuses have gnotobiotic facilities for general use. Usually they are located in one research group which must coordinate their own training, personnel, and maintenance of colonies. The UW–Madison GSR makes possible new avenues of microbiome investigation for our researchers.”

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Explore what makes us human at the 16th Annual Wisconsin Science Festival

The 16th annual Wisconsin Science Festival will explore the science of Us — who we are, what it means to be human, and what humans are capable of — all across the state from Oct 15-25. “The Wisconsin Science Festival is a celebration of curiosity in action, inviting people of all ages and from every corner of our state to explore, ask questions and discover something new,” says Samantha Mulrooney, director of the Wisconsin Science Festival at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. “It’s also a chance to shine a light on the incredible innovative and creative minds who make Wisconsin such a special place.”