News Bureau

The expansive new set of vaccination requirements issued by the Biden administration affecting the federal workforce will likely be upheld by the courts, but the mandate emanating from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is on shakier legal ground, says Michael LeRoy, an expert in labor law and labor relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Taking large or multiple doses of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin can cause a toxic overdose, and humans should not take forms intended for animal use, says Illinois veterinary medicine expert Dr. Jim Lowe.

The state legislative district map that was signed into law earlier this summer by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was based on population estimates rather than official U.S. Census data, rendering it vulnerable to legal challenges, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign political science professor Brian Gaines.

Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, also known as “Ebertfest,” has been rescheduled to April out of concern for a spike in COVID-19 variants in the state. The Virginia Theatre in Champaign will automatically transfer all pass and seat reservations for the event to the new dates, and refunds are available to those who cannot attend the rescheduled event. 

Sixteen civil service employees – eight this year and eight in 2020 – at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were recognized for exceptional performance with the Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award.

As the military withdraws from Afghanistan nearly two decades after 9/11, the U.S. public should carefully consider the costs and benefits of the effort, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign political scientist and international relations expert Nicholas Grossman.

Vaccine passports strike the right balance between letting life go on for the vaccinated while still being realistic about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, said Jacob S. Sherkow, a professor of law at Illinois and bioethics expert.

The Supreme Court affirmed that while public schools have an extra duty to protect unpopular opinions and minority speech rights, school officials still have the power to discipline students for bad behavior, says a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign media law scholar who studies free speech issues.

According to a new report co-written by Illinois Natural History Survey postdoctoral researcher Valeria Trivellone, climate change, poverty, urbanization, land-use change and the exploitation of wildlife all contribute to the emergence of new infectious diseases, which, in turn, threaten global food security. Trivellone spoke with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about how global authorities can tackle these intertwined challenges.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has received the inaugural Research Response to Community Crisis Award from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities for its COVID-19 testing program.

Various economic and political forces are reducing job opportunities for new professionals and discouraging some entering these fields or staying in the U.S. after they earn their degrees, says sociology professor Kevin Leicht.

Celebrating the nation’s Independence Day with fireworks is an enduring tradition, but fireworks can be a source of distress and danger to wildlife. Dr. Sam Sander, a clinical professor of zoo and wildlife medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, spoke with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about how fireworks affect wildlife and the environment, and how to minimize the risks.

As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes and employers look to restart businesses at full capacity, workers have leverage that they’re using to temporarily stay out of the labor market in certain industries, says U. of I. labor expert Robert Bruno.

Nine University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students and recent graduates were offered Fulbright grants to pursue international education, research and teaching experiences. The Fulbright student program will fund approximately 2,200 U.S. citizens to travel abroad for the 2021-22 academic year.

There’s no easy solution to the problem of unaccompanied migrant children at the southern U.S. border, a U. of I. expert says.

The Illinois Health Care and Human Services Reform Act has potential to address root causes of health disparities and foster health equity through provisions such as implicit bias training and community health workers, says Illinois professor Ruby Mendenhall.

Passes for the 22nd annual Ebertfest will go on sale June 7. Festival passes cover all of the screenings during the festival, which runs Sept. 8-11 at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Ill.

As more newspapers are purchased by “vulture” hedge funds – highlighted by the recent acquisition of Tribune Publishing Co. by Alden Global Capital LLC  – University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign journalism professor Brant Houston touts nonprofit news organizations as a viable alternative to traditional newspaper business models.

Architecture professor emerita T.F. Tierney will examine the role that federal lending practices played in maintaining racially segregated suburbs.

Five University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students and recent graduates were awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships to study foreign languages this summer. A sixth student was offered a Boren Scholarship to continue her foreign language studies.

A leadership vacuum and political maneuvering by both Israel and the Palestinians are fueling the violence between the two, said Rachel S. Harris, a professor in the Program in World and Comparative Literature and in The Program in Jewish Culture and Society.

Eleven students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be featured in an edition of “The College Tour,” a television series that gives admitted and prospective students the opportunity to tour campuses virtually and learn about academic and extracurricular experiences available to undergraduates. This advisory is distributed on behalf of the public affairs unit in the Office of Public Affairs.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign senior Sriyankari Chitti is one of 76 students to be named a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, from more than 8,000 applicants around the world.

The Campus Awards for Excellence in Instruction were awarded to faculty members, staff and graduate teaching assistants at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this spring for excellence in teaching, mentoring and advising.

Gillen D’Arcy Wood, whose work is in environmental humanities, has been awarded a 2021 Carnegie Fellowship.

Three University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professors have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest professional honors a scientist can receive. Physics professor Nadya Mason and chemistry professors Ralph Nuzzo and Wilfred van der Donk are among 120 newly elected U.S. members – 59 of whom are women, the most elected in a single year – and 30 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Education Dean James Anderson, physics professor Nadya Mason, chemistry professor Nancy Makri and materials science and engineering professor Kenneth Schweizer have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest honor societies in the nation.

Fear of reprisals from outraged parties on social media and unspoken rules about acceptable discourse on college campuses constrain what faculty members teach, research and discuss, says sociology professor Ilana Redstone.

Kolten Conklen, a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from Sterling, Illinois, is among 16 students nationally awarded the Beinecke Scholarship. Illinois is one of 135 colleges and universities annually invited to nominate one junior for a Beinecke Scholarship.

A total of 12 academic professionals at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were honored this week with the Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence award, encompassing the 2020 and 2021 award cycles. The award recognizes academic professionals for their work, personal and professional contributions.

A new resource is available to help guide teachers and school administrators as they reopen schools amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, assembled by researchers and experts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The K-12 Shield Playbook is based on the SHIELD Illinois program used to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic at the university.

Bobby Smith II, a professor of African American studies; Retika Adhikari Desai, a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian American Studies; and Juliet Larkin-Gilmore, a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in American Indian Studies, are 2021 ACLS Fellows.

History professor Kevin Mumford has been awarded a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship. Mumford studies race, politics and sexuality in America.

Four University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students were awarded Barry M. Goldwater scholarships for their potential to contribute to the advancement of research in the natural sciences, mathematics or engineering.

While many think of COVID-19 as primarily a respiratory disease, its effects on the heart contribute to nearly 40% of deaths – and can strike even healthy children and athletes, says Mariam Bonyadi Camacho, a student in the medical scholars program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Camacho co-wrote a recent report on the coronavirus’ cardiac effects, both short- and long-term. She discussed the risks to heart health and possible treatments in an interview.

Students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 can enroll in a study to help understand the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing the spread of the coronavirus. Participants will be paid and could receive the vaccine as soon as April 1.

The projects aim to advance digital scholarship and find new ways of sharing culture.

The Call to Action Research Program, initiated by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Robert Jones to address structures of racism and injustice, is seeking proposals from the Urbana campus and the local community.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s “With Illinois” philanthropic campaign has met its $2.25 billion mark in gifts and commitments, but the campaign will continue in light of a variety of ongoing needs.

The Protecting the Right to Organize Act would be the most significant revision of U.S. labor law since 1947, says Michael LeRoy, an expert in labor law at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

European Union Day at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is online this year, with Sweden’s ambassador to the U.S. speaking on gender equality and a Swedish hip-hop artist discussing racial concerns. EU Day will also include a U.K.-based theater performance of an ancient Greek play focused on refugees.

According to a new commentary in Disability and Health Journal, people with disabilities who rely on service dogs often are prohibited from bringing their working dogs into teaching and research laboratories. This one barrier can stop them from pursuing careers in science, says Joey Ramp, a researcher in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology and lead author of the commentary. Ramp spoke about the issue with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates.

One of the Biden administration’s first acts was to send Congress the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, a long-promised immigration reform bill. But any legislative action on comprehensive immigration reform will face significant headwinds in the Senate, says Lauren R. Aronson, an associate clinical professor of law and the director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law.

Aleksei Navalny likely will be able to maintain his public profile from prison, but his agenda needs to include economic issues to mobilize mass public support, said Illinois professor of Slavic languages and literatures Richard Tempest.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign entomology professor Esther Ngumbi is the 2021 recipient of the Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science, an annual award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented to scientists and engineers in recognition of their contributions to public engagement with science.

Amanda Gorman’s performance at the Super Bowl will give poetry an enormous audience – one that is “unfathomable” for most poets, said poet and Illinois English professor Ángel García.

Dance professor Cynthia Oliver has been selected as a 2021 United States Artists Fellow.

The Center for Advanced Study has appointed 20 faculty members as associates or fellows for the 2021-22 academic year.

Nick Holonyak Jr., a renowned innovator of illumination, has been awarded the 2021 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering “for the creation and development of LED lighting, which forms the basis of all solid-state lighting technology.” Holonyak (pronounced huh-LON-yak) is credited with the development of the first practical visible-spectrum LED, now commonly used in light bulbs, device displays and lasers worldwide.

Educational history professor Jon Hale discusses how Freedom Schools promote civil rights and educational equity and the implications for Illinois in funding these schools as part of the state's education reform initiative.