Professional Development
- Teaching Resources
- Research Resources
- Courses, Workshops, etc.
- Other
Teaching Resources
Institute for Biology Education
UW–Madison's Institute for Biology Education fosters excellence and innovation in biology education on campus, in the surrounding communities, and beyond.
Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning
CIRTL promotes the development of a national faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) committed to implementing and advancing effective teaching practices for diverse student audiences as part of their professional careers.
Delta Program
The Delta Program is a research, teaching and learning community for faculty, academic staff, post-docs, and graduate students that will help current and future faculty succeed in the changing landscape of science, engineering, and math higher education. Through three core ideas: teaching-as-research, learning-through-diversity, and learning community, the Delta Program in Research, Teaching and Learning supports current and future science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) faculty in their ongoing improvement of student learning. The Delta Program offers the Delta Teaching Certificate and other programs for students in the natural and social sciences.
HHMI Teaching Fellows Program
One of the goals of the Howard Hughes Medical Institite (HHMI) is to help train future faculty (current graduate students and postdocs) in the life sciences to become scientific teachers. They offer two programs: one in classroom teaching and one in mentoring. HHMI Teaching Fellows may apply to one or both programs.
Teaching Academy
The UW-Madison Teaching Academy promotes effective education by encouraging innovation, experimentation, and dialogue about teaching and learning. It is composed of faculty members and instructional staff who provide leadership to strengthen undergraduate, graduate, and outreach teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Future Faculty Partner program (FFP) within the Teaching Academy encourages a commitment to teaching in the next generation of college and university educators. Affiliation with FFP allows those with a continuing academic connection to UW-Madison who are engaged in graduate or professional study for a career in higher education teaching to apply to be a 'Future Faculty Partner' of the Teaching Academy.
Teaching and Learning Excellence@UW-Madison
TLE@UW-Madison is an all-campus virtual center aimed at helping to enrich courses and teaching by providing a crossroads among the many campus and college organizations and services available at UW-Madison.
Teaching and Learning Symposium
TLS offers professional development courses, workshops, and symposia.
Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching
WPST strives to enhance undergraduate biology education by training scientific teachers. Participation of graduate students and postdocs is welcomed.
Research Resources
Librarian Liaison
Steenbock offers a professional librarian as a liaison to each CALS department. They can be helpful in answering questions, suggesting resources, setting up automated literature alerts, and meeting with individuals or groups for training in using specialized resources. You can view the list of liaisons by their name or by department.
Steenbock Library
Research resources are available through the Steenbock Library website. They include services specific to graduates students, as well as drop-in workshops on a number of topics.
NIH Open Access
NIH has instituted a new open access policy, effective April 7, 2008. All accepted, peer-reviewed manuscripts (not the print-ready copy) arising, in whole or in part, from direct costs funded by NIH, must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. These manuscripts will be made publicly available on PubMed Central within 12 months of the publication date. The UW Library offers assistance with complying.
Courses, Workshops, Symposia, and Other Events
Academic Technology workshops
DoIT Academic Technology offers a variety of technical workshops on information technology.
Gradlink@Madison
Gradlink provides information on funding opportunities, career fairs, and professional development activities of interest to graduate students.
Graduate School Seminar and Workshop Series
The Graduate Schools offers a variety of professional development events listed on this site.
Graduate Student Collaborative
GSC sponsors a variety of opportunities for professional development and social interaction.
Graduate Student Professional Development
The Graduate School offers this portal to a wealth of resources (offering advice ranging from presentation skills to dissertation help to networking and careers). This is a great starting point for investigating on- and off-campus professional development opportunities.
Software Training for Students
DoIT's Software Training for Students offers an abundance of courses on everything from web design to photo editing to working with spreadsheets.
The Writing Center
The Writing Center offers information and workshops on scientific writing.
Other Professional Development Resources
Books on Professional Development
- Lab Dynamics: Management Skills for Scientists
By Carl M. and Suzanne L. Cohen, Science Management Associates, Newton
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 2005
ISBN 978-087969816-4
Details from the publisher here. - Entering Mentoring
This guide developed by HHMI Professor, Jo Handelsman, and her colleagues and co-founders of the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, raises questions about teaching expectations, mentoring as a function of training new teachers, and dealing with diverse learning styles, personal styles, ethnicity, experience, gender and nationality.
Available for download here. - Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Post docs and New Faculty.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Available for download here. - Training Scientists to Make the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Developing Programs in Scientific Management
Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Available for download here.
Committee on Institutional Cooperation
The CIC is a consortium of 12 research universities, including the 11 members of the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago. the mission of CIC is to advance academic excellence by sharing resources and promoting and coordinating collaborative activities across the member universities.
Graduate Women in Science (GWIS)
WIS (Sigma Delta Epsilon) provides opportunities for members to present seminars and also offer grants and fellowships. They can be contacted at:
- GWIS, University of Wisconsin-Madison Beta Chapter
- Box 23 Union South
- 227 N. Randall Street
- Madison WI 53715
Humans and the Global Environment
An IGERT (integrative Graduate Education and Research Traneeship) grant from the National Science Foundation supports the creation of a graduate Certificate on Humans and the Global Environment (CHANGE) and provides fellowships for PhD students. The program involves faculty members in departments ranging across atmospheric and oceanic sciences, ecology, environmental studies, veterinary medicine, and sociology.
Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences
The Strategic Management in the Life and Engineering Sciences (SMILES) MBA program fuses leading-edge science with strategy and policy making.
Ten Simple Rules for Scientists
The open access Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals have provided short narratives called "Ten simple rules" for collaborating, getting a post-doc, getting a grant, designed good talks, designing good posters, publishing, and reviewing. The documents are available for download as PDF files (requires Adobe Reader).
- » Rules for Successful Collaboration
- » Selecting a Postdoctoral Position
- » Getting Grants
- » Making Good Oral Presentations
- » For a Good Poster Presentation
- » For Getting Published
- » For Reviewers
Tips on Keeping Good Lab Notebooks
UW Biology Outreach Club
UW-Madison's Guide to Professional Development Resources
The Guide provides a complication of resources on professional development available to graduate students.
WARF's Lab Book Guidelines
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation offers this helpful guide on recordin, maintaining, and storing laboratory notebooks.
Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI)
WISELI is a centralized administrative structure with a mission to address impediments to women's academic advancement and is a useful resource for everyone affiliated with the UW.
PhDNet, the online community for graduate students and PhDs
PhDnet is an online resource for graduate students that could found "here" (www.phdnet.org). The site has an online newsletter and lots of tips on how to go about graduate studies. It was created by Dora Farkas, who received her PhD from MIT.