UW-Madison Dept of Bacteriology
“learning through discovery, excellence through diversity”
Greetings from the Chair
Thank you for visiting The UW-Madison Bacteriology Department’s website. We are eager to share with you our excitement about many recent changes and a truly exciting future.
Our department is committed to excellence and people. We are known for outstanding research and teaching.
We produce discoveries that contribute to basic knowledge and practical applications that affect people’s lives as well as a magnificent fleet of rigorously trained microbiologists. Our undergraduate and graduate students enter careers that contribute to the world in many ways -- through research, teaching, public service, industrial leadership, entrepreneurship, writing, editing, and government service. Our renowned faculty, staff and students have created a vibrant place to learn, teach, and conduct research, a place rich in opportunity, ideas, creativity, and resources, a place where people can flourish and discover their own potential. We achieve excellence through diversity because we engage many types of people with different perspective, talents, and styles in the problem-solving that is at the core of being a scientific community.
The past two years have been full of change for the Department of Bacteriology. We acquired 7 new faculty members who bring strength in ecology, food safety, and agricultural microbiology. With them, the department has acquired a breadth of science reminiscent of its early days, including emphases on nitrogen fixation, vitamin metabolism, host-microbe interactions, ecosystem level ecological modeling, and food safety. We moved into the Microbial Sciences Building, a towering structure that is the largest academic building on campus. (What does that say about the primacy of microbiology in Wisconsin?) We changed our undergraduate major, expanded our involvement in summer research programs, started a new group, “Friends of Bacteriology,” to advise us on our future, and initiated a vigorous new outreach effort.
As the new chair of this department, with its illustrious history and limitless future, I am awed by the opportunities and challenges that face us. Each day, our planet and its citizens confront massive crises that are caused or cured by our tiniest co-inhabitants. Each day, I am also reminded of the collective creativity and commitment in this thing we call our department, which is a potent force that has left a big footprint on the world for almost 100 years and will continue to do so as we soar into the 21st century of microbiology.
We invite you to learn more about us and join our journey.
Jo Handelsman
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor
Chair, Department of Bacteriology