2020-12-09
- About 160 million Americans voted during the past election, which represents the highest overall number in history and the highest percentage of eligible voters since 1900. Included in that number was a strong turnout by Black voters, many of whom voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and are credited for helping to lead the Democrats to a presumptive victory.
While the election saw a higher...
2020-12-08 - No two days are the same for Larry Harris Jr. (BA, ’15, political science). He calls Chicago home, but the Foreign Service Officer (U.S. Diplomat) at the U.S. Department of State has worked in Austria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, and currently Canada. What is a typical work day for you? Monday, I could meet with political, civil society, and...
2020-12-08 - In 2019, University of Illinois student Issy Marquez had an eye-opening experience. She traveled to Washington D.C. with several professors to lobby on behalf of the National Humanities Alliance. Marquez, a triple major in English, political science, and Latina/Latino studies...
2020-12-02 - The brains of healthy adults recovered faster from a mild vascular challenge and performed better on complex tests if the participants consumed cocoa flavanols beforehand, researchers report in the journal Scientific Reports. In the study, 14 of 18 participants saw these improvements after ingesting the flavanols. Previous studies have shown that eating foods rich in flavanols can benefit...
2020-11-30 - Six professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been elected 2020 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Evolution, ecology and behavior professor Alison Bell; plant biology professor Carl Bernacchi; and and ...
2020-11-23 - A global pandemic, wildfires, and hurricanes have made 2020 a year for catastrophic thinking, so a new book with that title seems appropriate. But don’t mistake David Sepkoski’s “Catastrophic Thinking” as a doomsday warning about the future. It’s focused instead on how we got here – how our current-day concerns...
2020-11-23 - Four professors in the College of LAS have been named Richard and Margaret Romano Professorial Scholars for their leadership and research. Richard Romano (BS, ’54, chemical engineering) and his wife, Margaret, established the program, which provides faculty members with $25,000 per year for their work. This year’s scholars include: Alison Bell,...
2020-11-20 - Some may claim that politics will never change, but we are still learning a lot about political behavior itself—which in recent years has grown to include how people express opinions and process information on social media.
2020-11-20 - The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected vulnerable communities that lack the proper healthcare resources to aid in combating the disease. A recent study published at the University of Illinois is helping policymakers better identify Illinois communities that are in need. The research paper, published in the...
2020-11-19 - Three faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, including two in the College of LAS, have been named to the 2020 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world. It is based on an analysis of journal article publication and citation data, an objective measure of a...
2020-11-19 - Chemistry tests are hard, even for future Nobel Laureates. When Phillip Sharp (PhD, '69, chemistry) first enrolled at the university’s Department of Chemistry for graduate school, he had to take several entrance tests to gauge his abilities. Inorganic chemistry was a tripping point. “I just didn’t know the material,” said Sharp. “And so they did...
2020-11-17 - Chemistry professor Prashant Jain has recently been named to Science News’ 2020 SN 10: Scientists to Watch list. Jain is only the fourth scientist from the University of Illinois to be included on the prestigious list. All scholars included in the list are under 40, and were nominated by Nobel Laureates, recently elected members of the National...
2020-11-12 - The University of Illinois Observatory will be getting a new look—and not just another view of the stars. The historical building just south of the Main Quad will have its dome renovated as part of a university-wide effort to improve roofs around campus. The Observatory was built in 1896 and has kept most of its original architecture, with the last renovation coming in 2014, mainly to its...
2020-11-10 - The future of Altgeld Hall and Illini Hall is coming into focus as the University of Illinois moves forward with detailed planning for the $192 million project to modernize and grow spaces devoted to data science and other mathematical and statistical sciences. The Board of Trustees approved schematic designs for the Altgeld and Illini Hall...
2020-11-09 - Thin tissue grafts and flexible electronics have a host of applications for wound healing, regenerative medicine, and biosensing. A new device inspired by an octopus’s sucker rapidly transfers delicate tissue or electronic sheets to the patient, overcoming a key barrier to clinical application, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and collaborators. “For the...
2020-11-09 - An $87 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense matched by more than $187 million in non-federal cost-share will fund collaborative efforts by a team of private and public entities, including the University of Illinois, to advance sustainable and reliable bioindustrial manufacturing technologies. The Department of Defense...
2020-11-06 - A $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation will help a team of scientists at the University of Illinois develop ways to use renewable energy to remediate carbon dioxide emissions and generate chemical building blocks and liquid fuels. The main idea of their proposal is to reimagine the manufacturing of chemicals and fuels as society shifts from using petroleum for these...
2020-11-02 - An associate director in the Department of Chemistry has been recognized by the American Chemical Society (ACS) for his efforts to advance diversity in the chemical sciences. The ACS Committee on Minority Affairs has selected Lloyd Munjanja, the associate director of graduate diversity and program climate in the department, as the 2020 recipient of...
2020-10-30 - With careers ranging from novel-writing to emergency medicine, overseeing U.S. national science policy, managing the central bank of China, clean energy, and preventing drug abuse, 10 alumni from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have named recipients of the college’s 2020 annual alumni awards. The winners have been honored during LAS...
2020-10-29 - Statistics reveal that the poor in general are punished more frequently and severely for their crimes than the wealthy. A psychology professor at Illinois has found, however, that when it comes to evaluating the moral character of those who have committed crimes, the wealthy are judged more harshly than the poor. Sean Laurent said that many people...
2020-10-28 - During the shutdowns, social distancing, and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to become isolated. That’s why the College of LAS has used this unusual time to provide students with an opportunity to reach out and make the pandemic easier to overcome. The College of LAS has created COVID-Corps: Actions for Solutions (...
2020-10-27 - The Class of 2020 was much like any other of the graduating classes before it— eager, inspired, and prepared to change the world. This class, however, will long be remembered for how they were forced to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic that closed the university and brought their time on campus to an early end. They adapted to learning from home to finish their degrees, however, and even without a...
2020-10-27 - From witnessing airplanes stuck in the mud to hearing predictions that Champaign and Urbana would soon unite into one city, the University of Illinois has played host to several memorable presidential visits since the early 1900s. In fact, more than half of the U.S. presidents elected since 1911 have visited Urbana-Champaign before, during, or after their presidency, with several of them...
2020-10-27 - We’d all like to think we’re rational beings who arrive at our political views strictly through logic. That anyone faced with the same obvious facts would reach the same obvious conclusion. But according to Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, professor of political science, that might not be the case. “It turns out that political attitudes and behaviors have a...
2020-10-26 - Let’s rewrite a little bit of recent history. Let’s pretend that the first presidential debate on September 29 was a picture of civil discourse, and that President Donald Trump never fell ill with COVID-19 and that the second debate went on as planned. In this alternate reality, would the presidential debates have made a difference on Election Day? Probably not, said two professors who study...