06 Feb Chancellor Mnookin chronicles a ‘momentous year’ for UW–Madison despite challenges

By Greg Bump, UW–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is coming off a milestone year, from a rise in national research rankings to significant progress on important building projects that will modernize classroom and lab spaces to exciting growth in campus initiatives using emerging technologies.

To keep that momentum, UW–Madison must stay flexible and adaptable, with an eye on the long game.    

That was UW–Madison Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin’s message Thursday, Feb. 6, delivered to the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting at Union South.  

“We have had a momentous year with an enormous number of achievements that are building on our excellence and setting the stage for a truly exciting next chapter,” Mnookin said, while acknowledging challenges facing UW–Madison and higher education broadly. 

Mnookin touted the campus-wide RISE initiative, which encompasses three main areas of study – artificial intelligence, sustainability and health – to tackle grand challenges facing Wisconsin and the world. Announced last year, RISE is already spawning new collaborations among faculty who may not have worked together in the past, Mnookin said.        

One example is a collaboration between the School of Pharmacy and the School of Medicine and Public Health to find new ways to treat pancreatic cancer. In another project, faculty in radiology and biomedical engineering are using AI to examine lethal brain tumors.  Read more …