Celebrating spring 2026 graduates
From healthcare research to building campus community, this year’s crop of CDIS graduates is as impressive and ambitious as ever. Here’s to the class of 2026.
College of Computing & Artificial Intelligence
From healthcare research to building campus community, this year’s crop of CDIS graduates is as impressive and ambitious as ever. Here’s to the class of 2026.
After nearly four decades of untangling some of the most complex mathematical puzzles in optimization, Professor Michael Ferris is stepping back — or at least stepping sideways. The John P. Morgridge Chair and Jacques-Louis Lions Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison will officially retire on June 30, closing a chapter that began when a young Cambridge mathematician arrived in Madison for what was supposed to be just one year.
On May 8, 2026, graduating PhD students walked across the floor in the Hello, World classroom in Morgridge Hall and received their hoods as the culmination of their graduate careers. Now they are alumni and headed to careers in fields that vary from industry to academia.
“We do very practical things that can have a real impact,” Banerjee says. “We are always looking for interesting collaborations with people who feel that they have an interesting problem.”
“Low vision is a complex and widespread condition that affects millions of people, yet it remains underrepresented in technology research,” Dr. Zhao said. “To create truly effective tools, we need a deeper understanding of users’ lived experiences and the flexibility to design technologies that adapt to their environments and preferences.”
After more than two decades in the classroom, Teaching Professor Debra Deppeler is retiring from the Department of Computer Sciences, leaving behind a legacy measured not just in years but in students. Deb earned an MS at UW-Madison in Computer Sciences in 2000 and joined the department in 2001. In her 25 years with the department, Deb has taught a staggering 15,000 undergraduates.
$100 million in philanthropic support and a significant campus investment, including 50 new faculty positions, will support research, education and innovation
When students join a WISCURDS project, they often arrive with ideas about what they hope to gain from the experience: a stronger resume, a letter of recommendation, maybe a publication. Less often do they fully anticipate how the work will reshape the way they think about their field, their collaboration, and themselves.
Observing gaps in Large Language Models’ (LLMs’) abilities to process tabular data motivated UW-Madison Computer Sciences PhD candidate Sonia Cromp to develop Tabby, an architecture modification to LLMs that improves how they handle structured data. Cromp began working on Tabby two and a half years ago, after realizing there were weaknesses in generative modeling, particularly for tabular data, within LLMs.
Congratulations, graduates! The Computer Sciences Department will be holding in-person graduation ceremonies . . .