Skip to main content

College of Engineering news

Students and postdoctoral fellows researching innovations in STRAP recycling
September 25, 2023

With innovation and determination, grad students drive new plastics recycling applications

Take a stroll through a grocery store and one thing is clear—almost everything, from meat and bread to produce and cookies—is packaged in some form of plastic. While those wrappers…

Algae blooms
August 31, 2023

On manure diet, cyanobacteria is a balanced biofertilizer that can help keep phosphorous out of our lakes

In Madison, Wisconsin, May is typically a great time to experience the city’s four large lakes; while the air temperature warms up, the water is still relatively cool and clear,…

Professor George Huber and postdoctoral researcher Houqian Li working in lab
August 10, 2023

Revolutionary chemical recycling process adds big value to ‘junk’ plastic waste

Although many Americans dutifully deposit their plastic trash into the appropriate bins each week, much of that material, including flexible films, multilayer materials and a lot of colored plastics are…

Jason Kawasaki working in his lab
June 27, 2023

Major NSF-sponsored materials research center funded for $18 million

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) has received $18 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for interdisciplinary exploration of fundamental questions in…

computational researcher doing coding
June 5, 2023

Perspective highlights need for systemic change to make computational research a more welcoming field for women

While overt discrimination and harassment of women is not as common as it used to be, women still face substantial barriers that many people in the computational materials research community…

fertilizer production iStock image
April 6, 2023

New atomic-scale understanding of catalysis could unlock massive energy savings

Catalysts are materials that accelerate chemical reactions without undergoing changes themselves. They are critical for refining petroleum products and for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, plastics, food additives, fertilizers, green fuels, industrial chemicals…

student doing hands-on work
March 20, 2023

UW-Madison engineering talent critical to state, national economic progress

Updated: March 20, 2023 Many of Wisconsin’s most notable companies have grown from family businesses founded decades ago into multibillion-dollar companies with an international reach—and engineers drive the innovations that…

Fang Liu working in the lab
March 16, 2023

Great minds converge here

We’re expanding our faculty expertise in energy storage, semiconductors, autonomous systems and data science … and we’re planning to grow for greater impact. Fang Liu arrived on the UW-Madison campus…

February 13, 2023

With new technique, we’ve increased understanding of electrochemical interfaces

University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers and Cornell University researchers have pioneered a noninvasive way of measuring an important but difficult to determine variable in electrochemical interfaces—the points in batteries and fuel…

Beichen Liu, Wenxiao Guo and Matthew Gebbie in the lab
February 10, 2023

Gebbie’s CAREER Award is catalyst for electrochemical CO2 recycling

Getting to net-zero carbon emissions is going to take all sorts of tactics, including switching to renewable energy and finding new methods of carbon sequestration, or collecting and preventing carbon…