• 2020-07-23 - Prior to joining the University of Illinois in the 1990s, Scott Althaus was a soldier stationed in Germany during the tail end of the Cold War. He saw things in news reports from the United States that didn't align with events in Europe as he observed them in the mid-1980s. This piqued his interest in researching news bias in political coverage. Today he has a joint appointment in the...
  • 2020-07-20 - Editor’s note: Daniel A. Gilbert is a labor and history professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author of the 2013 book “Expanding the Strike Zone: Baseball in the Age of Free Agency.” Gilbert, a cultural historian...
  • 2020-07-17 - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been awarded a $5 million grant renewal from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its Humanities Without Walls (HWW) initiative at the Humanities Research Institute (HRI). Now a 16-member consortium of universities,...
  • 2020-07-14 - The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $15.5 million to four universities in Illinois, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to create an institute to bring powerful mathematical ideas to bear on key contemporary scientific and technological challenges. Researchers at the new Institute for Mathematical and Statistical...
  • 2020-07-14 - Six professors from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have been named 2020 Conrad Humanities Scholars. The Conrad Humanities Scholars Award is funded by a gift from the late Arlys Conrad, whose estate gift recognizes mid-career scholars with potential for continued achievement in humanities. The recipients are using the awards to pursue a variety of research topics, from Latin American...
  • 2020-07-14 - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will open the fall semester with as much in-person instruction and residential occupancy as COVID-19 precautions and space availability allow.   In announcing the decision reached after extensive consultation with faculty members, staff, students, the Academic Senate, community members and health officials, Chancellor Robert Jones said the...
  • 2020-07-09 - Researchers use a variety of modelling approaches to study form and function. By using a basic biomechanical model for studying body form and center of mass stability in ants, new research identifies the benefits of “simple models” and hope that it can be used for bio-inspired designs. “Most organisms are constrained in their shape and size because they are juggling different needs such as the...
  • 2020-07-08 - As COVID-19 hit communities around the world, two researchers connected to the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences realized various countries could flatten the curve using a variety of policies to slow the virus transmission. However, successfully lowering transmission rates while preserving their own economies could only come with two consistent pieces — balance and customization....
  • 2020-07-07 - Researchers often study the genomes of individual organisms to try to tease out the relationship between genes and behavior. A new study of Africanized honey bees reveals, however, that the genetic inheritance of individual bees has little influence on their propensity for aggression. Instead, the genomic traits of the hive as a whole are strongly associated with how fiercely its soldiers attack...
  • 2020-07-06 - A collaborative effort at the University of Illinois to support COVID-19 testing is winding down, but not before it produced enough materials to support some 200,000 coronavirus tests across the state. Chris Brooke, a professor of microbiology who spearheaded the effort by faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and...
  • 2020-06-30 - Researchers have developed a method to spur the production of new antibiotic or antiparasitic compounds hiding in the genomes of actinobacteria, which are the source of drugs such as actinomycin and streptomycin and are known to harbor other untapped chemical riches. The scientists report their findings in the journal eLife. The researchers wanted to overcome a decades-old problem that confronts...
  • 2020-06-23 - A professor in the College of LAS has been honored with the Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership. Carla Cáceres, a professor of evolution, ecology and behavior and director of the School of Integrative Biology, was one of four...
  • 2020-06-23 - The CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies (CyberGIS Center) at U of I has teamed with the state of Illinois to produce a system of interactive maps, charts, and animations to better help understand and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Called WhereCOVID-19, the project aims to...
  • 2020-06-19 - It’s an idea that sounds radical and impractical to many who hear it: We should defund, dismantle or even abolish the police. But it quickly entered mainstream discussion following the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police. A. Naomi Paik is a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...
  • 2020-06-16 - Gene Robinson, a professor of entomology and director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, has been named interim dean designate of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Starting July 1, Robinson will fill the role for one year while a national search is conducted for the dean’s...
  • 2020-06-15 - Many Christian and political conservatives in the U.S. support legislation to deny sexual and gender minorities the rights most Americans enjoy: unfettered access to jobs, housing, services and public facilities; the opportunity to marry as they choose; and the right to adopt a child. A new study published in the American Journal of Community Psychology offers insight into the factors that...
  • 2020-06-11 - For four years, Jane Sullivan and Amy Snyder relied on the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District to get to class. Little did they know that someday they’d be helping to lead the transportation service—including doing what’s necessary to help MTD weather one of the most challenging times in history for public transportation. Jane Sullivan (BS, ’12, earth,...
  • 2020-06-10 - Six recent alumni from the College of LAS were offered Fulbright grants to pursue international education, research, and teaching experiences across the globe this coming year. The goal of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program is to build international relationships to help solve global challenges. This flagship international educational exchange program of the U.S. government awards grants to...
  • 2020-06-09 - As the executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Julie Morita leads a team of medical professionals at the nation’s largest foundation focused solely on health. Hometown:  Chicago Degree: BS, ‘86, biology Current occupation: Executive Vice President, Robert Wood Johnson...
  • 2020-06-09 - Kevin Mumford, professor of history at the University of Illinois and author of the book, “Newark: A History of Race, Rights, and Riots in America,” has studied racial unrest in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Protests like those we are witnessing today in the wake of the death of George Floyd are just the first steps necessary for...
  • 2020-06-05 - The images in the media have been strong and often disturbing in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. We process them through our biases, both conscious and unconscious. That’s the domain of Travis Dixon, who studies media stereotypes and their impact as a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at...
  • 2020-06-02 - A student from the College of LAS is one of two University of Illinois students who have been named Udall Scholars in the same year. Junior Joseph Kreiling, of Durham, North Carolina, is among the 55 students selected for this prestigious award. A national 16-member independent review committee selected this year's...
  • 2020-06-01 - Political theory is seldom light reading. No one has ever curled up with a copy of “Das Kapital" to escape the cares of the day. So how do you get students to engage with the weighty ideas of past thinkers and apply them to the problems of today? That was the question for Jake Bowers, professor of political science. And he found the answer in an unexpected...
  • 2020-05-27 - Since 2012, the LAS Lincoln Scholars Initiative has been opening doors to this college experience through a program that provides significant renewable scholarships to academically-gifted Illinois students in need of financial support.
  • 2020-05-27 - Avital Livny, professor of political science, says that her research sits at the intersection of Middle Eastern politics and the politics of identity. She has conducted extensive field research in Turkey, leading to her development of a new method for estimating ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity as well as a method for using...