[1] The institute is located in the Discovery Building, which also houses the private biomedical-focused Morgridge Institute for Research and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation's Town Center, with which WID regularly partners to deliver outreach programming and public events.
The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery is led by Jo Handelsman, who was appointed in February, 2017, after serving in the Obama White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy.
[2] The faculty of the WID hold dual appointments at the institute and in departments across campus, including data science and visualization, tissue engineering and nanomedicine, -omics, health, agriculture, and complex systems.
[3] WID's approach to science involves calling on a broad community to identify and find solutions to big problems, encouraging interdisciplinary thought and action, and championing the Wisconsin Idea as a central tenet.
WID houses "Discovery Hubs" that are designed to be integrators for the campus community, generating new ideas that nucleate new collaborative projects.