University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

[1] CALS has a robust research enterprise, covering everything from fundamental aspects of biological sciences to the immediate problems and opportunities facing Wisconsin farms and businesses.

[2] The college offers more than 20 undergraduate majors, which are grouped into five areas of study:[3] CALS has 15 academic departments [4] that instruct students and carry out research in areas such as food systems; ecosystems; climate change; bioenergy and bioproducts; economic and community development; and health and wellness.

In 1923, biochemistry professor Harry Steenbock devised a way to fortify foods with vitamin D through exposure to ultraviolet light.

Biochemistry professor Conrad Elvehjem’s work on vitamin B-3 in the 1930s contributed to a cure for pellagra, a deadly, nutrition-related disease that reached epidemic proportions in the United States in the first half of the 20th century.

The first artist-in-residence was John Steuart Curry, an American Regionalist painter, who arrived at the university in the fall of 1936.