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LAS influence
The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is filled with accomplished, thoughtful, and dedicated faculty, staff, students, and alumni whose work influences many advancements throughout our community. LAS strives to address the world’s fundamental problems and grand challenges through indispensable research, innovative courses, and an ingrained focus on diversity.
Read on to learn how the College of LAS is advancing our community in Urbana-Champaign and beyond.
Book looks at treasure trove of scientific data from 19th-century HMS Challenger voyage
Professor discusses "unimagined" findings from one of the first research missions
Illinois News Bureau's Jodi Heckel interviews Illinois English professor, Gillen D'Arcy Wood, on his book: “The Wake of HMS Challenger: How a Legendary Victorian Voyage Tells the Story of Our Oceans’ Decline.” Wood is a historian of 19th-century environmental history and science and the director of the environmental writing program at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment.
The voyage of the HMS Challenger in the 1870s was a sprawling 3½-year expedition to explore the world’s oceans. The scientists aboard the vessel collected 100,000 specimens of sea creatures, discovered 5,000 new species, mapped the ocean floors and took hundreds of measurements of sea temperature and chemistry that formed the basis of the discipline of oceanography. The data collected by the Challenger provide a snapshot of the preindustrial oceans and a way of measuring how much they’ve changed.
“The plants and animals they found and the amazing undersea geography that was completely unimagined before has been so important to 20th century science,” Wood said. “What attracted me to this was its singularity. It’s the first research mission of its kind and one of the great discovery expeditions.”
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Wood previously created a comprehensive online database of the scientific information collected by the Challenger as part of his Oceans 1876 digital project. His book on the Challenger expedition is the second part of the project. In the book, Wood focused on sea creatures, with each of the chapters featuring an animal, plant or phenomenon. He chose creatures that were charismatic; that were the subjects of enough scientific research that he could tell the story of their history, biology and behavior; and that were threatened or endangered.
“I also was looking at the Challenger and its legacy as a unique snapshot of oceans 150 years ago,” Wood said.
The expedition’s scientists took temperature readings at the surface and at various depths at 500 different locations where they stopped to take samples. They also measured ocean chemistry and acidity and produced the world’s first salinity map of the ocean.
940 Feet series
Join LAS professors and students for a stroll on the Quad, and learn more about the influential people advancing our community.
Differing ideologies led to strained romantic bonds
A new study by communication professor Emily Van Duyn said that online misinformation/disinformation, conspiracy theory groups, and their former partners’ rabbit-holing behaviors caused insurmountable rifts in their relationships.
Differing ideologies led to strained romantic bonds
Some nightclubs in Chicago use tactics such as charging Black men inflated prices for drinks or turning them away at the door and not permitting them inside, a team led by sociology professor Reuben A. Buford May found in a recent study.
Researchers gain new insight into underground root nodules
Illinois plant biology researchers identified clusters of genes in soil bacteria that enhance plant growth.
Faculty research
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