WID Symposium

The Second Annual WID Symposium features faculty lightning talks, poster sessions, networking opportunities, and more. This event is integral to being a WIDite, so please make your attendance a top priority and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

The focus of this year’s symposium is research across the institute represented by all WID faculty and resident Discovery Fellows. As we approach the two-year mark in WID’s Strategic Plan, we re-focus on the excellent interdisciplinary research centered at WID. We will also hear from scholars of the Wisconsin Idea about how WID can better engage with its community and bring its research to bear on problems facing Wisconsin and the world.

Research Posters – The poster sessions at the WID Symposium feature research posters from all areas of WID.

Venue – The symposium will take place at the Memorial Union’s Great Hall with a closing reception in Tripp Commons. See details about the Union here and find information about parking nearby here.

Schedule:

8:30 am	Registration, Light Breakfast Great Hall
9:00	Welcome & Expectations WID Director Jo Handelsman
9:20	Faculty Lightning Talks: Session I Each faculty member will have three minutes to summarize their work in the most compelling and informative way possible. After three minutes, the talk will be cut off and the next talk will begin. Xuehua Zhong, Genetics (Graduate student Sarah Leichter will give this talk in Dr. Zhong’s place) Epigenetic regulation of plant genome integrity, developmental and environmental interaction Lih-Sheng (Tom) Turng, Mechanical Engineering Bridging engineering and life sciences for manufacturing of cell-/tissue-based therapeutic products Thomas Rutherford, Agricultural and Applied Economics Optimization of economic decisions Sushmita Roy, Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Computational methods to study molecular networks in disease, development and evolution Stephen Wright, Computer Sciences, Industrial and Systems Engineering (Postdoc Clément Royer will give this talk in Dr. Wright’s place) Optimization algorithms with applications to data analysis and other areas Shaoqin (Sarah) Gong, Biomedical Engineering Creating nanomedicines and nanomaterials for human health and sustainable energy applications
9:45	Break
10:00	Faculty Lightning Talks: Session II Rupa Sridharan, Cell and Regenerative Biology Reprogramming in stem cell differentiation Robert Nowak, Electrical and Computer Engineering Statistical theory and methods for making inferences about high-dimensional and nonparametric models of complex networked systems Randolph Ashton, Biomedical Engineering Engineering brain and spinal cord tissues ex vivo using human pluripotent stem cells Peter Lewis, Biomolecular Chemistry Investigating chromatin dynamics in animal development and cancer Miron Livny, Computer Sciences Efficiency in data storage and management Michael Ferris, Computer Sciences (Postdoc Adam Christensen will speak in Dr. Ferris’ place) Optimization methods and data modeling for large scale problems in science, engineering and economics Laurent Lessard, Electrical and Computer Engineering Theory research at the intersection of robust control and large-scale optimization
10:30	AM Poster Session ‘AM’ group poster presenters attend their posters during this session
12:00 pm	Lunch Buffet served in Tripp Commons
12:20	The Wisconsin Idea: Gwen Drury Tripp Commons
1:30	Faculty Lightning Talks: Session III Great Hall Laurence Loewe, Genetics How a stable extensible user-friendly modeling language like Evolvix can accelerate and deepen biological thought Krishanu Saha, Biomedical Engineering Human cell engineering including CRISPR gene editing and epigenetic reprogramming; science & society Kevin Ponto, Design Studies Use virtual reality to simulate the experience of real-life spaces for real-world outcomes Karen Schloss, Psychology Visual perception and cognition in information visualization and virtual reality John Yin, Chemical and Biological Engineering (Graduate student Huicheng Shi will speak in Dr. Yin’s place) Forecasting of virus-host growth and infection spread; physical and chemical origins of life John Denu, Biomolecular Chemistry Epigenetic chromatin changes that regulate cell signaling and metabolism
2:00	PM Poster Session ‘PM’ group poster presenters attend their posters during this session
3:30	Faculty Lightning Talks: Session IV Jo Handelsman, Plant Pathology Genetic and biochemical processes underlying interactions within plant and human microbiomes. Jim Luedtke, Industrial and Systems Engineering Design of methods for solving discrete and stochastic optimization problems Jeff Linderoth, Industrial and Systems Engineering Models and Algorithms for Large-Scale Numerical Optimization ZhengZheng (Jane) Tang, Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Developing statistical methods and computational tools for high-throughput omics data David Baum, Botany How do life-like chemical systems first originate? How can we detect new life-like chemical systems in the laboratory? Alberto Del Pia, Industrial and Systems Engineering Design of exact and approximate algorithms for mixed-integer optimization problems
4:00	WID Climate Survey Discussion
4:30	Reception Appetizers and beverages in Tripp Commons
6:00	End of program Please retrieve your posters from the Great Hall by 7:00 pm