Research Mentor Learning Communities (Spring 2025)

Delta’s Research Mentor Learning Communities are for graduate students and postdocs who are mentoring and for whom mentoring may be an important part of their future career. Several sections available, online or in-person.

Commencement flag bearer Julia Martien finds the fun path forward

Julia Martien found it overwhelming when she began to receive awards recognizing the contributions she’s made to UW–Madison. She recently received the Jennifer L. Reed Bioenergy Science Award, which recognizes an early-career woman who has made significant contributions to the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center’s research portfolio.

And this month, she’ll be the flag bearer for the Graduate School at the Winter 2021 Commencement ceremony, where she will graduate with her PhD in microbiology.

Pandemic can’t keep student from bringing MFA show to public

UW–Madison graduate student Guzzo Pinc’s MFA show this spring was to represent the culmination of three years of work in the graduate painting program. But, just two weeks before his show was scheduled, UW–Madison announced alternate delivery modes for classes and canceled in-person events due to growing public health concerns about COVID-19.

Despite the initial shock and a feeling of “despair,” Pinc became determined to find a way to bring his exhibition — “EGGS: A Grand Scale Painting Comedy” — into public view.

How grad students developed a toxicology class taught thousands of miles away

There are plenty of teaching opportunities on a large campus like UW–Madison, but one group of grad students has expanded their reach across continents with a newly developed course. Graduate students in the Molecular and Environmental Toxicology Program developed a core curriculum in toxicology, designed for students with varying levels of chemistry knowledge, that recently completed its first run at the University of Sierra Leone.

Disclosure process helps grad students bring inventions to market

Graduate students don’t always start their studies with the goal of becoming an inventor. But the numbers show a different outcome: over half of UW–Madison invention disclosures to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation include at least one graduate student who has conducted research on the project.

Public humanities project to bring cultural center to camp for veterans and first responders

Now in its third year, nonprofit Wisconsin Hero Outdoors has partnered with Lakewood WWV Camp in Lake Geneva to create a cultural retreat that gives the veteran and first responder community a space of their own. Graduate student Nick Harnish, a Public Humanities Scholar with the UW–Madison Center for the Humanities, is leading a project to renovate a lighthouse at the camp, turning it into a cultural center.

Revival of Ojibwe Winter Games an opportunity for community-university collaboration

Friendship is the first word that comes to Wayne Minogiizhig Valliere’s mind when asked about a partnership between UW–Madison and the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

“It’s a really good collaboration between the university and our students,” said Valliere, an Ojibwe language and culture instructor, and former artist-in-residence at UW–Madison.

The partnership he’s talking about includes a series of projects with the Lac du Flambeau public schools: bringing back the traditional Ojibwe Winter Games, building birchbark canoes, and inspiring similar projects across the state.