UW-Madison Graduate School

10/16/2026

Congratulations to the competition winners from the 11th Annual UW-Madison Postdoctoral Research Symposium held during last month’s National Postdoc Appreciation Week.

Blitz Talk Competition
Makita White, Wisconsin Center for Education Research
Marta Colosio, Department of Medicine

Poster Competition
Luara Freitas, Department of Animal & Dairy Sciences
Sayed Golam Mohiuddin, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Marta Colosio, Department of Medicine

(Photo credit: Luis Olivas)

10/14/2026

PhD candidate Uma R. Chatterjee has received the 2026 International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) Michael Jenike Young Investigator Award to support her dissertation work, which aims to identify the biological mechanisms that cause OCD and ultimately lead to more effective therapies for OCD.

“Scientifically, we still do not understand enough about what is happening in the brain to cause it–and that lack of biological understanding limits our ability to develop treatments that are effective for everyone,” Chatterjee said. “My project aims to help close this gap by asking a more precise question: how do changes in specific genes, within specific parts of the brain, lead to the symptoms of OCD?”

Her scholarship is informed by her own experience of living with severe OCD. Alongside her research, Chatterjee has spent years working in mental health advocacy and science communication, working with people who have OCD to explain how it affects the brain and the importance of conducting OCD research. She said this has led to firsthand exposure to the substantive gaps in recognition, understanding, and treatment for OCD.

“I know firsthand the immense suffering this disorder can cause, and that experience is at the heart of why I have dedicated my life and scientific career to understanding its biology and ultimately helping develop more effective treatments for our community,” she said.

Photo submitted by Uma R. Chatterjee

10/08/2026

The Graduate School Industry Internship Program gives PhD students experience in the private sector while also connecting employers with talented graduate students.

An internship program at UW–Madison gives PhD students experience in the private sector and connects employers with talented graduate students.

10/07/2026

Grab your fall beverage and meet us at the Graduate Programs Virtual Open House. ☕🍂

Explore UW-Madison Graduate School options and get application advice without leaving your couch: https://pdc.wisc.edu/virtual-open-house/

Learn more about UW-Madison graduate programs at our virtual open house.

10/07/2026

Anna Tommasi’s graduate research focuses on improving the accessibility and safety capabilities of CAR T-cell therapy.

In CAR T-cell therapy manufacturing, researchers engineer a patient’s immune cells (the T-cells) to better recognize and fight a specific disease or cancer. They do this by adding a Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) to the cells that can uniquely lock onto surface proteins found on cancerous cells for more specific targeting.

CAR T-cell therapy is very expensive, Tommasi said, in part due to the manufacturing of CAR T-cells at large enough scale for a human patient since a significant number of CAR T-cells are needed to adequately dose a patient. In addition, the failure rate in the manufacturing process can further complicate things, add significant cost, and set back the timeline for treatment.

Current FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapies target blood cancers. Researchers like Tommasi aim to make this therapy available for brain cancers like glioblastoma and neuroblastoma.

To work toward this goal, Saha and Capitini have partnered with the manufacturing company Cellares to produce CAR T-cells at a large scale. Tommasi has helped translate the recipe for making cells in UW–Madison research labs into a process Cellares can use with their equipment. She leverages her deep expertise with cell processing for this work.

“We’ve taken that same exact CAR-T cell manufacturing process that we have developed in research labs on campus, and we are trying to push this specific CAR T cell therapy closer to clinical trials with Cellares,” Tommasi said.

Photo submitted by Anna Tommasi.

09/30/2026

Dr. Sichen Song has received a PhRMA Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Drug Discovery to support his work making tuberculosis drugs more effective and accessible. Congratulations, Dr. Song! Read a Q&A about his work:

Dr. Sichen Song, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, aims to make tuberculosis treatment easier and more effective by creating medicines that are easier to store, better absorbed by the body, and require fewer pills for patients to take.

09/21/2026

Happy National Postdoc Appreciation Week to our wonderful postdocs! We are so glad you chose us as the next place to train and grow your career. Thank you for everything you do.

09/11/2026

It’s not every day that you can interact with a 150-year-old instrument. But thanks to astronomers’ dedication, anyone can visit the Washburn Observatory on a clear Wednesday night and gaze through its historic telescope.

“Since Washburn’s official opening in 1881, there has been a consistent tradition of opening the observatory for the public to view stars, planets, and other celestial phenomena, which makes it certainly the longest science outreach program at UW,” said Eli Sofovich, a PhD student in astronomy who coordinates the public observing nights at Washburn.

Every Wednesday in the summer, and twice a month the rest of the year, astronomy grad students open the dome of the observatory and position the telescope to give visitors a glimpse of something beyond our world. Anywhere from 40 to 120 people per night will visit to witness the wonders of the universe.

“It’s really cool to be there and to look through this telescope,” Sofovich said. “The people that come are wonderful people. They all have this curiosity, and they ask excellent, excellent questions. That’s the part of the job that really gives me the most fulfillment.”

Sofovich first became interested in astronomy as an undergraduate when he listened to a podcast about the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Astronomy interested, challenged, and motivated him, and he never looked back. His PhD research explores how the ingredients for life could exist on planets outside of our solar system.

There’s an innate human curiosity that studying the universe inspires, Sofovich said.

“Any human that looks up at the night sky is an astronomer in a way,” he said. “There’s something that opens up the mind, thinking about your place in the universe, thinking about all sorts of these big topics and looking up at this vast, beautiful thing above us, wondering what’s out there.”

📷 Photo of Washburn Observatory by Jeff Miller/UW–Madison. Second photo submitted by Eli Sofovich.

09/02/2026

Welcome to the fall semester, Badgers! Let's learn, create, discover, and grow together.

08/27/2026

New Graduate Student Welcome was a great start to the semester, welcoming more than 650 new graduate students to campus before classes begin.

We had a great time seeing the energy, excitement, and connections throughout the day. Special thanks to our campus partners, campus leaders, and panel volunteers who helped us bring it all together.