2017-12-14
- Two faculty members in the College of LAS, and one faculty member in information science at Illinois with a degree from LAS, have been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships for 2018. They are among six chosen on campus, making this the third year in the last four that the Urbana campus has garnered more fellowship awards than any other single...
2017-12-11 - Joanne Chory (MS, ’80, PhD, ’84, microbiology), who graduated from Illinois to eventually become one of the world’s preeminent plant biologists, has been awarded a 2018 Breakthrough Prize for her pioneering work deciphering how plants optimize their growth, development, and cellular structure to transform sunlight into chemical...
2017-12-08 - In 1915, Illinois sports were practically unbeatable. The university’s baseball, football, basketball, and track teams all won Big Ten championships. The mood on campus must have been a far cry from 1918, however, when nearly every building on campus—including some Greek houses and university buildings that remain in service today—served as a hospital during a deadly flu epidemic.Many rich and...
2017-12-06 - Astronomers have discovered surprising examples of massive, star-filled galaxies seen when the cosmos was less than a billion years old which challenge assumptions about how the universe formed. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, conducted by a team of astronomers including several at Illinois, have identified two giant galaxies...
2017-12-05 - What can you do with a degree in mathematics? Count a career at one of the world's most successful tech companies among the possibilities, as at least six College of LAS mathematics alumni are currently employed in everything from modeling advertising to building website tools at Google.It’s hard to know exactly how many alumni in mathematics have worked...
2017-12-04 - One way to save (a lot of) money is simply by doing things more efficiently, as building managers in the College of LAS have taken to heart five years into a new energy incentive program on campus. Two LAS buildings—the Astronomy Building and the building housing the Department of Latina/Latino...
2017-12-01 - A sociology professor’s exploration of the economic health of the American middle class – and the potential pitfalls it faces – has hit a nerve, as a book he published on the topic continues to generate interest three years after it was released. Kevin Leicht, head of the Department of Sociology, credits the interest in “Middle...
2017-11-27 - A drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct has been cleared for use in a clinical trial of patients with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare malignant brain tumor, and glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive late-stage cancer of the brain. This phase Ib trial will determine if the experimental drug PAC-1 can be used...
2017-11-22 - Scholarships are a critically important means of support for many students within the College of LAS. Read on to see how they've changed the lives of six LAS students. This group represents just a sampling of the 781 students in our college receiving life-changing support across our college and its departments. Interested in making a difference in the lives of some of our 14,000 students in...
2017-11-21 - A genomic study of Puerto Rico's Africanized honey bees – which are more docile than other so-called “killer bees” – reveals that they retain most of the genetic traits of their African honey bee ancestors, but that a few regions of their DNA have become more like those of European honey bees. According to the researchers, these changes likely contributed to the bees' rapid...
2017-11-20 - Two faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been elected 2017 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Animal biology professor Carla Cáceres and statistics professor Douglas G. Simpson are among 396 people to be awarded the distinction of...
2017-11-20 - Thomas Dowling, a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign pursuing a double major in political science and history, has been named a Rhodes Scholar. Dowling, of Chicago, is one of 32 students from the United States...
2017-11-17 - Five faculty members at the University of Illinois, including four from the College of LAS, have been named to the 2017 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list (previously known as the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers list).The list recognizes “leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world,” ...
2017-11-17 - It’s widely known that cats, dogs and other furry friends see the world differently than we do. But what about animals that are a little bit below the surface — like fish? Until now, there hasn’t actually been much research into the topic, but thanks to Becky Fuller, professor of animal biology in the...
2017-11-15 - A student in the College of LAS has been chosen again for this year’s Lincoln Academy Student Laureate Award, which recognizes university seniors for their excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities.Thomas Dowling, a double-major in political science and history, has been named the Lincoln Laureate...
2017-11-10 - Cara A. Finnegan , professor and associate head of the Department of Communication, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and named a University Scholar for her work, which includes exploring the historical and contemporary role of visual communication in public life. Read more about...
2017-11-09 - Matt Eisenbrandt has spent his career litigating against perpetrators of abuse and atrocities in foreign countries who thought they had found safe haven in the United States and Canada. Recently, his experience and education in history and Latin American studies came to bear as he completed a 10-year project: his first book, about the 1980 assassination of...
2017-11-08 - The renovation of the Natural History Building has been heralded for the new learning opportunities it offers students, faculty, and staff. Now it’s been recognized for something else: the intricate brick, plaster, masonry, tile, and other surface work that make the building look so good.The International Union of Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers has awarded the 2017 Best Comprehensive...
2017-11-07 - With the nation of Brazil facing political strife and a deep economic recession, public figures and scholars from the South American nation—along with scholars and policy experts from Europe and the United States—will gather at Illinois to discuss turning points that could help the nation regain its once strong footing. On Nov. 16-17, the U of I, which has a long history of partnerships with...
2017-11-03 - The late Ralph Fisher, a professor of history at Illinois, used to describe a profound shift in his field of study in the late 1950s. Before October 1957, the university was set in a “lovely prairie town” with few resources in international studies. Then the Russians launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite. Suddenly,...
2017-11-02 - Researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst have taken the first steps toward gaining control over the self-assembly of synthetic materials in the same way that biology forms natural polymers. This advance could prove useful in designing new bioinspired, smart materials for applications ranging from drug delivery to sensing to remediation of...
2017-10-31 - A new study, published in mBio, exposes a zinc-import system in bacteria that could contribute to their ability to cause infection. The study looked at how the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which can infect virtually all of the tissues in the human body, competes with the immune system for the essential nutrient zinc. “Transition metals such as zinc are essential...
2017-10-27 - Sometimes during the course of an English major’s studies, he or she encounters literature that lingers for a lifetime. That has been the case for Albert Ascoli (BA, ’75, English), who first read Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” while an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. To say the 14th century poem resonated in the...
2017-10-27 - Three College of LAS alumni whose career paths merged at a liberal arts college in Louisiana have more in common than just their alma mater. They are working together to run a successful study abroad program in Paris that transforms the experiences of first year college students.Kate Pedrotty (MA, ’10, history), director of strategic communication for...
2017-10-26 - The University of Illinois is a key partner in a U.S.-French initiative to fully digitize and post online thousands of letters to and from Marcel Proust, the author of "In Search of Lost Time," one of the great masterpieces of western literature. These letters were gathered into academia through the late Philip Kolb, a professor of French...