CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Individuals and teams from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who have made a visible impact on society were recently recognized with the 2025 Campus Awards for Excellence in Public Engagement. Faculty, staff members, students and community members who engage the public to address critical civic and community issues at the local, state, national and global levels were honored at an awards ceremony last month.
The recipients this year include faculty and staff members Antoinette Burton and Lee Ragsdale; graduate student Ananya Yammanuru; undergraduate student Ariana Mizan; the Entomology Graduate Student Association team; and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology Communications and Outreach team.
Burton, a professor of history and director of the Humanities Research Institute at Illinois, is the recipient of the Distinguished Award for Excellence in Public Engagement.
Burton’s scholarship specializes in 19th and 20th century Britain and its empire — with a special focus on colonial India — along with research and writing on feminism and gender history. But her almost decade-long leadership at HRI has positioned the institute as a bastion of public engagement, stretching the imagination of what a humanities researcher can be. Burton’s approach to embedding the humanities in the public does not move in one direction, from campus outward, but instead is grounded in an ethical reciprocity.
Her role as the principal investigator of a Mellon Foundation-funded project, a 16-partner consortium headquartered at HRI called Humanities Without Walls, has recalculated that boundary line between campus and the wider world. The Humanities in Action program places undergraduate students in paid internships with local community organizations where the priority of the semester-long work is serving the needs and ambitions of the partner program in both words and in practice.
She also oversees the operations of the Odyssey Project, an adult education program housed within HRI for students who live at or below the poverty line and are seeking reentry into higher education through U. of I. humanities courses. Burton has fought to keep this community-driven program fully funded year after year, and the results have been profound. According to surveys, 50% of students report that the Odyssey Project helped them improve their financial stability; 70% experienced a stronger sense of community, increased civic engagement and said their family’s perception of learning was positively impacted by their involvement in the program; and 100% of students reported improved feelings of empowerment and hope.
Ragsdale, the reentry resource program director for the Education Justice Project, is the recipient of the Emerging Award for Excellence in Public Engagement.
Ragsdale’s work with the EJP’s reentry program began when she was a volunteer. Assuming the director position in 2020, she now guides teams of staff, student interns and community members who produce reentry guides, videos and other resources that support individuals and families experiencing incarceration and deportation. Under her leadership, the program serves tens of thousands of individuals leaving prison each year, providing them life-altering information during a pivotal transitional phase of their new circumstances.
The reentry program produced a prison reentry guide specific to the state of Illinois when she became the director. Since then, Ragsdale and her team have produced two additional guides. The national prison reentry resource stemmed from a torrent of requests from individuals and services out of state. Her team found that several states lacked any reentry resources, and many others circulated flimsy and condescending materials. It is the country’s first — and still only — national reentry guide.
She also spearheaded a deportation resource, “A New Path: A Guide to the Challenges and Opportunities After Deportation.” In the spirit of the community-driven work her team undertakes, she also provides technical assistance to other organizations seeking to replicate the success of the EJP’s reentry program.
The Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology Communications and Outreach team is the recipient of the Team Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. Ever since the founding of the institute in 2007, the team has worked to translate complex ideas to the public in eloquent and playful ways, channeling the IGB’s motto: “Where Science Meets Society.”
One of the sustained successes from the team is hosting the annual Pollen Power summer camp. Since 2012, the camp educates more than 300 middle school students from the Champaign Unit 4 School District during a week of intensive hands-on research experiences using state-of-the-art microscopes and other research equipment. Participation in the camp frequently acts as a springboard for those same students to seek out other programs and activities offered by the institute. The team also led the 2024 return of World of Genomics, a multiday event hosted at Chicago’s Griffin Museum of Science and Industry that attracts thousands of attendees.
A recent priority for the communications and outreach team has involved deepening the quality of the institute’s community relationships. The Genomics for Judges program drew in judges and justices from around the country for substantive discussions and case scenarios relevant to their professional development. In seeking input directly from faith leaders themselves, the ongoing Genomics for Faith Leaders lunchtime workshop has been reworked into a format that is comfortable to participate in and explores challenging topics at the intersection of science, society and faith.
The Entomology Graduate Student Association team — whose members include Annaliese Wargin, Jared Martin, Morgan Brown, Erinn Dady and Ellie Meys— is the recipient of the Student Team Award for Excellence in Public Engagement. This registered student organization led by graduate students from the department of entomology strives to promote a positive message to the public about the scientific and cultural importance of insects.
With a four-decade history of outreach efforts, the EGSA maintains a steady presence at events in the university community, the region and the state with its insect “petting zoo.” In the past 12 months, the EGSA has hosted activities in such varied places as schools, farmers markets, libraries, Allerton Park, churches, Riggs Brewery and several of the venues around campus. Each appearance is tailored to the research and outreach goals of the hosting venue. Classrooms often provide the most lasting educational impact, with EGSA members bringing insects that meet the curricula for state teaching standards and then leaving those insects behind as “class pets” for students to continue learning weeks after an event.
One of the most beloved outreach events produced by the EGSA is the annual Insect Fear Film Festival, which celebrated its 43rd year this past February. The graduate students organized activities including arts and crafts, face painting, insect-wrangling at the petting zoo, crowd control, media interviews and collaborated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology to display CT-scans and electron microscope images of insects. The event typically brings up to 1,000 people to Foellinger Auditorium every year in what is now a hallmark of the university events calendar.
Ananya Yammanuru is the recipient of the Graduate or Professional Student Award for Excellence in Public Engagement, while Ariana Mizan was awarded the Undergraduate Student Award.
Yammanuru is pursuing her Ph.D. in computer science and holds bachelor’s degrees from Illinois in computer science and brain and cognitive science. She leads the computer science department’s Girls Who Code and Sunday Coding Studio outreach programs, enabling access to computer science to K-12 students in the Champaign County area.
Since her first year on campus in 2018, Yammanuru has been involved with Girls Who Code, rising from a facilitator up through the leadership ranks. She displayed creativity and perseverance in addressing logistical challenges during her tenure, from researching different coding platforms to overcoming diminished resources when the program resumed operations following the COVID-19 pandemic. Yammanuru also founded the Sunday Coding Studio after she discovered nothing existed locally that offered programming like Girls Who Code — free and easily accessible — that was open to all students. The studio was piloted in spring 2024 and became a full-fledged program last fall, providing coding activities beyond foundational principles to students of all genders.
Mizan is a rising senior student pursuing a bachelor’s degree in strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship from the Gies College of Business. Her public engagement activities can be seen across a vast spectrum of community impact, entrepreneurial spirit and leadership.
As an early contributor to the strategy of CAPSLocks, a startup founded by a Carle Illinois College of Medicine student that addresses the challenges of chemotherapy-induced alopecia, Mizan provided business and legal strategies while working with engineering faculty and medical professionals to develop solutions that demonstrate a 90% efficacy rate in preventing hair loss for chemotherapy patients. She serves as chair of the Food Insecurity Committee for the Provost Undergraduate Advisory Board, where she designed and implemented a novel “excess dining dollar quota system” to help alleviate student hunger. Mizan also was elected as the student trustee on the University of Illinois System Board of Trustees and presides over major decisions related to financial investments, tuition and policy matters affecting over 80,000 students.
