Interdisciplinary team launches new efforts to untangle evolutionary histories

Researchers in Botany, Horticulture, Statistics and Computer Scienced, led by Assistant Professor Cecile Ane (Statistics and Botany) are collaborating to find out why different genes tell different stories about the past history of species.

They aim to better understand the variability in vertical transmission of genetic material from generation to generation, and also understand how much horizontal transmission of genetic material has occurred in the past, such as from hybridization between species.

They were awarded NSF funding to integrate powerful statistical methods and software development.

These tools will allow them — and many other evolutionary biologists beyond our campus to extract vertical and horizontal signals from massive genomic data.

Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
Tags: , , ,

L&S graduate programs highly rated by U.S. News and World Report

Several University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate programs — many in the College of Letters & Science — are ranked among the nation's best in the 2011 edition of U.S. News and World Report's "Best Graduate Schools."

Graduate school rankings are an indicator of the overall quality of the department and caliber of its teaching and faculty.

Not all programs are ranked every year. Those UW programs ranked this year (along with specialties ranked in the top 10 nationally) include:

• Chemistry: tied for seventh overall, with specialties ranked in analytical (eighth), biochemistry (fifth), inorganic (seventh), organic (ninth), physical (seventh) and theoretical (ninth).
• Computer sciences: tied for 11th overall, with specialties ranked in  programming language (10th), and systems (seventh).
  
• Biological sciences: tied for 15th overall, with a specialty ranked in microbiology (third).
• Earth sciences: tied for 13th overall, with specialties ranked in geochemistry (eighth) and geology (eighth).
• Mathematics: tied for 16th overall, with specialties ranked in analysis (10th) and logic (fifth).
• Physics: tied for 17
• Statistics: tied for 12th.

Other highly ranked UW-Madison programs include:

• School of Education: ninth overall. Specialties were ranked in curriculum and instruction (first), education policy (third), elementary education (second), secondary education (second), counseling and personnel services (second), administration and supervision (second), educational psychology (first) and special education (tied for ninth).
• College of Engineering: tied for 15th overall. Specialties were ranked in nuclear (second), chemical engineering (tied for sixth), industrial manufacturing (tied for 10th).
• School of Business: tied for 27th overall. The school's part-time MBA program was tied for 15th.th overall, with a specialty ranked in plasma (tied for second).
• Law: Tied for 28th. 
  
• Medicine:  Tied for 27th, with specialties ranked in primary care (tied for 12th), family medicine (fifth), rural medicine (eighth).
  

For more on the rankings, visit: http://www.usnews.com/

New via University Communications 

Category: College Updates
Tags: , , , , , ,