2014-11-01
- “Life is an adventure,” because you never know what path your career will follow, says Laura Bolton, one of six LAS award winners this year.
Bolton majored in psychology but ended up becoming a leader in wound care management. Another 2014 award winner set his sights on music, but instead made significant breakthroughs in cancer treatment. A third recipient hoped to become an Air Force pilot,...
2014-11-01 - Olivia Widalski, a junior majoring in English in LAS, has landed a job that must sound as good as Shakespeare to her favorite English professor, Christopher Freeburg. She works in computer technical support.Granted, it’s just an after-school job on campus while she earns her English degree, but Freeburg’s class helps her deal with computer users in...
2014-11-01 - As a professor of mathematics, Jayadev Athreya knows a thing or two about numbers, but there’s one math question that eludes him: How many children have been exposed to the new and innovative programming of the Illinois Geometry Lab (IGL) since it launched in 2012? The lab director can only raise his palms. “It’s in the thousands,” Athreya...
2014-11-01 - When Patrick Walsh first arrived in India with prototypes of an LED solar-powered lantern, his goal was to simply demonstrate that they could bring light to isolated areas in developing countries. So he was shocked when a man in India came up to him and asked to buy one of his jerry-rigged prototypes. “I was incredulous,” says Walsh, a 2007 LAS alumnus. After all, his prototype...
2014-11-01 - William F. Banholzer cannot say much about what he considers some of his most important work in a long career in charge of research and development portfolios measured in the billions of dollars. That’s because this work was classified research on radar-absorbing materials for stealth planes. Banholzer, a 2014 LAS Alumni Achievement Award winner, grew up in Milwaukee and once...
2014-11-01 - The water was extremely clear, even at 170 feet. Allan C. Campbell (BS, '65, zoology) had never dove to such a depth, 70 feet deeper than a recreational dive, but in 1991 he couldn’t pass up the chance to see the oldest excavated shipwreck in history up close. At the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, he spotted it—a ship from the Late Bronze Age lying on a steep incline. “...
2014-10-01 - Computers and quantitative analysis have revolutionized the study of science. What can they do for the study of literature? Investigators have high hopes as a new multi-institutional partnership involving the University of Illinois turns to big data to better understand the vast history of novels and what they say about society.Applying data-crunching computer power to the study of novels could...
2014-10-01 - The oldest person on the University of Illinois campus hails from Alaska and can be found in Davenport Hall, but don’t expect him to be roaming the Quad anytime soon. This particular man is over 10,300 years old. Actually, only a few bones and teeth remain of this individual, but it’s enough to extract ancient DNA and make important connections to Native Americans today, says...
2014-10-01 - A $1.5 million grant will help develop a tool to assist scientists in interpreting research data and make discoveries faster, says an astronomy professor and research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.Matthew Turk has been named a recipient of a Moore Investigator Award in Data-...
2014-10-01 - University of Illinois professor of entomology May Berenbaum has been awarded the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for achievement and leadership in advancing the field of science, according to an announcement from the White House Press Office. The late mathematician...
2014-10-01 - All of Germany was riveted last year by a three-part television miniseries, Generation War—the story of five Germans swept up in the titanic upheaval of World War II. Roughly 7 million viewers tuned in for each episode, sparking national debate in a country that has been grappling with the legacy of World War II for almost 70 years now.While the miniseries was well-crafted, LAS...
2014-10-01 - A little bit of support can go a long way, as demonstrated by a pair of exciting student success stories coming out of campus this fall. Both recipients of the first annual College of LAS Cook Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, awarded last spring, are taking their products and ideas to the marketplace—and one of them has already gained nationwide press. Supriya Hobbs (BS ’14,...
2014-09-07 - Adam Bleakney (BA ’00, English; MA ’02, journalism) and Josh George (BS ’07, journalism) visited the College of LAS Storyography project to discuss Illinois’ world-renowned tradition of wheelchair racing and innovative coaching. The transcript of the conversation follows: Adam Bleakney: I’m Adam Bleakney, and I’m...
2014-09-01 - If you were studying the behavior of African American girls, how might you collect your data? You’d watch them, of course. Well, as Ruth Nicole Brown knows, it’s not that simple—and her methods of researching female behavior are gaining attention across the country and recently earned her a slot in the first-ever White House Research Conference on Girls. The conference was intended to find ways...
2014-09-01 - For the past five years, Barbara Wilson has kept on her office wall a photo of Lincoln Hall—the “old” Lincoln Hall, that is, pre-renovation—given to her by the Department of Communication when she left there to work in the Office of the Provost. In it, a person is making his way back to the iconic building through the snow. Call the image...
2014-09-01 - When Ron McFarland arrived at the University of Illinois in the 1960s, the Floridian looked at the landscape around him—“uncompromising flatness” and “great country for soybeans and corn” were terms that came to mind—and, as he recalls, “my heart sank like a two-ounce sinker in a still pond.” For an avid fisherman, the outlook was bleak. He was a graduate student in the...
2014-09-01 - Ryan Foley is an expert at studying the oddballs of the stellar universe. “If it’s exotic or something strange, I’m your guy,” says Foley, a University of Illinois astronomer. “My thing is figuring out the weird ones.”That was certainly the case back in 2008 when Foley began studying an unusual supernova discovered by an equally unusual amateur...
2014-09-01 - Nobody can say that members of the Illini 4000 aren’t willing to go the distance for their cause. The group of 20 bicycle riders from the University of Illinois—including eight from the College of LAS—has completed a nearly 4,500-mile cross-country journey from New York City to San Francisco, in support of cancer research and patient support services. Bicycling across the country clad in orange...
2014-05-01 - It’s hard to know what’s more frightening: invasive fungal infections, which kill half of the 3 million people afflicted with them every year, or amphotericin, the drug that’s been used to fight the infections even though it’s nearly as deadly as the infections themselves. Researchers in the Department of Chemistry, however, have...
2014-05-01 - Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have just pulled off one of the oldest carnival tricks in the book: correctly estimating weight by sight alone. It wasn’t your grandmother they just exposed, however—it was the largest known galaxy cluster in the distant universe. By precisely measuring how much gravity from the El Gordo (Spanish for “fat one”) galaxy cluster warps images of more...
2014-05-01 - Three professors from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have been named 2014 Guggenheim Fellows for their achievement and exceptional promise, according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.The trio includes Asef Bayat, professor of sociology and the Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor in...
2014-05-01 - A professor of communication and executive vice provost for faculty and academic affairs at the University of Illinois has been selected to serve as the next Harry E. Preble Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Barbara J. Wilson, who joined the University in 2000, will begin her new role pending approval by the Board of Trustees....
2014-05-01 - The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has announced a third round of selections for its Centennial Gallery of Excellence, in honor of its 100-year anniversary. Eighteen more entries have been added to the growing list of noteworthy people, events, buildings, and groups in the college since it was formed in 1913. Almost 70 faculty, staff, alumni, buildings, and events are now featured in the...
2014-04-01 - According to recent research at Illinois, the goings-on at your state capital and other public offices are more clearly influenced by you and your neighbors’ personality types than we previously knew. Political science professors Jeffery Mondak and Damarys Canache compared personality data from more than 600,000 Americans who had responded to an online...
2014-04-01 - With his trademark cigar nested between two fingers, Mark Twain once strolled in broad daylight through the heart of London—in a blue bathrobe.The stunt drew a crowd of curious onlookers, as Twain intended, but this wasn’t the first time the famed writer pushed the envelope with regard to his public image. On another occasion, he invited a throng of reporters to interview him at his home as he...