UW-Madison is an outstanding research institution that places great emphasis on graduate training. The latest survey data show it receiving the most federal science/engineering funding of any public university and ranked second among all universities, behind Johns Hopkins. State-of-the-art facilities and resources are available for student training and research in molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, and other disciplines encompassed in the field of microbiology and immunology. Shared resources at the university or college level include the Biotechnology Center and Genome Center for oligonucleotide synthesis, DNA sequencing, protein analytical and preparative services, and DNA microarray construction and analysis for functional and comparative genomic studies; flow cytometry facilities; a polyclonal antiserum service; accredited animal facilities; and a variety of microscopic and other imaging services. Individual departments and faculty labs provide other resources, including biocontainment facilities and equipment for work with microbial pathogens. Predoctoral students have full access to the infrastructure necessary for performance of the day-to-day bench research that is the major focus of their graduate training. Institutional support is also provided from individual lab grant funds or graduate program resources for graduate student stipends, fringe benefits, and tuition through research assistantships or supplementation of outside traineeships or fellowships. For instance, if the student stipend set by the graduate program exceeds the NIH allocation for a predoctoral traineeship awardee (as invariably happens), the federal funding is supplemented by nonfederal funding of the program or thesis advisor. The Graduate School also awards Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation fellowships to particularly talented incoming students, Advanced Opportunity Fellowships to underrepresented minority students, and one year of funding to incoming students who previously participated in undergraduate research programs at UW.
Graduate students constitute about one-third of the approximately 45,000 UW-Madison students. Our university has been termed a “campus without walls,” and the biological sciences are a particularly interactive and dynamic research and teaching area at UW. On any given day, there will likely be at least one invited faculty seminar and/or one interlab research focus area meeting relevant for a particular student. For example, outside speakers are invited for the weekly MMI 900 Journal Club in Microbial Pathogenesis & Host Responses, the weekly Bacteriology departmental Distinguished Lectures in Microbiology series, and one or two speakers per semester for the Microbiology Doctoral Training Program student-hosted seminars. Interlab research interest groups include the Microbial Pathogenesis & Host Responses Group and the UW Interlab Pathogenic Fungus Group, each of which meets regularly for presentations by faculty, students, and postdoctoral fellows. Madison also hosts numerous regional, national, and international scientific meetings, providing another important learning opportunity for graduate students as well as reflecting research and organizational prominence of UW faculty. For example, UW-Madison hosts the following annual meetings on a regular rotation basis: Yeast Genetics & Molecular Biology, Molecular Genetics of Bacteria & Phages, Midwest Prokaryotic Molecular Genetics & Physiology, and Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis. The first three include sessions devoted to microbial pathogenesis and host-pathogen interactions, and the last is entirely devoted to this topic area.
For more information regarding the University of Wisconsin-Madison, please see their website at http://www.wisc.edu/wiscinfo/welcome/.
