News Bureau

Our biases, conscious and unconscious, influence how we process news of events like the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, and the media plays an important part in forming and reinforcing those biases, says Travis Dixon, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Carle Illinois College of Medicine, a partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Carle Health, has been granted provisional accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.  Provisional accreditation affirms that a medical school meets nationally accepted standards of educational quality and can move forward with plans to build a sustainable medical education program.

Andreas Cangellaris has been selected by Chancellor Robert Jones to be the Urbana campus’s next vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost. Cangellaris, the dean of the College of Engineering, will start in his new role Jan. 16, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Fourteen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students and recent alumni were offered Fulbright grants to pursue international education, research and teaching experiences across the globe this coming year.

In the fall of 2020, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign welcomed students back for in-person instruction amid the powerful first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The university successfully maintained operations throughout the semester – with zero COVID-19-related deaths or hospitalizations in the campus community – thanks to its “SHIELD: Target, Test, Tell” program. In a sweeping report, the team behind the campuswide collaboration details the innovations in modeling, saliva testing and results reporting that helped mitigate the spread of the virus, and shares the data collected and lessons learned through the process.

The Illinois Neurodiversity Initiative, a pilot program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will provide autism-specific support to freshmen with autism.

Researchers have completed a prototype for a mobile laboratory designed to demonstrate a way to rapidly deploy the I-COVID saliva-based test for COVID-19 developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The lab, called mobileSHIELD, also could deliver other testing capability during a public health crisis, and it will serve as a rich source of human factors engineering data.

There’s a long history of scapegoating marginalized people in epidemics, and of seeing difference in the way those of different races respond to disease, says Rana Hogarth, a U. of I. professor who studies the history of both medicine and race, and the connections between.

According to a new study reported in the journal Science, bird populations in North America have experienced a troubling decline in the past five decades. The scientists estimate the continent has lost close to 3 billion birds, roughly 29% of their total numbers in 1970. Senior wildlife ecologist Thomas J. Benson of the Illinois Natural History Survey discusses the status of birds in Illinois with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates. Benson leads the Critical Trends Assessment Program, which monitors the biological condition of the state’s forests, wetlands and grasslands, and collects data on plants, birds and arthropods.

Dolores Jane Byers ... Martin Joseph Knanishu ... Warren C. McCarty ... Kurtis Isaiah Pealer ... Patricia Eileen Price ... Selma Katharine Richardson ... Grace Christine (McCormick) Prestin Samford ... Winton U. Solberg

A recent study from Wesleyan University found that 48% of ground meat samples made from white-tailed deer killed with lead shotgun slugs in Illinois were contaminated with lead, while meat from deer killed by archers contained no lead. Illinois Natural History Survey human dimensions scientist Craig Miller spoke to News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about the risks associated with lead ammunition in hunting.

Fourteen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students and young alumni will pursue international educational, research and teaching experiences this coming year via student Fulbright grants. Applications are open for Fulbright grants for the 2018-19 academic year.

Sixteen University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students and recent graduates were offered Fulbright grants to pursue international education, research and teaching experiences around the globe this coming year. Another six Illinois students were named Fulbright alternates.

A Minute With...™ Illinois Professor Chris Roegge, executive director of the Council on Teacher Education

Rachel Switzky has been selected as the inaugural director of the Siebel Center for Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Switzky, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial design at Illinois, will begin the new role June 18. 

Biochemistry professor Nicholas Wu has received a 2021 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. His project aims to understand how antibodies interact with their targets.

Five Urbana-Champaign campus professors have been named University Scholars in recognition of their excellence in teaching, scholarship and service.

The online master’s degree in strategic brand communication, a unique joint program between the College of Business and College of Media, aims to prepare the strategic leaders of tomorrow in an ever-changing global digital-media environment.

The current tax bill fits with a 30-year trend that doesn’t favor income from work, says sociologist Kevin Leicht

Temperatures may be on the rise, but many motorists and pedestrians remain focused on the ground as they attempt to navigate safely around the many potholes that develop this time of year. Industrial and enterprise systems engineering professor Henrique M. Reis spoke with Illinois News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about how potholes form and if there are any potential solutions.

Alice Cary, currently the chief of police at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s next executive director of public safety and chief of police.

Six University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty members have been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships for 2018. It is the third year in the last four that the Urbana campus has garnered more fellowship awards than any other single institution.

Seven professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been elected 2022 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Fellows are chosen by their peers for outstanding contribution to the field.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is introducing a revision to make its COVID-19-testing process faster and more efficient, with fewer invalid or inconclusive results and less plastic waste.

Very tall buildings are attractive options in cities where land is at a premium, but they come with construction challenges, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign architecture professor Abbas Aminmansour.

Pandemics have changed our physical spaces throughout history, but changes made as a result of COVID-19 may not be long-lasting, says Illinois architecture professor Benjamin Bross.

Robert Rushing, an Illinois professor of comparative and world literature

U. of I. anthropology professor Kathryn Clancy supports a federal legislative effort that would require universities to report – and federal funding agencies to consider – findings that any university professor engaged in discrimination on the basis of sex. 

The “With Illinois” fundraising campaign officially ended June 30 and concluded with a $200,000 personal contribution from Chancellor Robert J. Jones and his wife, Dr. Lynn Hassan Jones.

By 2018, after nearly five decades of using temporary campus facilities, the U. of I.'s Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center will finally have a permanent building of its own.

The fourth annual Illini Success report documents the exceptional success of graduates from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s undergraduate programs in securing a “first destination” within six months of graduation.

Germán Bollero will be the next dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Bollero has served as the interim dean of ACES since September 2021.  

Last month, the Midwest experienced record-breaking cold temperatures and many are wondering how, when the climate is experiencing an unprecedented warming trend, we can still experience such frigid cold. News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian asked University of Illinois atmospheric sciences professor Don Wuebbles to explain.

Three faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2020 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world. It is based on an analysis of journal article publication and citation data, an objective measure of a researcher’s influence, from 2009-2019.

The highly cited Illinois researchers this year are: materials science and engineering professor Axel Hoffmann, crop sciences and plant biology professor Stephen Long, and plant biology professor Donald Ort.

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.

Eight University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign projects are among 26 to receive the first C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute awards for artificial intelligence techniques to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. The institute will provide a total of $5.4 million over the next year to projects that examine the medical, social and economic impacts of the novel coronavirus and inspire researcher collaboration in advanced machine learning and other AI disciplines. 

Venetria K. Patton will become the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign effective Aug. 2, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Patton is currently the head of the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University.

Five University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professors have been named University Scholars in recognition of their excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. The award is presented by the University of Illinois System to faculty members from the Chicago, Springfield and Urbana universities.

According to cicada expert Catherine Dana, 2024 will be an eventful year in Illinois with the emergence of two periodical cicada broods across most parts of the state.

The 2020 Insect Fear Film Festival will feature crustaceans, which share a common ancestor with insects.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Jawed Karim, an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a co-founder of YouTube, a popular video-sharing Web site, will be the speaker at the 136th U. of I. Commencement on May 13 (Sunday). He will speak at the 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. ceremonies at Assembly Hall, 1800 S. First St., Champaign.

Six academic professionals were honored with 2016 Chancellor's Academic Professional Excellence awards at a reception April 12.

Eric Minor, a University of Illinois alumnus with more than two decades of experience in corporate brand marketing, will become the university’s first-ever chief marketing officer effective Jan. 31 pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Chrystalla Mouza has been appointed dean of the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign effective Aug. 15, pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

This year’s Ebert Film Fest will include “Almost Famous” and “Sideways,” documentaries on Maya Angelou and Fred Rogers, and guest actresses Gina Gershon, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Tilly.

The proper way to register dissent with speech one finds offensive doesn’t involve blockades or threatening violence. It’s more speech, says lllinois law dean Vikram Amar

A panel of local health officials will discuss the coordinated local response to the global coronavirus concern at a 9 a.m. forum Tuesday, Jan. 28, at the Fire Service Institute, 11 Gerty Drive, Champaign. Experts will be available onsite for media interviews.

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.

Horseshoe bats in China are a natural wildlife reservoir of SARS-like coronaviruses. Some health experts think wildlife markets – specifically in Wuhan, China – led to the spillover of the new coronavirus into human populations. Though not confirmed, the hypothesis has given bats around the world a bad rap, and public fears of exposure to bats are on the rise. Illinois Natural History Survey wildlife biologist Tara Hohoff, the project coordinator of the Illinois Bat Conservation Program, spoke to News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates about bat biology and conservation, and the flying mammals’ role in human health.

The University Scholars program recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. Six Urbana campus faculty members have been named University Scholars and will be honored at a campus reception Jan. 31.