2025-04-29
- Experimental and amateur filmmakers are expanding cinema by using new technologies, such as cell phones and virtual reality, and through increasing globalization of the distribution of their work. Eduardo Ledesma, a Spanish professor, examined how experimental filmmakers in Latin America and Spain use alternative film formats in his new book “...
2025-04-29 - Marynia Kolak is a professor of geography and geographic information science and principal investigator for the Health Regions & Policies Lab. As a health geographer and spatial data scientist, Kolak is committed to understanding how where we live and work shapes our health outcomes—a pursuit that...
2025-04-29 - Scientists developed a machine-learning tool that can teach itself, with minimal external guidance, to differentiate between aerial images of flowering and nonflowering grasses — an advance that will greatly increase the pace of agricultural field research, they say. The work was conducted using images of thousands of varieties of Miscanthus grasses, each of which has its own flowering...
2025-04-24 - Several years ago, a conversation with a young coffee farmer from Panama stirred in José Andino Martinez a deep curiosity about the chemistry of coffee. The farmer impressed upon Andino the significance of the coffee bean growing and roasting process in producing a wide variety of attributes that determine the taste and aroma of coffees, especially those with high quality flavor profile...
2025-04-24 - The week of April 7-11, 2025, was recently named Phosphorous Week by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. This occurred in large part due to efforts by the Science and Technologies for Phosphorous Sustainability (STEPS) Center, a collaboration of scientists that works to raise awareness of the environmental impacts of using phosphorous for fertilizing crops....
2025-04-22 - There’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address in 1861 that the East Central Illinois Alliance of Braver Angels likes to remember as it works to bridge partisan divides: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory...
2025-04-17 - Two College of LAS professors have been awarded 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships. This year’s Illinois fellows are history professor Kristin Hoganson and English professor Corey Van Landingham. They are among 198 individuals working across 53 disciplines chosen through a rigorous...
2025-04-17 - Before President Donald Trump abruptly changed course on tariffs, the 12th smallest African nation, Lesotho, was near the top of the list of countries whose products would be taxed at the U.S. border. Charles Fogelman, a professor in the Global Studies Program and in the Center for African Studies and an...
2025-04-16 - Scientific collaboration often begins with a simple conversation, an exchange of ideas that transcends borders. For Bruce Rhoads, a professor of geography and geographic information science and river dynamics expert, and Alexander Sukhodolov, a research group leader at Germany’s Leibniz Institute Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, that first...
2025-04-11 - The Beckman Institute recognized two community members during its annual April celebration of Arnold Beckman’s birth. Microscopist and outreach specialist T Josek (BS, '13; MS, '15; PhD, '19, entomology; BS, '13, chemistry) won the...
2025-04-10 - Professor Benita Katzenellenbogen has taught and mentored students and researched women’s health throughout her career at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, focusing on issues such as breast cancer and endometriosis. While much of her work is done in the lab, she realizes how important it is to spread awareness about these diseases. That’s why Katzenellenbogen, the Swanlund...
2025-04-09 - There’s a lot to talk about after a study abroad trip in Panama, but for plant biology professor Jim Dalling, one of the most memorable experiences is riding on a construction crane 50 meters above the forest floor. Gliding across the surface of the forest canopy, they’re inches away from a hidden world of flying tropical birds, sun...
2025-04-09 - In a study that tracked explicit and implicit bias against stigmatized groups in 33 countries between 2009 and 2019, researchers found substantial reductions in explicit, self-reported bias against all categories of stigma they examined: age, race, body weight, skin tone, and sexual orientation. The picture for implicit bias, which is sometimes described as “hidden” or “automatically revealed”...
2025-04-09 - An annual survey of recent graduates reports that 90% of LAS alumni who graduated during the 2023-2024 period secured their first destination within six months of graduating. That figure includes 41% who found employment and 48% who sought further education. About 1% went into volunteer or service work. The average salary for employed new LAS alumni is $70,355, according to the findings...
2025-04-09 - College of LAS juniors Alyssa Shih, Dmitriy Shvydkoy and Annie Zeng were awarded Barry M. Goldwater scholarships for their potential to contribute to the advancement of research in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering. As the result of an ongoing partnership with UWorld, a testing tools provider, and the Department of Defense National...
2025-03-31 - Some notoriously difficult to treat infections may not be as resistant to antibiotics as has been thought, according to new research using a microfluidic device that more closely duplicates the fluid flow found in the body than standard cultures. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign research team, led by biochemistry ...
2025-03-31 - A faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has been named a 2024 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society. Chemistry professor Stephan Link is among the 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators chosen by their peers for...
2025-03-31 - On March 15, more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants were accused of engagement in gang activity and deported from the U.S. — not to Venezuela, but to El Salvador, some 1,600 miles away from their home country. Ellen Moodie, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is the author of “El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace:...
2025-03-13 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working with federal and state health agencies to address a widespread outbreak of bird flu among dairy cows, poultry, and other animals in the United States. More than 150 million farm birds have been slaughtered to prevent the disease’s spread, which has been a factor in a dramatic rise in egg prices. Is the end in sight? What are the...
2025-03-13 - An LAS alumna has published her first novel that explores the idea of being able to literally shape your ideal partner from scratch. Maggie Su (BA, ’13, creative writing/English) is the assistant director for the University Writing Center at the University of Notre Dame. Her book was recently released in January after seven years of brainstorming,...
2025-03-12 - A new book by rhetoric and history scholars examines the origins of critical race theory in legal studies. The movement is an area of legal scholarship that seeks to understand the relationship between race and racism and the law and other societal institutions in the U.S., the authors said. It is highly controversial, with politicians at all levels of government trying to ban it from classrooms...
2025-03-12 - College of LAS alumnus Adham Sahloul (BA, political science, ’15) is a national security expert and U.S. Navy Reserve officer. Most recently, he served as a special advisor appointed by the Biden-Harris Administration at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense. With ties to Chicago, Sahloul is based in Washington, D.C.,...
2025-03-07 - Political activist and educator Ericka Huggins used spiritual wellness practices to cope with imprisonment and racial oppression. Professor of African American studies Mary Frances Phillips wrote about Huggins and how her wellness practices and political work were deeply entwined. Her new book, “...
2025-02-28 - The literature of extreme poverty during the Great Depression offered an aesthetic that matched the hopelessness and isolation of the unemployed and those living on the street. Robert Dale Parker, a professor emeritus of English examines what he calls “the poetics of the stiff” — the downtrodden unemployed in the forgotten literature and poetry of the...