The technology for an eye specialist to review a picture of a patient’s eye taken miles away to screen for eye disease has been around for decades. Yet, less than half of Wisconsin adults with diabetes, who are particularly vulnerable to vision-threatening diseases, get annual eye screenings. Yao Liu, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, has been working to increase access to this technology.
graduate student research
Stem Cells @ 20: Students find inspiration, support in UW–Madison’s stem cell community
When Kaivalya Molugu was considering graduate schools, she knew she was interested in stem cell research, but she had to decide where to apply. The answer soon became clear: the place where it all began.
One of the main reasons she chose UW–Madison “is the strong stem cell research center here,” says Molugu.
Reimagining computer science education
When Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj came to UW–Madison for a master’s degree in Computer Sciences, he was surprised by the number of questions in the classroom. Why, he wondered, was it so different than his native India, where conversations were one-way and students rarely asked questions? The possibilities Soosai Raj is exploring to that end promise new directions for computer science education.
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.
Bob Dylan’s electric guitar and leather jacket inspire a dissertation
Rivka Maizlish studies folk music, folklore, folk art, folk medicine – but she is not a folklorist. Maizlish is an intellectual historian, about to embark on a fellowship with the Smithsonian Institution to dive more deeply into the question, how did people in 20th century America define folk?
“I got interested in that from a number of angles,” said Maizlish, a PhD student at UW–Madison, “but the main thing is I just really love Bob Dylan.”
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.