Wisconsin Energy Institute Events

Wisconsin Energy Institute Grand Opening Recap

On April 5 and 6, we celebrated the opening of our state-of-the-art facility with two days of events exploring energy at UW-Madison. 

Students filled the WEI atrium early on Friday morning to participate in the first-ever Energy Career Fair and learn about opportunities in the energy industry for students from many disciplines and with varied aspirations.

“We are really trying to branch out beyond that traditional view of energy being just science and engineering. While they’re still very important, we’ll need much more,” said John Greenler, Director of Education for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, in an interview with Channel 3000.

Dr. Cheryl Martin, Deputy Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), headlined a public symposium celebrating energy research. Dr. Martin highlighted the efforts that ARPA-E makes to help connect people to form collaborative projects.

“Explorers are innovators that push the envelope for what we know about the world around us,” Dr. Martin said. “ARPA-E is an explorer of the energy world and exploration will be necessary to find an innovative future across the globe.”

On Saturday, we transformed our building into an educational playground and encouraged visitors to explore energy through hands-on activities. A mitten challenge asked participants to build Lego sets while wearing oven mitts, showing people that the tools we use affects the work we’re trying to do. A group of graduate students from the sustainability research lab at the WEI showed visitors that soil breathes and what that means for energy, the environment and people.

Stay tuned into this page for information about our 2013 Energy Summit. In the meantime, check below to see some of our favorite photos from the Wisconsin Energy Institute opening or view additional photos in our Facebook gallery.