WCER’s Andrew Ruis Wins 2025 Academic Staff Excellence Award
One of 10 awardees campuswide, he received a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research: Critical Research Support
April 22, 2025 | By UW–Madison/WCER Communications
Andrew Ruis is among 10 academic staff members across campus to win awards for excellence this year.
UW–Madison announced Tuesday that Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) scientist Andrew Ruis is one of 10 recipients across campus to win a 2025 Academic Staff Excellence Award. Ruis, the associate director of WCER's Center for Research on Complex Thinking (CCRT), received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research: Critical Research Support, cementing his reputation on campus for brilliance both as a researcher and an administrator supporting scientific work.
Ruis helped develop grant-management and budgeting systems that significantly improved research efficiency, first in his lab and then in CCRT. He was instrumental in founding and securing start-up funding for the new center, which supports ambitious interdisciplinary research. Ruis also mentors junior scholars on research design, writing, and career development.
“Dr. Ruis embodies a professional culture of not chasing awards but focusing instead on doing work that is award-worthy,” says Brendan Eagan, associate director for partnerships for CCRT.
As a researcher, Ruis helped secure more than $17 million in extramural research grants over the past decade. He led the development of iPlan, a sophisticated educational tool that has helped more than 7,000 students learn about environmental science and civic processes that determine how land is used. Read more about how iPlan was developed and what it can do in this article.
Andrew Ruis
Last year, the National Science Foundation awarded Ruis $3 million as the principal investigator on a grant to help students learn about climate change in their own communities and how to take action to address it. Additionally, he is a rising star in the new international research field of quantitative ethnography in CRCT's Epistemic Analytics Lab, where Ruis is associate director for research.
Ruis also is a fellow in the Department of Medical History and Bioethics in UW–Madison's School of Medicine and Public Health. He is the author of "Eating to Learn, Learning to Eat: The Origins of School Lunch in the United States," and frequently has shared his expertise on school nutrition topics in media interviews and in articles he writes for news outlets. His research in this area focuses on teaching and assessing complex thinking in medicine.
Each year, UW–Madison recognizes outstanding academic staff members who have excelled in leadership, public service, research and teaching.
“As the largest employee group on campus, our academic staff members are critical to all that we do,” says Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin. “They are gifted teachers, world-class researchers, impactful mentors, and innovative administrators. We rely on them to bring the Wisconsin Idea to life — in the classroom and throughout the state and the world.”
Read more about all 10 academic staff winners for 2025 in this UW–Madison release.
