Learning about the state we serve
Whether he is introducing students to the history of hip hop, collaborating across disciplines, or expanding access to the arts, Omari Carter, an assistant professor in UW-Madison’s Department of Dance and alum of the 2025 Wisconsin Idea Seminar, sees dance as a way to bring people together. As UW–Madison’s dance program continues to grow, he …
Milda Aksamitauskas, chief administrative officer of Population Health Sciences and an alum of the 2025 Wisconsin Idea Seminar, has been selected as one of only 12 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Alumni Ambassadors nationwide for 2026. Chosen from a competitive pool of over 200 applicants, Aksamitauskas will spend the next two years representing the program at national …
In this episode of Discover Wisconsin’s The Cabin podcast, Fran Puleo Moyer, associate director of outreach programs in the UW-Madison Office of State Relations and a WIS’25 alum, introduces listeners to Badger Talks, a UW-Madison program that brings faculty expertise and research insights to communities across Wisconsin on issues that matter most to them. Mark …
Edward Xiong, designer of the 2025 Wisconsin Idea Seminar journey book cover, and three other UW-Madison undergraduates studying textiles and fashion design in the School of Human Ecology traveled to Vietnam for six weeks over the summer for the inaugural 2025 Hmong Design Studies Internship led by Design Studies Professor Jennifer Angus. Students collaborated with …
The SoulFolk Collective is a multidisciplinary research lab led by Jessica Stovall, an assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies, that engages in scholarly inquiry to amplify the voices, stories, and lived realities of Black communities in Wisconsin. The SoulFolk’s current work includes the Black Madison Archive project, an interactive map and oral …
On the last day of the 2025 Wisconsin Idea Seminar, Angela Johnson, teaching faculty in the Art Department, mentioned her upcoming trip to Nepal to Jay Stokes, King-Morgridge Scholars Program manager in the International Division. Johnson would be leading two bookmaking workshops in Kathmandu with Edgewood College’s Artistic Heritage in Nepal Program. It just so …
Kevin Masarik is a groundwater education specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He has assisted tens of thousands of well owners through locally organized well water testing programs. The benefits of these programs are twofold: individual well owners have a better understanding of how to manage …
Forty years ago, in 1985, the Wisconsin Idea Seminar emerged out of the commitment to introduce new faculty and staff to the people and places of Wisconsin. Since then, more than 1,300 University of Wisconsin–Madison employees have made the five-day journey through the state.