It’s a big week for the Wisconsin Center for Origins Research (WiCOR).
WiCOR, the brainchild of Eric Wilcots, the Dean of the College of Letters & Science and the Mary C. Jacoby Professor of Astronomy, was designed to connect researchers from multiple science-focused departments in the College, pairing them on research projects centered on the origins of life in the universe and synergizing their expertise. On Thursday, September 19, the Center debuted its new, renovated office and research space on the sixth floor of Sterling Hall. On Friday, September 20, they’ll host a public talk given by MIT Professor Sara Seager, an internationally respected scientist who studies exoplanets.
Originally, WiCOR included seven departments at UW — astronomy, botany, integrative biology, chemistry, geoscience, atmospheric and oceanic sciences (AOS), and bacteriology (in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences). As the idea has evolved and picked up steam, faculty from even more departments have expressed interest in becoming involved, including statistics and mathematics.
“We have people from all across campus that want to join the center now,” says Susanna Widicus Weaver, WiCOR’s provisional director and the Vozza Professor of Chemistry and Astronomy. “It’s growing quite dramatically.”
One of WiCOR’s first research projects will be supported by a UW–Madison Research Forward 2024 Grant. It centers on the study of hycean exoplanets, potentially habitable exoplanets in nearby galaxies that feature a liquid ocean and a hydrogen atmosphere. These exoplanets are the perfect size to be observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, launched into space two years ago.
A New Space to Explore Space
Dean Eric Wilcots addressed the crowd at Thursday's launch of the new space for the Wisconsin Center for Origins Research (WiCOR):
"WiCOR is a place where true interdisciplinary research that is curiosity-driven can thrive. Today marks the beginning of establishing Wisconsin as the place of research on the origins of life – not only here, but across the galaxy."
“If these hycean exoplanets are there, what else could be in the ocean?” asks Widicus Weaver, who is one of nine WiCOR investigators on the project. “Can the ingredients for life be there? If there is some sort of biology happening on one of these worlds, or even prebiotic chemistry, would we be able to see signs of that in the atmosphere?”
Along with Widicus Weaver, professors Ke Zhang (astronomy), Juliette Becker (astronomy) and Zoe Todd (astronomy and chemistry) are examining how exoplanets form. Professors Hannah Zanowski (AOS), Zach Adam (geoscience), Thomas Beatty (astronomy), Juliette Becker (astronomy) and Melinda Soares-Furtado (astronomy and physics) will study how the exoplanets evolve after formation. Finally, Beatty, Becker and Soares-Furtado will examine what influences an exoplanet’s potential for habitability.
WiCOR’s new space offers plenty of room and resources for this multidisciplinary research collaboration. An old library space has been converted and renovated into an administrative office, a classroom, a meeting room, and a pair of huddle rooms for research collaboration. That collaboration on the initial research project is already yielding benefits.
“We thought about what science we wanted to do next, and we realized no one’s ever done it before,” says Widicus Weaver. “Everything we’re doing is brand new, and it is open-ended in terms of what we can do with the science. It’s completely opened my horizons in terms of research, because I never would have been in a situation to be able to do this work before – I wouldn’t have had the expertise on my own.”
WiCOR’s leadership team is seeking external support to fund a summer boot camp for graduate students to become trained on the basics of origins-related research. They’re also developing a partnership with the Sloan Foundation and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory to train students from minority-serving institutions as summer research students.
