Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Six Illinois faculty members elected AAAS Fellows

Editor’s note: This is an update to the news release originally posted Nov. 24, 2020, at 10:00 a.m., to include an additional faculty member.      

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Six professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been elected 2020 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Evolution, ecology and behavior professor Alison Bell; plant biology professor Carl Bernacchi; bioengineering professor Rohit Bhargava; materials science and engineering professor Paul Braun; chemistry professor Prashant Jain; and materials science and engineering professor Nancy Sottos are among the 489 scientists to be awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow this year.

Portrait of Alison Bell

Alison Bell

Bell studies the evolution of behavior in the three-spined stickleback, a fish species adapted to diverse habitats. She is a pioneer in the study of animal personality, using genomics and other tools to understand the causes and consequences of individual behavior differences. She is a member of the Animal Behavior Society, the International Society for Behavioral Ecology and the American Society of Naturalists. She was a recipient of the 2012 Young Investigator Award from the Animal Behavior Society.  She is the leader of the Gene Networks in Neural and Developmental Plasticity theme at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology; the Lowell Getz Scholar in Evolution, Ecology and Behavior; a Romano Scholar; and a professor in the Beckman Institute; the Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation; and the Neuroscience Program.

Bernacchi is a professor and a U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service scientist. He investigates the impacts of climate change on crop physiology, energy fluxes between the atmosphere and plant canopies, carbon sequestration and crop canopy responses to stress. He is a member of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation and the Genomic Ecology of Global Change research theme at the IGB. Bernacchi also serves on the editorial board for three journals and led the development of the American Society of Plant Biologists’ Ecological and Environmental Plant Physiology section.

Portrait of Rohit Bhargava

Rohit Bhargava

Bhargava is the Founder Professor in Bioengineering and the director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, with a research home in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and affiliate appointments in several departments across the campus. His lab works to develop new chemical-imaging tools and artificial intelligence technologies that will aid in detecting, diagnosing and understanding cancer. Among his educational innovations are the Cancer Scholars Program and the National Institutes of Health T32-supported Tissue Microenvironment Training Program for graduate students across campus. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy, and he has received other national awards for his research.

Portrait of Paul Braun

Paul Braun

Braun is the Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering and the director of the Materials Research Laboratory at the U. of I., with appointments in other departments and institutes, including the Beckman Institute. His research group focuses on the synthesis of materials with carefully crafted 3D nano- and mesoscale architectures that have useful optical, electrochemical and thermal properties. For example, his group is developing new materials for high-energy and power-electrochemical energy storage systems such as fast-charging batteries and high-energy microbatteries. Braun is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society and is a recipient of numerous faculty and research awards.

Portrait of Prashant Jain

Prashant Jain

Jain is a professor, Alumni Scholar and the Richard and Margaret Romano Professorial Scholar in chemistry at Illinois. He investigates the unique behavior of electrons, photons and atoms in nanoscale materials and applies this understanding to the conversion of sunlight to fuels and the design of new solid-state catalysts. His group has developed particles with special optical resonances that can be switched on and off. These “plasmonic quantum dots” can act as optical switches – key components for computers that could use light instead of electricity to transmit data at ultra-high speeds. Jain is a professor in the Materials Research Laboratory and the Beckman Institute at Illinois, and a faculty affiliate of physics. He also is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Portrait of Nancy Sottos

Nancy Sottos

Sottos is the head of materials science and engineering. She also is a Center for Advanced Study Professor and a Swanlund Chair at Illinois. She leads the Autonomous Materials Systems group at the Beckman Institute, and is affiliated with the Materials Research Laboratory, mechanical science and engineering and aerospace engineering. Her research focuses on polymers and composite materials capable of self-healing and regeneration; mechanochemically active polymers; and materials that can reliably store energy. She is a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science and the Society for Experimental Mechanics. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in early 2020.

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