Inspiring evidence-based policymaking
You’ve heard his distinctive voice reporting “the biggest stories of our time” in your headphones, now see him live on stage. Michael Barbaro is the founding host of The New York Times’ hit podcast, The Daily, and an award-winning journalist. On October 20 he will sit down with Susan Webb Yackee, director of the La …
A few years ago, most Wisconsinites had never heard of data centers. Now it has rapidly become one of the top issues in the race for governor, and a hot-button topic in communities across the state. On September 16, the La Follette School hosted a joint event with the Wisconsin Policy Forum titled The Data …
This past year was transformational for the La Follette School, marked by incredible growth, exciting new opportunities for our students, and important milestones that will shape La Follette for years to come. As you will read in this year’s report, inspiring highlights from the past year include: We are at a pivotal moment in the …
Associate Professor Lauren Schmitz of the La Follette School was one of just 18 UW–Madison faculty members to receive a coveted 2026-2027 H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship this summer. Named after the late Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Trustee President, the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship is awarded annually by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research …
Michael Powell joins La Follette as an assistant professor. He earned his PhD in Political Science at the University of Missouri after spending nearly a decade as a nonprofit executive and attorney working in the conservation land trust sector. His research focuses on comparative environmental policy, specifically the intersections between humans, ecology, and land use, …
Effective this fall, Morgan Edwards will officially be a tenured member of the La Follette faculty. This comes after the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents unanimously voted to recommend her for tenure in December 2025. Her new title is associate professor. Edwards’ cutting-edge research focuses on energy responses to the climate crisis and the …
On August 25, the College of Letters & Sciences officially approved the La Follette faculty’s recommendation to appoint Professor J. Michael Collins as the next director of the La Follette School. He will begin his post on January 1, 2027. Collins is an accomplished scholar who studies consumer decision-making in the financial marketplace and the …
This article by Susan Yackee was published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Ideas Lab as part of the 2026 Main Street Agenda. According to our friends at the Marquette Law School, 19% of Americans say they can never trust the government while only 18% say they can trust the federal government to do what is right all or most of …
50 leading environmental social scientists from around the world converged on Madison this summer for the 2026 Environmental Politics & Governance Conference hosted by La Follette’s Manny Teodoro. The conference, which took place June 29 to July 1 in the Memorial Union, brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers from the Environmental Politics and Governance …
In July 2026, Graduate Program Manager Mo O'Connor retired after an impressive student-facing career that included time as a high school teacher and 25 years in career services across multiple UW–Madison departments.