2024-08-01
- The College of LAS has honored 15 professors with named scholar and professorship positions in recognition of their contributions to research and education at the University of Illinois.
The named positions include the I. C. Gunsalus Scholar, the Helen Corley Petit Scholars, and the LAS Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholars. The awardees are as follows:
I. C....
2024-07-31 - History professor Robert Morrissey and Professor of chemistry Joaquín Rodríguez-López have been named University Scholars in recognition of their excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service. The scholars program recognizes faculty excellence and provides $15,000 to each scholar for three...
2024-07-26 - It was the early 1980s. At the time, glioblastoma patients survived on average for only 10-11 months. Four decades later, the life expectancy has only marginally improved by a few months. For one team of scientists, these aren’t just statistics but family history. Though their grandfather died in the early 1980s, the shared childhood memory of his battle with glioblastoma (GBM)...
2024-07-26 - During a checkup with her obstetrician, Marilyn Hayes tells him about overwhelming exhaustion and possible symptoms of postpartum depression, such as feeling unsafe. Hayes, a Black woman, grows increasingly frustrated as her white, male physician, Dr. Richard Flynn, dismisses her symptoms and ignores her wishes when she refuses medication. Hayes becomes visibly uncomfortable when Flynn touches...
2024-07-26 - Understanding how soft materials fail under stress is critical for solving engineering challenges as disparate as pharmaceutical technology and landslide prevention. A new study linking a spectrum of soft material behaviors — previously thought to be unrelated — led researchers to identify a new parameter they call the brittility factor, which allows them to simplify soft material failure...
2024-07-24 - An exhibit showcasing butterfly nectar plants will be hosted at Urbana Park District’s Anita Purves Nature Center until the end of August. The exhibit, titled "Butterfly Elf, What’s Your Favorite Nectar?" features 17 pictures by professor James H. Yang, a visiting scholar from Taiwan who obtained his PhD...
2024-07-19 - Room 108 in Bevier Hall is normally a science classroom during the school year, but earlier this summer it resembled something like an ancient Mediterranean market. Children donned Greek armor or decorative wreathes with Roman clothing and jewelry. Others operated yarn looms similar to ones used to make clothes in Rome thousands of years ago. Since 2015, associate professor of...
2024-07-19 - Justin Wytmar, who recently completed his junior year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is among 20 students nationally who were awarded the Beinecke Scholarship. The Beinecke award supports graduate study in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. Illinois is one of 135 colleges and universities annually invited to nominate one junior for a Beinecke Scholarship, which is...
2024-07-18 - A new method of precisely targeting troublesome cells for death using light could unlock new understanding of and treatments for cancer and inflammatory diseases, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers report. Inflammatory cell death, knows as necroptosis, is an important regulatory tool in the body’s arsenal against disease. However, in some diseases, the process can go haywire;...
2024-07-15 - Professor of classics Dan Leon teaches about sports and society in ancient Greece and Rome. With the Paris Olympic Games beginning later this month, he shared how the original Games looked more than thousands of years ago in Olympia. How did the Olympic Games begin? It was a religious festival, first and foremost. It’s very old. The...
2024-07-12 - The mammoth sculpture, located south of the Natural History Building (NHB), and near the Main Quad where its ancestors wandered 30,000 years prior, finds itself amongst some new additions. The new thoughtfully curated landscape not only enhances the area but offers homage to the mammoth’s past. The landscaping concept, termed a “Pleistocene Garden” by Stephen Marshak, professor emeritus in the...
2024-07-12 - The weight-loss treatment landscape has been remade by a new class of injectable drugs, such as those sold under the names Ozempic and Wegovy. Patrick Sweeney is a professor of molecular and integrative physiology who studies the pathways and processes in the brain that govern eating and the sense of fullness, and...
2024-07-09 - Many students, said George Deltas, professor and head of the Department of Economics, see his field as a way to prepare for a future in public policy. He describes, however, how economics combines elements of business, engineering, and statistics to be practical and relevant in both the public and private sectors. What are you currently...
2024-06-27 - The human body has sophisticated defenses against the deposition of calcium minerals that stiffen heart tissues, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators at UCLA Health and the University of Texas at Austin found in a new study that provides the first detailed, step-by-step documentation of how calcification progresses. “Heart disease is the leading killer...
2024-06-27 - Keerthana Hogirala was born in Tirupati, India. When she was 6 years old, her family moved to Michigan, and when she was 9 years old she moved to Illinois. The transition to the United States was difficult. Hogirala says that her parents had to work multiple jobs and long hours to keep their immigration status and secure their future. She also had a difficult time adjusting. “I think...
2024-06-27 - By giving artificial intelligence simple associative learning rules based on the brain circuits that allow a sea slug to forage — and augmenting it with better episodic memory, like that of an octopus — scientists have built an AI that can navigate new environments, seek rewards, map landmarks and overcome obstacles. Reported in the journal Neurocomputing, the new approach gives AI the ability...
2024-06-25 - English professor José B. Capino spent the summer of 2017 researching in European archives and interviewing people for his book on the late Lino Brocka, an influential Filipino filmmaker. He did not expect that his work would get two of Brocka’s most accomplished films—“Jaguar” and “Bona”—restored. Both films achieved one of the greatest...
2024-06-24 - The anti-corruption laws enacted in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria created a new economic sector — a lucrative anti-corruption market based on outsourcing public procurement to private sector corporations. Despite millions of dollars of investments in platforms, websites, training materials, and consulting services ostensibly designed to promote compliance with anti-corruption...
2024-06-24 - Popular music is associated with youth, newness and originality. Yet such music has a deep relationship with the past through sampling, covers and commemorative reissues of decades-old recordings, tours by artists from the 1960s and ‘70s, and performances by tribute bands. In his new book, “Same Old Song: The Enduring Past in Popular...
2024-06-13 - Researchers have developed a new antibiotic that reduced or eliminated drug-resistant bacterial infections in mouse models of acute pneumonia and sepsis while sparing healthy microbes in the mouse gut. The drug, called lolamicin, also warded off secondary infections with Clostridioides difficile, a common and dangerous hospital-associated bacterial infection, and was effective against...
2024-06-13 - June is Pride Month, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprisings in Manhattan that brought the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people to the fore. Stefan Vogler, a professor of sociology, is a co-author of a new American Civil Liberties Union research report, “Policing Progress: Findings from a National Survey of LGBTQ+ People’s Experience...
2024-06-11 - The College of LAS has honored 17 professors with named scholar and professorship positions in recognition of their contributions to research and education at the University of Illinois. The named positions include the Brad and Karen Smith Scholars, the Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholars, the Lynn M. Martin Professorial Scholars, the Norman P. Jones Professorial Scholars...
2024-06-11 - Six professors from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences have been named Conrad Humanities Scholars and Clayton and Thelma Kirkpatrick Professors. Angela Calcaterra, Teri Chettiar, Irvin Hunt, and Ghassan Moussawi have each been honored as Conrad Humanities Scholars. The Conrad Humanities Scholars award recognizes promising mid-career scholars and provides financial support for continued...
2024-06-07 - Cong Wang taught English in China for six years before arriving at the University of Illinois, but when she arrived on campus Wang knew that communicating isn’t just about proper spelling and grammar but also a grasp of the cultural nuances around the language. She still had a lot to learn about English to make the most of her time here as a student. One of Wang’s personal philosophies, however...