RISE-EARTH lead and headquarters announced
By Natasha Kassulke, natasha.kassulke@wisc.edu
Chris Kucharik, professor of plant and agroecosystem sciences and investigator with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Wisconsin Energy Institute (WEI), has been chosen to lead the RISE-EARTH Collaboration Headquarters (HQ).
Housed inthe WEI, the HQ will advance interdisciplinary scholarship in sustainable energy and reimagining economic and environmental systems. WEI is an interdisciplinary research center within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.
Under Kucharik’s leadership, the HQ effort will advance research in these focus areas and build connections among UW–Madison’s existing community and new RISE-EARTH hires.
This announcement follows the September 2025 launch of the RISE-AI HQ with Data Science Institute Director Kyle Cranmer as the lead. As with RISE-AI, the RISE-EARTH HQ will participate in designing and executing the RISE-EARTH collaboration HQ’s seed grant competition, organize and facilitate campuswide meetings focused on creating connections among their RISE-EARTH scholarly community, and organize and facilitate meetings focused on creating connections with external partners, such as industry and community organizations.
“With the RISE-EARTH HQ we are building on, and learning from, the early success of the RISE-AI launch,” says Dorota Brzezinska, vice chancellor for research. “Chris is an excellent choice to lead this team given his long-time commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and integrative approach to problem solving, along with his experience in researching the dynamic interactions between our natural and agricultural land and weather patterns. With his team, Chris will help us identify opportunities for collaboration among campus and community partners, including those likely to attract significant external funding.”
“With his strong interest in mentoring, Chris will advance the goals of RISE-EARTH and lead the RISE-EARTH Collaboration Headquarters to shape and implement strategies for enhancing teaching and scholarly collaboration in undergraduate and graduate education and research, thereby cultivating the next generation of research and industry trailblazers,” says John Zumbrunnen, interim provost.
Kucharik is a mentor for an inaugural UW Distinguished Research Fellowship recipient under the RISE-EARTH umbrella, and is an expert in atmospheric sciences and land management and ecology. His research team is creating a mesonet, or a dense network of weather stations that provide high temporal resolution weather data and decision support tools. The Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet, called Wisconet, operates 78 stations across Wisconsin.
He also is a recipient of an OVCR Research Forward proposal that was funded by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), for agrivoltaics, which is studying the effectiveness of integrating solar panels on agricultural land.
Kucharik graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1997 with a PhD in atmospheric sciences.
“I am excited to get to work on this campus priority initiative and apply an interdisciplinary approach to research and problem solving for some of our biggest global issues, from human impacts to farming the planet, to water quality and quantity issues,” says Kucharik. “I’ve always incorporated ecology and biology into my research, and I look forward to bringing the next generation of earth sciences researchers to the table to join me and the rest of the RISE-EARTH collaborators in setting the stage for a sustainable and resilient future.”