Wisconsin Institute for Discovery

Software Carpentry
2025-01-14 09:00 - 13:00, 2025-01-15 09:00 - 13:00, 2025-01-16 09:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago)
Learn Skills for Research Software Engineering. Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills. This hands-on workshop will cover basic concepts and tools, including program design, version control, data management, and task automation. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
CONTACT: facilitator@datascience.wisc.edu
URL: https://uw-madison-datascience.github.io/2025-01-13-uwmadison-swc/

Crossroads of Ideas: Gut Instincts - Microbes, Addiction, and Immunity
2025-01-16 19:00 - 20:00 | Discovery Building or streaming at https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/95175400747, 330 North Orchard Street, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
Part 1 of the Microbiome Miniseries, with Margaret Alexander and Vanessa Sperandio

Kick off an exciting three-part mini-series on the gut-brain superhighway with UW-Madison researchers Vanessa Sperandio and Maggie Rose Alexander. In this thought-provoking conversation, they will unpack the complex interplay between gut microbes, addiction, and immunity, sharing cutting-edge research and visionary perspectives on how these connections shape the future of brain and gut health in society.

Margaret Alexander is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Alexander’s research is focused on understanding the mechanistic interactions between diet, the microbiota, and immune responses and the functional consequences of these interactions for autoimmune diseases. Dr. Alexander did her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Turnbaugh in the department of Microbiology and Immunology. She attended Carleton College for her undergraduate degree in Biology and the University of Utah for her PhD in the lab of Dr. Ryan O’Connell studying immune cell communication.

Vanessa Sperandio is the Chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology in the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Robert Turell Professor. She was the Jane and Bud Smith Distinguished Chair in Medicine, and a Professor in the departments of Microbiology and Biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She got her bachelors in biology, and her masters and PhD in Molecular Genetics in the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil.

We value inclusion and access for all participants. If you would like to request reasonable accommodations to enhance your participation experience, please email idhub@wid.wisc.edu no later than 2 weeks prior to the event. This event is wheelchair accessible.

All Crossroads of Ideas sessions are recorded and shared post-event. Due to popular request, we will also be livestreaming the Microbiome Mini-series. Please register through the provided link if you intend to join in person or via the livestream link which will be shared upon registration.

Health Sciences Data Carpentry
2025-01-21 09:00 - 13:00, 2025-01-22 09:00 - 13:00, 2025-01-23 09:00 - 13:00, 2025-01-24 09:00 - 13:00 | 3330 Health Sciences Learning Center
Fundamental Data Skills Workshop. Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners’ existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
CONTACT: facilitator@datascience.wisc.edu
URL: https://uw-madison-datascience.github.io/2025-01-21-uwmadison-dc/

Research Cyberinfrastructure Community of Practice meeting (FREE and Online)
2025-01-23 13:00 - 14:00 | (Online)
Learn about tools and services to support campus research.. Researchers and IT/support staff are invited to participate in this monthly community of practice, which features presentations and support related to campus research tools/services.
This month: RCI Tools & Services Overview –
Learn about tools available through the Research Cyberinfrastructure, including ResearchDrive, Research Object Storage (S3), Electronic Lab Notebook, Globus, Data Science Platform, and cloud computing.
RCI staff available for consultations during this session!
CONTACT: rci@g-groups.wisc.edu
URL: https://go.wisc.edu/rci
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/98069906780?pwd=[REDACTED]

WID Seminar Series: Ponto VR Lab
2025-01-24 10:00 - 11:00 | 3rd Floor Orchard View Room, Discovery Building (Also offered online)
Discovering simplicity in complex systems at the intersection of digital and natural worlds. WID Seminar Series: Ponto VR Lab
January 24, 2025
10:00 AM
Orchard View Room
Introduction by: Jayaraman Tharmalingam, Scientist, May Lab
Featuring:
Ross Tredinnick – CAVE and Virtual Environments Group
Bryce Sprecher – Mixed Reality for Training
Jingxin Du – Mixed Reality Museums
Bonbon Yang – The Impact of Gestures in VR
CONTACT: 316-4511, lredeagle@wisc.edu
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/96326864622

ComBEE Monthly Meeting
2025-01-28 15:00 - 16:00 | Orchard View Room, Discovery Building
Decoding Proteins: Exploring Transformers, AlphaFold, and Hands-On with ColabFold. Join us for an engaging COMBEE talk exploring the fascinating world of protein language models, transformers, and the revolutionary advancements of AlphaFold, presented by Dr. Hannah Wayment-Steele
CONTACT: facilitator@datascience.wisc.edu

Crossroads of Ideas: Alzheimer's and the Gut-Brain Superhighway
2025-02-04 19:00 - 20:00 | Discovery Building or streaming at https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/91298964513, 330 North Orchard Street, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
Part 2 of the Microbiome Miniseries, featuring Barbara Bendlin and Federico Rey

Part 2 of the Microbiome Miniseries, with Barbara Bendlin and Federico Rey
In this second installment of the Microbiome Miniseries, researchers Barbara Bendlin and Federico Rey will discuss the many factors that can impact brain aging, with a special focus on the gut-brain superhighway and the role that the gut microbiome can have on brain health.
Barbara Bendlin is a faculty member in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology within the Department of Medicine. She is a member of the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute’s Executive Committee and the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center Executive Committee, leads the Research Education Component in the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and directs the UW-Madison Neuroscience and Public Policy Program. Dr. Bendlin is a recipient of a 2019 Distinguished Honors Faculty Award and is an associate editor of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Federico Rey started his independent research program in bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013. A major focus of his group is to understand how variations in the gut microbiome composition modulate the effects of diet and the host’s susceptibility to cardiometabolic and cognitive diseases. To address these issues, his team uses a combination of hypothesis-generating, sequencing-centered analyses of microbiomes from humans and mice, followed by proof-of-principle/proof-of-mechanism studies in gnotobiotic mouse models of disease and classical bacteriology experiments. The contributions from his team are helping move the field from associations to causal relationships and shedding light on the mechanisms by which gut microbes modulate health.

We value inclusion and access for all participants. If you would like to request reasonable accommodations to enhance your participation experience, please email idhub@wid.wisc.edu no later than 2 weeks prior to the event. This event is wheelchair accessible.

All Crossroads of Ideas sessions are recorded and shared post-event. Due to popular request, we will also be livestreaming the Microbiome Mini-series. Please register through the provided link if you intend to join in person or via the livestream link which will be shared upon registration.

Learning Through Comparison: Use Cases of Contrastive Learning
2025-02-10 10:30 - 11:30 | Orchard View Room, Discovery Building (Also offered online)
ML+X: Machine Learning Beyond Traditional CS Fields.
CONTACT: endemann@wisc.edu
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/92639425571?pwd=[REDACTED]

Building and Using Containers for Large-scale Computing
2025-02-11 10:30 - 12:00 | Researcher's Link, Discovery Building (Also offered online)
Learn about building and using your software environment with containers!. Learn about building and using your software environment with containers! In this virtual and in-person workshop, we’ll introduce basic container concepts, guidelines for building and storing container images, and using them in job submission. In the last half of the training, CHTC facilitators will assist as users build their own Docker or Apptainer container images (in-person only). A CHTC account and registration is required.
CONTACT: chtc@cs.wisc.edu
URL: https://chtc.cs.wisc.edu/events/2025/02/containers
ONLINE: https://chtc.cs.wisc.edu/events/2025/02/containers

ML+Coffee: How Can I Apply ML/AI To My Data?
2025-02-12 09:00 - 11:00 | 1145 Discovery Building
ML+X: Machine Learning Beyond Traditional CS Fields.
CONTACT: endemann@wisc.edu

SoundWaves: Developing Ideas, Part 3
2025-02-21 19:30 - 21:00 | Discovery Building, 330 North Orchard Street, De Luca Forum, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
Explore how trends, plans, viewpoints, projects, materials, and sounds develop. Where we are and where we might be headed in the future.

What can archeology tell us about the development of our forebears? How can we develop better conditions for dairy animals? How do babies develop language? How do computer scientists develop operating systems? What is musical development, and how did Franz Schubert master it in the beautiful string quartet Death and the Maiden? Find out at SoundWaves’ third event in our Development series, with special guests the Pro Arte Quartet.
Speakers:Sarah Clayton, anthropology
Jennifer van Os, dairy science
Mike Swift, comp sci
Jenny Saffran, psych
Moderator: Daniel Grabois

We value inclusion and access for all participants. If you would like to request reasonable accommodations to enhance your participation experience, please email https://mailto: idhub@wid.wisc.edu no later than 2 weeks prior to the event. This event is wheelchair accessible.

SoundWaves combines scientific lectures about the world with live classical music performances. Each event revolves around a theme, exploring it first from many scientific angles and then through the lens of music. The program concludes with a live performance of music related to the evening’s theme.
This event will take place in the DeLuca Forum in the Discovery Building. This is a free event, however registration is requested to ensure adequate seating.

WID Seminar Series
2025-02-25 13:00 - 14:15 | 3rd Floor Orchard View Room, Discovery Building (Also offered online)
Accelerating High-Dimensional Insights: A Block-Diagonal Approach to Sparse PCA. Discovering simplicity in complex systems at the intersection of digital and natural worlds. Join us to catch the latest from the Del Pia Lab with Dekun Zhou presenting on "Accelerating High-Dimensional Insights: A Block-Diagonal Approach to Sparse PCA."
Special introduction by Xiaoya Zhang, Sridharan Lab.
Online option available. Light refreshments served.
CONTACT: 316-4534, lredeagle@wisc.edu
URL: https://wid.wisc.edu/event/wid-faculty-seminar-6/
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/96326864622

CHTC Researcher Forum
2025-02-26 14:30 - 16:30 | Orchard View Room, Discovery Building
The Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) is holding an inaugural Researcher Forum on Wednesday, February 26.
We invite CHTC users and the UW-Madison research computing community to join us!
* Learn about recent changes at CHTC and what's new and upcoming
* Connect with CHTC users and learn from each other at a mini poster session
* Engage with CHTC staff – ask questions, provide suggestions, and more!
* Meet a computer server
CONTACT: chtc@cs.wisc.edu
URL: https://chtc.cs.wisc.edu/events/2025/02/researcher-forum

Research Object Storage (S3): An overview for researchers and support staff (online)
2025-02-27 10:00 - 11:00 | (Online)
Research generates data of all sizes, from a few megabytes to hundreds of terabytes. And let’s face it, storing all that data can be costly. In this virtual session, we’ll introduce Research Object Storage (S3), a new campus-hosted data storage service offering 50TB of no cost storage to eligible researchers. Discover how this service can significantly reduce storage costs and enable new ways to use and distribute your data.
Recommended for researchers, IT, and other support staff.
CONTACT: researchdrive@wisc.edu
URL: https://it.wisc.edu/research-ci/research-object-storage-s3-an-overview-for-researchers-and-support-staff-virtual-presentation/
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/95225402864?pwd=[REDACTED]

Research Cyberinfrastructure (RCI) Community of Practice meeting (FREE and Online)
2025-02-27 13:00 - 14:00 | (Online)
Learn about tools and services to support campus research.. Researchers and IT/support staff are invited to participate in this monthly community of practice, which features presentations and support related to campus research tools/services.
This month: From the Notebook to the Cluster –
This presentation details a workflow that takes R markdown/quarto document, strips its R code, encapsulates the code and its dependencies into container, and programmatically creates the necessary files to r
RCI staff available for consultations during this session!
CONTACT: rci@g-groups.wisc.edu
URL: https://go.wisc.edu/rci
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/98069906780?pwd=[REDACTED]

Data Story Slam!
2025-02-27 16:30 - 18:30 | Deluca Forum, Discovery Building, 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, United States
Join in the fun at the Data Story Slam! Everyone’s life is impacted by data, and everyone has a story to share! Share a story/hear a story of ordinary to extraordinary moments where life intersects with data, and connect with others at this informal social before the 2025 Data Science Research Bazaar. The Data Story Slam is open to all, and refreshments will be provided.
Please RSVP (link below) to let us know that you are coming! You can also sign up now or at the event to share a story!
CONTACT: contact@datascience.wisc.edu
URL: https://bazaar.datascience.wisc.edu/data-story-slam/

Crossroads of Ideas: Mindfulness and the Microbiome
2025-03-04 19:00 - 20:00 | Discovery Building or streaming at https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/95175400747, 330 North Orchard Street, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
Part 3 of the Microbiome Miniseries with panelists Richie Davidson and Jo Handelsman

Join Dr. Richie Davidson and Dr. Jo Handelsman as they explore the intricate connection between the microbiome and mindfulness, and the immense impact they both have on our wellbeing. This is the third part of our three-part microbiome miniseries!

Dr. Richard Davidson is the founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at UW-Madison. Davidson is best known for his groundbreaking work studying emotion and the brain. A friend and confidante of the Dalai Lama, he is a highly sought after expert and speaker, leading conversations on well-being on international stages such as the World Economic Forum, where he served on the Global Council on Mental Health. Time Magazine named Davidson one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2006. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.

Dr. Jo Handelsman is the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at UW-Madison, a Vilas Research Professor, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. She previously served as a science advisor to President Barack Obama as the Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) where she served for three years until January 2017, and was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin and Yale University before that. She received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Obama in 2011 and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

We value inclusion and access for all participants. If you would like to request reasonable accommodations to enhance your participation experience, please email idhub@wid.wisc.edu no later than 2 weeks prior to the event. This event is wheelchair accessible.

All Crossroads of Ideas sessions are recorded and shared post-event. Due to popular request, we will also be livestreaming the Microbiome Mini-series. Please register through the provided link if you intend to join in person or via the livestream link which will be shared upon registration.

Research Object Storage (S3): A deep dive for technical support staff (FREE and online)
2025-03-06 10:00 - 12:00 | (Online)
In this virtual session, we’ll further explore Research Object Storage (S3), a new campus-hosted data storage service offering 50TB of no-cost storage to eligible researchers. This session, which will be geared toward technical support staff, will highlight access methods (such as API), practical applications, and potential issues using the service. What are common IT tasks associated with this service and how do you know if this is a service you should recommend to your researchers?
CONTACT: researchdrive@wisc.edu
URL: https://it.wisc.edu/research-ci/research-object-storage-s3-presentation-3/
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/94791669123?pwd=[REDACTED]

CHTC Information Session
2025-03-11 10:30 - 11:15 | 1170 Discovery Building (Also offered online)
Learn about CHTC's computing and data services for UW-Madison affiliates at this information session!. CHTC staff will present an overview of CHTC services and how these services can help researchers accomplish their research and computational goals. CHTC staff will also help attendees identify the next steps for getting started – whether that is getting an account, how to log in, or how to start running work. If you are attending in person, after the presentation, there will be time for Q+A and hands-on help from the CHTC Facilitation Team. Register to receive a virtual link.
CONTACT: chtc@cs.wisc.edu
URL: https://chtc.cs.wisc.edu/events/2025/03/information-session
ONLINE: https://chtc.cs.wisc.edu/events/2025/03/information-session

WID Seminar Series: Signaling in a Model Microbial Community
2025-03-18 13:00 - 14:15 | 3rd Floor Orchard View Room, Discovery Building (Also offered online)
Discovering simplicity in complex systems at the intersection of digital and natural worlds. Join the Jo Handelsman lab as Shurthi Magesh, Austin Hall and Natalia Rosario-Melendez dig into their latest research on the inner workings of microbial communities. Special introduction by Jon Eckhardt, Pyle Bascom Professor in Business Leadership.
Open to public. Light refreshments served. Virtual option included.
CONTACT: 316-4325, lredeagle@wisc.edu
ONLINE: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/96326864622

Research Bazaar
2025-03-19 09:00 - 16:30, 2025-03-20 09:00 - 16:30 | Discovery Building, 330 North Orchard Street, De Luca Forum, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
Data Science Research Bazaar: AI and ML in Research: Navigating Opportunities and Boundaries. Save the date for the the 6th annual Data Science Research Bazaar, March 19-20, 2025 at the Discovery Building. This year’s theme is AI and ML in Research: Navigating Opportunities and Boundaries.
CONTACT: facilitator@datascience.wisc.edu
URL: https://bazaar.datascience.wisc.edu/

Intermediate Research Software Development with Python
2025-03-24 09:00 - 12:30 | Orchard View Room, Discovery Building
CONTACT: facilitator@datascience.wisc.edu
URL: https://uw-madison-datascience.github.io/2025-03-24-uwmadison-intermedpython/

Intermediate Research Software Development with Python
2025-03-24 09:00 - 2025-03-27 13:00 | Discovery Building, 330 North Orchard Street, De Luca Forum, Madison, WI, 53715, United States
https://uw-madison-datascience.github.io/2025-03-24-uwmadison-intermedpython/

Intermediate Research Software Development with Python aims to teach a core set of established, intermediate-level software development skills and best practices for working as part of a team in a research environment using Python as an example programming language (see detailed learning objectives). The core set of skills we teach is not a comprehensive set of all-encompassing skills, but a selective set of tried-and-tested collaborative development skills that forms a firm foundation for continuing on your learning journey.

Health Sciences Data Carpentry
2025-03-24 13:00 - 17:00 | Health Sciences Learning Center, Room 1248, 750 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI, 53792, United States
https://uw-madison-datascience.github.io/2025-03-24-uwmadison-dc/

Data Carpentry develops and teaches workshops on the fundamental data skills needed to conduct research. Its target audience is researchers who have little to no prior computational experience, and its lessons are domain specific, building on learners’ existing knowledge to enable them to quickly apply skills learned to their own research. Participants will be encouraged to help one another and to apply what they have learned to their own research problems.
