Research Events and Deadlines( September 2026 issue)
Posted September 10, 2026
Interested in STEM careers involving teaching or community engagement? Transform your passion into impact as a WISCIENCE Fellow — applications open Sept. 14
If you’re a STEM graduate student or postdoctoral scholar at UW–Madison looking to expand your reach beyond the lab, WISCIENCE offers three immersive, year-long Fellows Programs that equip you with the career-ready skills and experience to make an impact in academic, nonprofit, public sector or industry roles.
As a research mentor, you play an important role in helping graduate students and postdocs identify opportunities that support their professional development. WISCIENCE’s Fellows Programs may benefit some of your mentees and boost their career prospects.
Applications for these programs open on Sept. 14, so this may be a good time to discuss with them.
Learn more.
Hosted by The La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Wisconsin Policy Forum
Time: 5-7 p.m.
Location: Pyle Center
The event will include time for networking before and after the event and begin with a brief presentation from the Wisconsin Policy Forum on its recent research on data centers in Wisconsin, followed by a panel discussion.
Panelists:
Moderator: Jason Stein, president, Wisconsin Policy Forum
Maggie Brickerman, president, Wisconsin Technology Council
Jason Delborne, associate professor, La Follette School of Public Affairs
State Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay
State Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers
Registration here: https://lafollette.wisc.edu/event/the-data-center-challenge-weighing-community-concerns-with-growth-opportunities/
Registration is free. Register
here by Sept. 17. Full schedule
here.
Location: HF DeLuca Forum, Discovery Building.
Organized in honor of National Postdoc Appreciation Week, the symposium offers opportunities for community building among postdocs, robust professional development activities, and recognition of the critical role postdocs perform in UW research. Activities include:
- AI for Postdocs Panel Discussion
- Research Communication Workshop
- Blitz Talk Competition
- Poster Competition including two Poster Sessions
- Resource Fair
- Lunch and Reception
The symposium is organized by the
UW–Madison Postdoctoral Association.
Sponsorship is provided by the Morgridge Institute for Research, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.
MaGIC 2026, the 14th meeting of the Machine-Ground Interaction Consortium – Sept. 22-24 (register by Sept. 15)
Location: DeLuca Forum, Discovery Building
The 2026 MaGIC meeting emphasizes modeling and simulation in fields such as terramechanics, mechatronics, bio-robotics, geomechanics, and embodied AI. The event is focused equally on terrestrial and extraterrestrial applications.
Overview of the program:
Training: Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026 (PyChrono tutorials).
Invited Talks: Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026 (morning and afternoon).
Poster Session: Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, early evening; open to all participants.
Invited Talks: Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026 (morning and afternoon).
Waisman Whirl Run, Walk & Roll for All Abilities – Sept. 26
Time: 9-11 a.m.
Location: Waisman Center parking lot
Proceeds benefit individuals and families affected by developmental disabilities and neurodegenerative diseases.
Department of Human Oncology hosts an annual fundraising event for cancer research called Badger Challenge – Sept. 27
All routes take place on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. Walkers, runners and bikers participating remotely in Badger Challenge’s Global Program also must register by Sept. 27, 2026.
Learn more.
Join ICTR’s Recruitment & Retention Resource Center for a virtual workshop series, Beyond Enrollment: Practical Methods for Improving Study Retention — first session is Sept. 28
Learn how UW–Madison study teams are improving research study participant engagement and reducing attrition. Presenters will share real-world examples and practical retention strategies you can apply to your own research. All members of research teams are encouraged to attend.
Register today for the first session noon to 1 p.m. on Sept.28
Global Health Tuesday Webinar: Trust, Information, and Outbreak Response: Lessons from Ebola – Sept. 29
Time: 9-10 a.m.
The discussion will focus on Trust, Information, and Outbreak Response: Lessons from Ebola.
Dr. James Conway, Professor, Divisions of Infectious Diseases & Global Pediatrics; Director, Office of Global Health; Program Director, Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship, UW School of Medicine and Public Health leads the discussion with panelists Apoorva Mandavilli, Science and Global Health Reporter, The New York Times; Dr. Peter Halfmann, Professor, Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine; Halfmann Laboratory, Influenza Research Institute, UW–Madison; and Dr. Craig Spencer, Emergency Medicine Physician; Associate Professor of the Practice, Brown University School of Public Health.
Please use this Zoom link to register.
Badger Connect Research Services Fair – Oct. 1
Hosted by the UW Carbone Cancer Center and UW Biotechnology Center, the BadgerConnect Research Services Fair joins shared resources with industry partners to showcase technologies and research support available to UW–Madison researchers. Learn about innovative technologies and discuss your project with shared resources staff to see how your research can be supported and enhanced.
The FREE event includes a keynote lecture, flash talks, instrument demonstrations, and a networking reception with FREE refreshments — all aimed to foster collaborations and take your research to the next level.
Time: Noon to 4:30 p.m.
Location: Health Sciences Learning Center (HSLC) Atrium
For more information and to register, visit the BadgerConnect webpage
From the Notebook to the Cluster three-part workshop – Begins Oct. 7
From the Notebook to the Cluster is a three-part, hands-on workshop series for UW–Madison researchers who work in R (the most widely used programming languages in the field of data science) and want to move an analysis from a personal laptop to the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC). It is not a series about three R packages. It is a series about a workflow: how to take a research project from ‘runs on my machine’ to reproducible, to portable, to something that can scale out across hundreds of CHTC jobs.
If you have ever gotten an analysis working perfectly on your laptop and then watched it fall apart the moment someone else tried to run it–a missing package version, a path that only exists on your machine, an environment that quietly drifted out from under you–this series is for you. That gap between ‘it works for me’ and ‘it works, period’ is exactly where most computational research projects get stuck, and it is the gap this series is designed to close.
Workshop details
All three sessions will be held in-person from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in room 3139 of Computer Sciences.
- Wednesday, Oct. 7:
Part 1 – Starting Clean: Reproducible R Projects with toolero
- Wednesday, Oct. 14:
Part 2 – Portable Research: Containerizing R Projects with containr
- Wednesday, Oct. 22:
Part 3 – Scaling Out: Running Containerized R Projects on CHTC with submitr
Learn more.
Global, Together Seed Grant (GTSG) program – Deadline to apply is Oct. 26
As part of the launch of Global, Together—the campus internationalization framework—the International Division is pleased to announce the Global, Together Seed Grant (GTSG) program. The goal is to spark innovative international collaborations by faculty and academic staff who seek to build or expand international research, teaching, or creative endeavors that address global challenges with local resonance. Proposed activities should lead to the development or advancement of a funded or self-sustaining project.
Deadline for submission of applications is Oct. 26. The selection decision will be announced in late November 2026 with funds disbursed to recipients’ home unit in December 2026.
Learn more.
The UW–Madison Global Health Institute’s 2026-27 Global Health Tuesday Webinar continues Oct. 27
Time: 9 a.m.
Topic: “Climate Change & Global Displacement.”
Sumudu Atapattu, teaching professor abd director, Global Legal Studies Center, University of Wisconsin Law School, leads the discussion with panelists:
Kayly Ober, visiting scholar, Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Elizabeth G. Ferris, senior fellow, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University
David Cantor, director and professor of refugee law, Refugee Law Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London.
Find more info & register for this free virtual webinar
here.
Fifth Annual Sustainability Symposium – Oct. 28
The event will feature lightning talks, poster sessions, and a keynote address on sustainability and entrepreneurship.
The Sustainability Symposium brings together people from across campus to share work, exchange ideas, and highlight research, projects, and partnerships advancing sustainability at UW–Madison.
This year’s theme is Sustainability and Entrepreneurship. There will be flash talks, poster presentations, and a keynote address by Dr. Erica Plambeck ’94 of the Standford Graduate School of Business.
Lewis Sheats, associate vice chancellor for entrepreneurship and executive director of the Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub, will join the symposium and the event will honor Jim Weinert of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship for his continued support of sustainability and entrepreneurship at UW–Madison.
The 2026 event is presented by the Office of Sustainability with support from Facilities Planning & Management, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW Environmental Awareness Fund, Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub, Wisconsin School of Business and Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship.
Learn more.
Draper-TIP funding applications due Nov. 13
The Draper Technology Innovation Fund (TIF) provides a mechanism to support the additional research necessary to bring new concepts and inventions to the patent and licensing stage.
Any faculty or academic staff member with an invention that has been disclosed to and accepted by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for patenting or similar intellectual property protection is eligible.
