2020-05-11
- Several weeks ago, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading, Ying Diao, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and her research group, including several graduate students, began thinking about how they could help fight the outbreak.
Through an inspiring NPR story, Diao learned about the creation of 3D-printed ventilator parts in Italy. She...
2020-05-07 - One day in 1665, a tailor’s assistant in the English village of Eyam received a shipment of cloth from London and hung it out to dry. Unbeknownst to him, the bale of cloth was home to a colony of fleas infected with plague. Soon, that man and one-third of the population of Eyam were dead. The means by which the village prevented the pestilence from becoming far worse, however, has become a...
2020-05-04 - Every five years, Spurlock Museum inventories its emergency supplies. Coincidentally, this year’s count was occurring during the outbreak of COVID-19, which is why staff members realized that they possessed material that could help healthcare providers deal with the pandemic. Personal protective equipment—PPE—is used by Spurlock staff to protect...
2020-04-29 - Two recipients within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have been awarded the 2020 Heritage Award from the Preservation and Conservation Association of Champaign (PACA). Jane Bergman, office manager for the Department of Mathematics, received the award for her historical replica of the glass dome that once overlooked the library in Altgeld...
2020-04-28 - Lisa Ainsworth, a research plant physiologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and affiliate professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences — largely considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive. Ainsworth, known for her research on...
2020-04-23 - Going from teaching in front of an auditorium that seats 600 students to lecturing on a webcam at home requires patience and skill – and, for one professor, a lot of imagination. Martha Gillette, professor of cell and developmental biology and director of the Neuroscience Program, co-teaches...
2020-04-22 - Epidemics often bring a search for scapegoats, with anti-Asian harassment in the wake of COVID-19 the latest example. Likewise, ideas circulate that different races also differ in their susceptibility to the disease, evidenced by a myth that blacks were immune to the virus. Both are subjects familiar to Rana Hogarth, a history professor at the...
2020-04-22 - Several professors in the College of LAS have received named scholar positions for their contributions in education and research at the University of Illinois. The named positions include the inaugural LAS Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholars, who are receiving $10,000 for teaching and research as they are promoted to full professor. “These named scholars have been chosen for their...
2020-04-20 - Back in early March, when the COVID-19 pandemic began shuttering businesses and schools across the United States, Chris Brooke wondered how he’d teach his classes online. As the virus spread with astonishing speed, however, and it became frighteningly clear that COVID-19 threatened something far greater than just the spring semester, Brooke, a professor of...
2020-04-17 - Two professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been awarded a 2020 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. This year’s fellows are Janice N. Harrington, a poet and professor of English; and David Sepkoski, a professor of history. They are among 175 writers, scholars, artists and scientists...
2020-04-15 - State and local governments across the U.S. are asking people to isolate themselves at home and avoid all but the most essential trips to grocery stores, pharmacies and hospitals. This level of behavior change is unprecedented in most people’s lifetimes, and for many it represents a direct threat to their economic welfare. Dolores Albarracín, a professor of...
2020-04-14 - Editor’s note: Intelligence officials report that Russia is continuing its interference in the 2020 election by stirring controversy and spreading disinformation on social media, and it is becoming more creative and harder to track, according to intelligence officials. Richard Tempest is a professor of Slavic languages and literatures at...
2020-04-14 - What a difference a month makes. In early March, students at Illinois were attending class in places like Lincoln Hall and Natural History Building, visiting faculty during office hours, and bumping into each other on the Main Quad. Now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of on-campus activities, students have traded classrooms for Zoom lectures and online discussion boards while...
2020-04-13 - What's one way to pass time during the COVID-19 pandemic? You can do crossword puzzles, or you can make them, as is the case with University of Illinois freshman Adam Aaronson. Aaronson is using the crossword puzzle-making skills that got him published in two of the country’s leading newspapers to keep himself occupied during the coronavirus pandemic. “Social distancing has definitely given me...
2020-04-09 - University of Illinois juniors Sriyankari Chitti and William Lyon were awarded Barry M. Goldwater scholarships for their potential to contribute to the advancement of research in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by...
2020-04-07 - A new class called Careers for Humanities Majors is helping students explore job opportunities and develop skills for starting a new career. As part of HUM 275, students work on resumes and cover letters, take field trips to local organizations and businesses, practice networking with professionals, and hear from speakers working in different industries who graduated with humanities degrees. “I...
2020-04-06 - Parents sheltering at home with their kids sometimes struggle to foster their children’s continued engagement with learning. Eva Pomerantz, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studies the factors that promote children’s motivation and achievement at school. She spoke to News Bureau life sciences editor...
2020-04-02 - Although she never considered herself a “literary type,” the career of Carole Stivers (née Carole Reeve, PhD, ’81, biochemistry) has taken a distinctly literary angle: She recently wrote “The Mother Code,” a near-future science fiction novel. The novel explores what it means to be a mother when the survival of the human race is at...
2020-04-02 - “I used to think immigrants were a problem.” When Ann Abbott read this introduction to a student’s final essay, she realized the Spanish in the Community curriculum may be one of the most unique and important experiences of which she’s been a part. “Those words, ‘I used to’—that’s really impactful,” said Abbott, director of undergraduate studies and associate professor in the Department of...
2020-04-01 - Some buildings get all the glory. At U of I, Lincoln Hall has its presidential connection, Altgeld Hall has its chimes, English Building has its ghost. But what about the workhorses—the gritty brick behemoths whose claim to fame isn’t their name or design, but their practicality, and the fact that over the years they’ve served as everything from faculty offices to bowling alleys and war barracks...
2020-03-31 - “Shelter in place” is now the norm in much of the country, thanks to COVID-19. As a result, connections once made face to face are now happening electronically in both work and personal lives. John Caughlin heads the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and specializes in interpersonal communication and the...
2020-03-30 - A new artificial intelligence consortium that will include the University of Illinois has made fighting the COVID-19 pandemic its first order of business. The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute, chaired by Thomas Siebel (BA ’75, history; MBA ’83; MS ’85, computer science) and co-managed by the U of I and the University of California, Berkeley,...
2020-03-26 - I’m standing on the edge of a high-rise in the middle of a city. I can hear the car horns, feel the traffic below and—just a few feet away—see the spiraling girder that’s my destination. Summoning my courage, I leap—and miss, plummeting rapidly towards the ground. Instead of making impact, however, I merely stumble embarrassingly across a patch of green foam as I take off my helmet and wait for...
2020-03-23 - I grew up on the Kenyan coast, in a town called Mabafweni, in Kwale County. My parents were teachers, but their income was not enough to sustain us and send us to school. So, we also farmed. I got up early every day to work on the farm before school. When I was a young person working on my family farm, I saw every year that halfway through the growing season, insects would come and take away...
2020-03-11 - According to Brendan Morris, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, treehoppers are the wackiest, most astonishing bugs most people have never heard of. They are morphological wonders, sporting bizarre protuberances that look like horns, gnarled branches, antlers, fruiting fungi, brightly colored flags, or dead plant leaves. Treehoppers suck on plant juices. They...