A digital humanities platform at UW–Madison is developing a tool that makes visually focused objects such as medieval manuscripts available online. Digital Mappa is headed by Martin Foys in the English department along with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, and is funded in part by a UW2020 grant from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). The platform allows users to build projects in a digital space, with the ability to link documents to one another, make comments, highlight interesting points, and collaborate with others.
WARF
Collecting data on kids’ environments and health
Researchers use all sorts of methods to collect their data. For one project on campus, that method takes the form of a cute, animal-shaped backpack.
Graduate student Amy Schultz specializes in environmental epidemiology, which studies how environmental factors affect human health at the population level. She is a leading research assistant on a project called CREATE: Cumulative Risks, Early Development, and Emerging Academic Trajectories.
Translating raw data into insight
Niko Escanilla was drawn from his background in mathematics to graduate study in artificial intelligence and machine learning because he was looking for a discipline that could be applied in real world and clinical settings. As a graduate student in Computer Sciences, Escanilla had the chance to put those techniques to work as a research assistant on a UW2020-funded project, assessing variables that can predict the risk of breast cancer.
Archiving today’s culture for tomorrow’s researchers, through podcasts
When Samuel Hansen started producing podcasts about mathematics and science, it was possible for a small, independent podcast like Hansen’s to rank in the country’s top 60 most popular shows. Now, the top charts are dominated by network-produced podcasts, a change that has taken place in the last 10 years alone – but not the last the world of podcasting will see.
To preserve podcasts as they are now, and archive the changes within them, a project at UW–Madison is dedicated to making today’s podcasts available well into the future.
Taking a hands-on approach to catalyst research
To Keishla Rivera-Dones, chemical engineering is about more than dealing with chemical reactions; it’s about understanding the building blocks of everything.
A PhD student at UW–Madison in the Dumesic and Huber Research Groups, Rivera-Dones works with supported metal catalysts and applies them to promote and improve the efficiency of chemical reactions.
Looking for links between language and action
Say you’re given a list of six random words. You hear them once, and after a short delay, you have to repeat as many as you can remember.
Your recall ability is based on what’s known as your working memory span. But it’s limited by constraints that vary from person to person and may be based on an individual’s experience with language.
Applying machine learning models to improve dairy farm management
As new technologies have opened doors for dairy farms to harness more data from their herds than ever before, farmers around the state have embraced these innovations.
That leaves farmers with vast amounts of data – on cows, herds, farms, the market, crops, and soils – but, as of yet, no way to integrate the entirety of that data into farm management.
Helping the average person teach a robot new tricks
Imagine a future where robots at home are more than just disc-shaped vacuum cleaners – a future where they are autonomous agents that can perform our everyday tasks.
Though we may not always realize it, these tasks require a lot of physical responsiveness to the environment that is natural for humans but a core challenge of robotics.
Building a better water quality measurement platform
With a background in engineering and environmental science, alumnus Paul Schramm had the perfect mix of skills to work on a water quality measurement project that brought new possibilities into the field of limnology.
Exploring an antiviral factor that helps, rather than hinders, influenza
Mitch Ledwith is motivated every day by the excitement that comes with new, and sometimes unexpected, discoveries.
As a PhD student in Cellular and Molecular Biology and a research assistant in the Mehle lab, Ledwith has been a firsthand witness to just one of those exciting discoveries on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, through a project funded by a UW2020 grant.