Notes from the Wedge
Announcements
Strategic ChallengesThanks to all the WIDites who are working on the action plans for our strategic challenges. Let's plan to have drafts of the action plans by the end of April and then review the entire document.

WID Events - Over the next two weeks, several WIDites will be involved in events: on Wednesday April 19, Randy Ashton, Kris Saha, and Rupa Sridharan will be involved in the Wisconsin Stem Cell Symposium; on Thursday April 20, Kris Saha will be part of a panel discussion on Gene Editing ; and on April 26-27, LEL will host an ethics in virtual reality conference at WID. These are good opportunities to learn more about what your colleagues are up to.

Seminar Series' - We will start planning a graduate student seminar and an all-WID seminar series. If you wish to serve on the committee that will design these, please let Nolan know.


Conference Room ProjectorsPlease be sure to shut down the video projectors at the end of your meeting via the in-room Crestron Touch Panels. Use the "Shut Down" button menu. This will help the Discovery Building reduce energy consumption and the frequency of costly replacement projector lamps.

Spring into Action - Properly dispose of items o n Friday from 10am-12pm
outside the Facilities Suite on the lower level to participate in this Discovery Community Event. Learn more about recycling programs offered at Discovery and ways that you can lessen your impact on the environment.

A Later Wedge - Starting with next week's issue, watch for the Wedge a little bit later in the day. You can expect it to arrive in your mailbox at 10:30 am on Mondays from now on.
Research Tweet: Sushmita Roy

The Roy lab develops novel computational tools based on statistical 
machine learning to identify context-specific gene regulatory networks, understand how these networks change between contexts (e.g., cell types, tissues, diseases, or species), and how such changes impact global organism phenotypes. We aim to use these networks to build predictive models of organism state to priortize new experiments. Our approaches leverage large collections of regulatory genomic datasets and are applicable to diverse yeast, plant and mammalian phylogenies.
On Being a WIDite

We will delay my comments on time management for another week because of a time-limited issue. Please note that on Saturday, April 22, 2017, there will be Marches for Science all around the United States, including in Madison. I encourage all those who want to make a statement about the importance of science to society to join the local march. This is also a good week to find other ways to raise the visibility of science in society. Congress is currently on recess and we expect them to vote on the FY17 budget upon their return to Washington, D.C. Strong support for science as demonstrated through the April 22nd marches might influence some votes or increase support for science. The FY17 omnibus budget contains solid appropriations for NIH, including the proposed $2 billion increase and addition funding from the 21st Century Cures bill. Other agencies may not fare as well as NIH. Following the passage of the FY17 bill, attention will transition to the FY18 budget, which arrived at Congress' doorstep with vast cuts for science agencies. If you have an opinion about this, express it.
 
In his 2007 speech as the president of AAAS, John Holdren said that all scientists should allocate at least 10% of their time to the public dialogue about science. Now, more than ever, this seems like good advice. Paradoxically, modern life is increasingly defined by science and technology, yet many sectors of the American public fail to see the value of scientific research or innovation. It is up to us as scientists and engineers to change this trend and ensure that we have a meaningful dialogue with the public about the scientific endeavor. So I hope that all WIDites will find a way, including perhaps the March for Science, to celebrate science in a public way. Write, speak, tweet, or sing about science during this week of science.
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