Speakers

For the first time in its history, the Chazen Museum of Art has undertaken a complete overhaul of all 24 of its permanent collection galleries simultaneously. While projects of this scale are not uncommon for art museums, the Chazen's approach to reimagining the display and interpretation of its collection is distinctly innovative. Amy Gilman, Director, and Kate Wanberg, Exhibitions and Collections Project Manager, will discuss how the Chazen decided to move beyond traditional organizing frameworks such as chronology, geography, or theme and how the new design will encourage deeper engagement with the collection.

Scheduled Entrée to be: Lasagna

Trust shapes whether people show up, speak up, and work together, and right now it’s under strain. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer finds people pulling inward, trusting those who look, think, and live like them while growing wary of everyone else. Yet the same research points to an unexpected source of hope: employers remain the most trusted institution in public life, and people expect them to help bridge divides.

Angela Russell, Founder and Principal of The Undercurrent, will walk through what this year’s data reveals, how these patterns show up in employee engagement and workplace culture, and why the most promising responses are happening locally. Drawing on the work of WEAVERS, people who build connection across difference in their own neighborhoods, and the Social Trust Index, she will offer practical ways business and civic leaders can strengthen trust in Madison, starting within their own spheres of influence.

Join Laura Hilty, Principal of HealthX Ventures, as she traces how Epic’s growth sparked a Madison healthcare technology ecosystem. This talk will explore how digital health has grown beyond the medical record, what AI may make possible next, and how HealthX uses its knowledge of healthcare to identify ideas that can work in practice.

Scheduled Entrée to be: Salmon

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to University of Wisconsin–Madison Professor Francis Halzen for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy cosmic neutrinos. How can a telescope buried in Antarctic ice help us understand the universe? Dr. Lu Lu, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will introduce these elusive particles, explain how researchers detect them at the South Pole, and explore what they reveal about some of the universe's most powerful cosmic accelerators. Dr. Luwill also highlight Wisconsin's role in this international effort and look ahead to what comes next, including how artificial intelligence can help us make more discoveries.