Illinois Featured Content

Bringing education to historically marginalized girls between the ages of 10 and 18, SwaTaleem co-founder Ananya Tiwari is dedicated to helping women across India connect to technology, overcome language barriers, and achieve financial freedom.

Graduate student Griffin Sipes is creating personalized exercise routines for manual wheelchair users. Ultimately, he hopes to use his exercise model to improve exercise recommendations for people with spinal cord injuries. 

A computational model of the more than 26 million atoms in a DNA-packed viral capsid expands our understanding of virus structure and DNA dynamics, and could provide new research avenues and drug targets. 

'Lost bat populations have harmful ripple effects on food and agriculture,' says Professor Amy Ando,. 'Crop yields fall and input costs rise as farmers try to compensate for the services bats usually provide.'

U. of I. researchers are working with Boeing to develop truly renewable energy solutions for aviation from well to wake - from processing raw materials into fuel, to measuring the emissions in the wake of an aircraft. 

A new state law is requires public high schools to teach media literacy, so these U of I colleges formed the Initiative for Media Education Inquiry and Action to help fill educators’ needs for media literacy training and curriculum development. 

Breeding flat-faced animals like bulldogs comes at a cost. U of I veterinary surgeon Heidi Phillips treats many of the respiratory problems these animals face, but says better breeding practices as a more effective way to prevent them. 

'There are 71 National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers in the country -- all doing exceptional work...But as we look at the national landscape, there isn’t a cancer center that is centered on technology. And that is a missed opportunity...'

In 2021, we raised almost $1.4 million and this year, we have a goal of $1.5 million in funds from our campus community. Please take a few minutes to learn about the agencies and causes, from local to international, that resonate with you.

'In my work at the National Security Council, I contributed to the executive order on artificial intelligence that the President signed at the end of October 2023. A lot of work went into that effort...', says ECE professor and White House Fellow Lav Varshney.

The 2025 Campus Awards for Excellence in Public Engagement were recently awarded to faculty, staff and students who address critical societal issues.

Elena Koptieva came to U of I through the Scholars at Risk program in fall 2022 as a faculty member in the Department of Physics. Now she lives in Champaign with her children while her husband remains in Ukraine fighting in the war. 

Mental health interventions provided through digital media to 445 displaced youths living in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, showed promise at broadening care to this high-risk, difficult-to-reach population.

Making a helicopter fly in Mars' low atmospheric pressure is no small feat, especially considering it has to pilot itself- communication latency between Earth and Mars makes direct control impossible. MiMi Aung led the team that made it happen.

U. of I. alumna Marla Dickerson and her team were recognized with the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series on the international trade in the chemicals used to make fentanyl. Dickerson is the 26th alum to ever win a Pulitzer.