When Sam Helle was growing up in the middle of Milwaukee, she didn’t expect to someday be a conservation biologist surveying tiger populations in the foothills of the Himalayas.
News
An Environmental Campus Walkabout
During the Spring 2023 semester, 13 Nelson Institute undergraduates took to the trails, streets, and sidewalks of the UW–Madison campus with a mission: to create an audio-based walking tour focused on the stories of environmental activism on campus.
Industry Revolution
Making copies, sorting files, delivering documents. These are tasks one might associate with your standard internship, but they’re nowhere to be found in the lineup of duties for students participating in UW–Madison’s Corporate Sustainability Internship Program.
Turning Ditches into Rain Gardens
Hello, property owner! Do you have unsightly ditches ruining your curb appeal?
Q & A with Andrea Dutton
Andrea Dutton stumbled upon the field of geoscience by complete accident.
A Zeal for Zambia
Lend Nelson Institute PhD student Colleen Henegan your ear and she’ll tell you all about her time in Zambia, a landlocked country in the south of Africa.
Q & A: Meet Morgan Edwards
What do you get when you combine the immediacy of the climate crisis with the nuances of public policymaking?
EnviroPros@10: History in the Making
“I shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family in the state.”
Profiting Sustainably
In Kyle Tanger’s playbook, the best defense is a good offense.
On Art and the Environment
What links the environment and art?
Lights, Camera, Conservation
Pretend, for a moment, that you’re in the audience for Taylor Swift’s highly talked about Eras Tour.
Center for Climatic Research Names New Bryson Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering professor and Nelson Institute faculty affiliate Paul Block has recently been named the Reid A. Bryson Distinguished Professor Chair for Climate, People, and Environment.
Litigation Mitigation
“Diesel dupe.” “Dieselgate.” “Emissionsgate.” Headlines were ripe with nicknames when the news broke in September 2015 that Volkswagen Group had violated the Clean Air Act by installing software in their diesel engines that tampered with emissions-testing results.
Government, Meet Academia
Six years after the conclusion of its inaugural partnership with the city of Monona, UniverCity Year has partnered with 29 Wisconsin communities, connecting local governments with UW–Madison resources.
Now Showing: Maya Land: Listening to the Bees
Like many other Indigenous groups, the Maya don’t view nature as a resource to take from, but as a collection of subjects to build reciprocal relationships with.
Learning without Limits
Our exploration crew has safely landed on the alien planet called “Earth.”
Boots on the Sand
On the north coast of Trinidad, there’s a long, remote stretch of beach.
Finding the Fun in Bureaucracy
At the end of the spring semester, the Nelson Institute welcomed the newest member of the senior leadership team: Steph Tai, professor of law, who joined the institute as its associate dean for education and faculty affairs.
The Psychology of Sustainable Farming
Nelson Institute environment and resources PhD student Sophia Winkler-Schor has spent most of her life fascinated with both the environment and Latin America.
Jon Martin Q&A
Growing up in northeastern Massachusetts, the frequent winter snowstorms (and days off from school that accompanied them) piqued Jon Martin’s interest as a kid.
An On-Track Diversion
If Travis Blomberg is successful, only 10 percent of UW–Madison’s waste will end up in a landfill.
EC Graduate and Board of Visitors Member Helps connect People to Urban Green Spaces
Hidden among the pavement and large buildings of many urban areas are small but sacred green spaces. From a young age Angélica Sánchez-Mora was able to appreciate both urban and rural living. Now, she works to help connect those living in urban spaces to the slices of nature around them.
Nelson Around the World
Although the Nelson Institute is housed within Science Hall at 550 North Park Street, our faculty, students, and alumni are sharing our mission and conducting research internationally.
Science Hall: A History
Science Hall is a building that bares its soul, says Daniel Einstein, historic and cultural resources manager at UW–Madison and graduate of the Nelson Institute.
A Welcome Return
Caitlin Williamson’s connection with the Nelson Institute runs deep, having graduated with the very first cohort of students to complete the environmental conservation (EC) master’s degree in 2015.