2020-03-02
- John Francis “Jack” Welch Jr., 84, the former CEO and chairman of General Electric Co., has died. He earned a PhD in 1960 in chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Welch went to work as a chemical engineer at GE immediately...
LAS News Archive
2020-03-02 - Editor’s note: The novel coronavirus that first broke out in Wuhan, China in late 2019 has now spread to almost 70 countries, and the first case of possible community spread has been reported in the United States. The...
2020-02-28 - Cloud seeding has become an increasingly popular practice in the western United States, where states grapple with growing demands for water. Measuring how much precipitation cloud seeding produces has been a longstanding challenge. Researchers have developed a way to use radar and other tools to...
2020-02-25 - The numbers are in from the third annual Datathon at Illinois, and the competitive event to expose students to real-world problem solving in analytics is a growing success. Divij Ranjan, president of the Illini Statistics Club, which...
2020-02-21 - As a student, Carol Greenleaf (then Johnson) was sometimes late to her physical anthropology class. Walking across the Main Quad between classes took more time than she had. Somehow, however, there was always a seat available next to a fellow student named...
2020-02-19 - The U.S. Census has gone through many trials since it counted 3.9 million people in 1790, but the upcoming 2020 Census may be one of the most difficult in a long time. With trust in government at a historic low, according to the Pew Research Center—and not to mention a growing U.S. population...
2020-02-18 - If someone had four weeks to walk the 550 miles from Chicago to Little Rock, they’d have to cover about 20 miles a day. For most people, this might seem impossible, but for Richard DePaolis-Metz, he’d just be sticking to his normal routine. DePaolis-Metz was the lead walker/runner for the College...
2020-02-17 - Murals removed for restoration from the former home of the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and La Casa Cultural Latina at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been reintroduced to the university and the local community. A viewing took...
2020-02-12 - In a new study, researchers report they can manipulate how the brain encodes and retains emotional memories. The scientists found that focusing on the neutral details of a disturbing scene can weaken a person’s later memories—and negative impressions—of that scene. The findings, reported in the...
2020-02-12 - Six early career professors have been recognized as Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholars for their outstanding contributions and potential in research and teaching. The awardees are Marsha Barrett in the Department of History;...
2020-02-10 - University of Illinois professor Stephen Long, a renowned researcher known particularly for his work in photosynthesis and addressing food insecurity, has been named an Ikenberry Endowed University Chair of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences. ...
2020-02-07 - A microscopic animal produces a compound that can paralyze parasitic worms that have infected over 200 million people worldwide, an interdisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin reported in a recent PLOS Biology article. The discovery of the...
2020-02-05 - The Department of Classics has received an estate gift of $750,000 from alumna Barbara Wallach (MA, ’70; PhD, ’74, classics) an emerita associate professor of classical studies at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. The estate gift will be...
2020-02-03 - A University of Illinois professor emerita and a former professor have been awarded Literature Translation Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Armine Kotin Mortimer is a professor emerita of French literature. Elizabeth Lowe, a professor...
2020-01-30 - A team of experts representing the three campuses of the University of Illinois System will discuss urban sustainability and resilience during Night of Ideas Chicago 2020 at 9 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30 at The Field Museum. The Night of Ideas Chicago 2020 is part of La Nuit des Idées, a global series...
2020-01-29 - When did pronouns become a thing? The use of a singular personal pronoun is not a modern concept. Over the years, various alternatives have emerged. Notably, the earliest recorded use of "they" as a gender-neutral personal pronoun dates back to the 14th century, found in a French poem titled...
2020-01-27 - It takes a lot of energy to collect, clean, and dispose of contaminated water. Some contaminants, like arsenic, occur in low concentrations, calling for even more energy-intensive selective removal processes. In a new paper, researchers address this water-energy relationship by introducing a...
2020-01-21 - The College of LAS is creating a new scholarship program, and expanding an already existing program, to significantly increase the number of need-based scholarships for students from Illinois to study liberal arts and sciences. Feng Sheng Hu, the Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of LAS, said...
2020-01-14 - Scientists have developed new drug compounds that thwart the pro-cancer activity of FOXM1, a transcription factor that regulates the activity of dozens of genes. The new compounds suppress tumor growth in human cells and in mouse models of several types of human breast cancer. The researchers...
2020-01-13 - Mauro Nobili has been studying the pre-colonial and early colonial history of West Africa for more than a decade. Through the years, Nobili, a professor of history, has pieced together evidence that shows the Tarikh al-fattash, a West African chronicle...
2020-01-10 - David Kranz, the Phillip A. Sharp Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois, was one of 168 to be elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. The program highlights academic inventors...
2020-01-09 - There’s more to literature than the ideas conveyed by the writer. It turns out there’s also something to be learned from the physical creation of the words—and paper—themselves, as students discovered through a hands-on experience in a Greek course at Illinois. Students in Greek 201:...
2020-01-08 - Here’s a question for Illinois sports fans: Who at the University of Illinois changed the face of college football in the 1920s? If you answered Red Grange, you’d be right, but there was someone else on campus whose work led to a slew of national football titles. It wasn’t a star player or coach,...
2019-12-20 - Classics professor Angeliki Tzanetou and her students explored issues of war and trauma through Greek tragedies and learned how the themes presented in the ancient dramas are connected to present-day crises. Tzanetou taught “The Aftermath of War in...
2019-12-19 - When Robert and Beata Kaminski immigrated to the U.S. from Poland, they knew nothing about American colleges, and relied on their oldest son, Szymon, to guide them. Szymon explained to his parents the credits it takes to graduate, how to pay tuition, and about the classes he needs to take. They...