2019-05-21
- At 89 years old, Merrill Thompson makes it a point to return to the University of Illinois campus whenever he can. It is, after all, a family place—a place where one goes to reflect and help out.
His adoptive father was a graduate of the business school (now Gies College of Business) at Illinois who played football with Red Grange. Merrill and his late brother, Vince, attended the University of...
2019-05-21 - This year’s additions to the nearly century-old Bronze Tablet at Illinois include 102 graduates from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Each year, the Bronze Tablet is inscribed with the names of new graduates and placed in the Main Library. To achieve this honor, undergraduate students must rank at the top 3 percent of each college’s graduating class and must have a cumulative grade-...
2019-05-16 - University of Illinois chemistry student Philip Kocheril was awarded a Barry M. Goldwater scholarship for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years in recognition for his potential to contribute to the advancement of research in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering. According to David Schug, the director of the...
2019-05-14 - Tara Stewart Merrill was studying dance at the University of California—Santa Barbara when one day she helped her friend study for an exam on parasitology. The topic fascinated her, and, to make a long story short, today she is a doctoral student in the Program in Ecology, Evolution & Conservation Biology at the University of Illinois. Then there is...
2019-05-09 - How do you achieve success? One way is to go to college, get a degree, get a job, work hard, and get promoted. Another way is to go to college, get a degree, become a professional sports bettor, and read children’s books until you know the basics about, well, as far as anyone can tell, everything. Then you get on “Jeopardy!”, play it like nobody’s ever played before, break all kinds of records,...
2019-05-08 - Three College of LAS faculty members have been honored with Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership. The Office of the Provost sponsors the campus-level awards in recognition of excellence in faculty leadership for those faculty who distinguish themselves with their vision of the future and their effort to enable and promote others in shaping that future. Each of the three awardees...
2019-05-07 - Researchers report that a protein known to be important to protein synthesis also influences muscle regeneration and regrowth in an unexpected manner. The discovery, reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could one day lead to new methods for treating disorders that result in muscle weakness and loss of muscle mass, the researchers said. Scientists have long studied leucine tRNA-...
2019-05-06 - They’re age-old questions pondered by parents everywhere: How are children affected by their environment and their inherited biological traits? How much of development is guided by a combination of both? Studies of twins provide key insights into these questions, and that’s why researchers at Illinois are recruiting families of twins to the Illinois Twin Project...
2019-05-06 - Chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Bill Hammack, known around the world as “The Engineer Guy,” has been chosen to receive the Carl Sagan Award for the Public Appreciation of Science. The award, given annually by the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP), recognizes outstanding achievement in improving the public understanding and...
2019-05-01 - The Department of Classics at Illinois has received from LAS alumnus George Reveliotis an endowment commitment of $1.5 million, one of the largest gifts to a humanities program on campus. The George N. Reveliotis Family Hellenic Studies Endowment will support a lecturer position in the Department of the Classics, which offers courses in Ancient and...
2019-05-01 - Stephen P. Long, a professor of crop sciences and plant biology at the University of Illinois, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest professional honors a scientist can receive. He is one of 100 new members and 25 foreign associates recognized for “distinguished and continuing...
2019-04-30 - The University of Illinois has hired a Chicago design firm to begin planning the Altgeld Hall and Illini Hall project to modernize learning spaces and increase capacity in data science and other mathematical sciences. During their March meeting, the Board of Trustees approved CannonDesign to conceptualize and create schematic designs for the project, which will include the construction of a new...
2019-04-29 - Ten students in the College of LAS graduated this May with help from the Lincoln Scholars Initiative, making them the fourth class of LAS students who have earned a degree with support from the scholarship program. Formed in 2012 to support promising LAS students from the state of Illinois with financial needs, the ongoing Lincoln...
2019-04-26 - The Graduate College has announced Elizabeth Neumann, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry, as the winner of the fifth annual Graduate Student Leadership Award. Recognized in her department for her scientific work in the area of analytical chemistry, including her recent published study on chemical analysis of the brain using mass...
2019-04-24 - The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois named eight students from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as recipients of the 2019 Beckman Institute student awards. Beckman is an interdisciplinary research institute devoted to leading groundbreaking research in the physical sciences, computation, engineering, biology, behavior, cognition, and...
2019-04-23 - A persistent heartland myth paints the rural and small town Midwest as local, insular, isolationist – “the ultimate national safe space, walled off from the rest of the world,” says University of Illinois historian Kristin Hoganson. Dig into the history, however, which Hoganson has done for a new book, and you find the myth is far from reality. The...
2019-04-22 - You could say that Mark E. Hauber is interested in birds—if you think it's also enough to say that Red Grange was a decent athlete or that the water is a little cool off Iceland. Hauber has written almost 250 peer-reviewed articles about birds and has served as the editor-in-chief of The Auk: Ornithological Advances, associate editor of Behavioral Ecology and Sociology, Marine Biology, and...
2019-04-19 - Oxidants found within living organisms are byproducts of metabolism and are essential to wound-healing and immunity. However, when their concentrations become too high, inflammation and tissue damage can occur. University of Illinois engineers have developed and tested a new drug-delivery system that senses high oxidant levels and responds by administering just the right amount of antioxidant to...
2019-04-18 - For Ralph Tyler, supporting the University of Illinois is about giving back to a special place that provided him with opportunity—and it’s also more essential now than ever. During his time on campus, Tyler (BA, ‘69, history) made the most of his college experience. He took classes he was interested in, learned to speak Japanese, and he even organized...
2019-04-17 - Chemistry professor Catherine J. Murphy and Chancellor Robert J. Jones have been elected as members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest honorary societies in the nation. They are among more than 200 individuals with compelling achievements in academia, business, government, and...
2019-04-16 - Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten has been named the Murchison-Mallory Endowed Chair in Chemistry in a ceremony honoring her success, leadership, and inspiration in her field and on campus. Colleagues, friends, and family gathered at the Spurlock Museum to celebrate this distinction and highlight her accomplishments. “Today is an opportunity to celebrate...
2019-04-16 - Author Richard Powers, a professor emeritus of English at the University of Illinois, has won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel “The Overstory.” Columbia University announced the Pulitzer recipients today. The book is described as “an ingeniously structured narrative that...
2019-04-11 - Something about the children she met last summer lingers with Jada Campbell. She’s a political science major who interned with The Community Builders, a non-profit real estate developer that provides affordable housing and fosters community, and she spent the summer trying to get kids in Chicago’s historic yet struggling Bronzeville neighborhood to get outdoors and socialize. The children she...
2019-04-10 - The Event Horizon Telescope Project announced that it has captured the first image of a black hole. The feature is located at the center of Messier 87 – a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian spoke with University of Illinois ...
2019-04-08 - University of Illinois history professor Marsha Barrett is the recipient of a 2019 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. A specialist in modern U.S. political and African American history, Barrett is one of only 81 fellows chosen from more than 1,100 applicants, according to an ACLS...