Category: Alumni Story

For Jim Maynard, the dream of becoming a scientist at UW–Madison started young — around age six, in fact, when his sister used to sing “If you want to be a Badger” around the house. That early spark stuck, but the path to Madison ran through six years in the U.S. Navy first, more than …

When Pete Ellingson arrived at the University of Wisconsin–Madison to pursue a PhD in physical chemistry, he was looking for a program that offered both academic excellence and a collaborative environment. He found exactly that in the UW–Madison Department of Chemistry. “The department had the perfect combination of many faculty members whose research interests meshed …

Dr. Bob Bergman’s advice to future scientists is simple but demanding: choose work you genuinely love, because science requires patience, resilience, and intrinsic passion. His own path was marked by hard work, curiosity‑driven research, and transformative teaching.  Bergman reflects on his unlikely path into chemistry, the discoveries that shaped his career, and his belief that …