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  • Illinois graduate student Martha Larkin pulls a lever to operate a hand press as students get hands-on experience with historical printing technologies.

    Using a 19th-century hand press to teach history of printing

    Dec 8, 2022 9:45 am

    'I want students to literally get their hands on historical technology. Rather than talking about how print worked, students do these things – set print, bind books and use computer technology,' says Professor Ryan Cordell.

  • A composite of images from holiday- and winter-themed books at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Photos by Fred Zwicky

    Finding the holiday spirit in rare books

    Dec 20, 2018 3:00 pm

    The Rare Book and Manuscript Library has holiday- and winter-themed books and images, from a depiction of a 1683 frost fair on a frozen river to illustrations of Norse folk tales

  • some members of the U of I Saxaphone Ensemble

    Building an orchestra of brass

    Feb 21, 2019 10:15 am

    The University of Illinois Saxophone Ensemble tackles music never meant for the saxophone.

  • A flock of hens enjoys a cracked-corn dinner. Photo by Christine Parker

    Double the traps, double the turkeys

    Apr 11, 2018 9:45 am

    Since 2015, I've spent each winter capturing and tagging wild turkeys with GPS transmitters to study their habitat use and nesting behavior in forests managed with prescribed fire

  • Walking as a group with their eyes closed, Illinois staff and students wind down the stairs of the Architecture Building as they experience campus spaces without sight. Photo by Fred Zwicky

    'Blind Field Shuttle' brings a new perspective to campus walk

    May 3, 2023 10:00 am

    Vancouver-based social practice artist Carmen Papalia's 'Blind Field Shuttle' focuses is on unlearning visual primacy and reconsidering our preconceptions and biases. 

  • basketball hoop. Photo courtesy Daniel Santos

    Aiming for hoops and practicing English

    May 29, 2018 9:45 am

    I can see that their trust is growing. They are looking to their female trainer as a role model, an outlier in a society that doesn’t always encourage young girls to pursue athletics

  • The author, Juliana Soto, with a sooty ant tanager, Habia gutturalis. Soto is a graduate student in the U. of I. Program in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology. Photo by Natalia Ocampo Peñuela

    Following in the footsteps of early 20th century naturalist Elizabeth Kerr

    Jun 5, 2023 9:15 am

    Today marks the beginning of our expedition to the Central Andes of Colombia. All eight of us are women. We are all Colombian ornithologists working together to survey the birds here. Interestingly, we are not the first women to do this.  

  • Tommy McElrath collects bees in a net. Photo by Fred Zwicky

    Chasing bumble bees on a patch of prairie

    Jul 21, 2020 9:15 am

    Scientists know so little about bumble bees that it’s hard to make recommendations about the kinds of habitat they need, says Tommy McElrath, insect collection manager of the Illinois Natural History Survey. 

  • 3. Wildflowers bloom in the recently burned understory of the pine flatwoods of Floridas Apalachicola National Forest.

    In search of ‘white birds in a nest’

    Jul 24, 2018 8:00 am

    Our willingness to tromp through swamps and brambles is fueled by the hope of catching a glimpse of “white birds in a nest” (Macbridea alba) in bloom

  • Ph.D. student Brian Graves presented his virus-busting video game. Photo by Fred Zwicky

    Teaching generations of students about outbreaks – with art

    Jan 26, 2023 12:45 pm

    'The art show is a midpoint in a journey to revamp the health district’s Germ Busters program, which conducts outreach to K-8 students on a variety of infectious diseases.'

  • researcher Rebecca Barzilai maps and collects soil samples from the floor of a religious shrine in Greater Cahokia, an ancient Native American settlement on the Mississippi River in and around present-day St. Louis. Photo by Leslie Drane, the Emerald Acropolis Project

    Reading history in the soil

    Jan 28, 2020 8:45 am

    Archaeologists are often asked, 'What is the most interesting thing you’ve ever found?' My answer...is not as much about the objects I find as it is about the stories I learn from them.

  • Illinois Natural History Survey avian ecologist Bryan Reiley looks for rare birds on conservation lands. Photo courtesy Bryan Reiley

    Destination: Conservation

    Feb 12, 2019 8:45 am

    My task is to survey randomly chosen fields in the (Conservation Reserve Enhancement) program to figure out whether and how these conservation areas are affecting birds that have declined in numbers

  • Illinois Natural History Survey medical entomologist Jiayue (Gabriel) Yan peers through a viewing port as he works inside a sealed glove box, using tongs to carefully handle Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Photos by Fred Zwicky

    Starving mosquitoes for science

    Feb 22, 2024 9:30 am

    Go Behind the Scenes with Illinois Natural History Survey medical entomologist Jiayue (Gabriel) Yan as he studies how nutrition influences mosquito infection with dengue virus. 

  • The observers watch as a farmer tosses a net into one of several ponds on the cooperative grounds. Photo by Quang Trieu, Vietnam Academy of Social Science.

    Learning by listening to the people who live it

    Mar 18, 2024 9:15 am

    Experts from Illinois visit a cooperative prawn and rice farm in Southeast Vietnam to hear the farmers' stories about their challenges and adaptations to a changing climate.  

  • Agricultural and biological engineering professor Girish Chowdhari. Photo by Matthew Lester Photography, LLC.

    Girish Chowdhary: My path to Illinois

    Mar 27, 2020 9:00 am

    'At Illinois, this vision has bloomed into an invaluable research collaboration for some of the brightest minds crop sciences. The robots can do the research fieldwork required in a fraction of the time.'

  • Tyrone Phillips works with the cast and crew as they rehearse prior to opening night at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Photo by Fred Zwicky

    Returning to Illinois theatre to direct, mentor students

    Apr 25, 2023 4:15 pm

    Tyrone Phillips, an Illinois theatre program alumnus and the artistic director of Chicago’s Definition Theatre, returned to direct students in a play this spring.

  • Ananya Sen. Photo by Fred Zwicky

    Tracking an invisible world

    Jul 22, 2019 9:30 am

    Successful experiments are worth the sleepless nights I spend dissecting the processes in living things that are essentially invisible to us.

  • 9) Arisaema triphyllum, collected May 3, 1942, in White Pines Forest State Park, Illinois. Photo by Brian Stauffer

    Bringing yesterday's plants to digital life

    Jul 31, 2019 1:00 pm

    This imaging process is part of Endless Forms, an NSFdigitization project. Our part is to digitize specimens from across the country in three groups: succulent plants, carnivorous plants and epiphytes.

  • U. of I. field school students at the Pottersville kiln site in 2011. Credit: Photo by Bridget Lee-Calfas

    Bringing an enslaved potter's story to the Met

    Oct 17, 2022 9:15 am

    George Calfas unearthed a jug in 2011 that is now part of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, 'Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina'

  • curious chickens watch photographer Michelle Hassel as she takes their picture

    Learning from chickens

    Oct 19, 2022 8:15 am

    A tour of the U. of I.’s Poultry Research Farm reveals that chickens are daring, pragmatic and curious about humans. The facility trains students in all aspects of chicken care, breeding and management, and supports research at Illinois and beyond.

  • Photo of a swath of prairie with more than a dozen tall stalks of yellow flowers reaching up into a blue sky. Photo by Fred Delcomyn (from “A Backyard Prairie”)

    Building back a tiny piece of prairie

    Nov 15, 2021 11:45 am

    Working to restore a prairie on century-old farmland – especially when starting from seed, as the Delcomyns did – requires plenty of patience and a lot of help. 

  • a trail runs through a rainforest reserve in Sri Lanka. Photo by the author

    Exploring multispecies relationships by walking 'with' the forest in Sri Lanka

    Nov 28, 2023 9:30 am

    Emma Lundin, a graduate student in tourism at the U of I, discusses her research in a rainforest in Sri Lanka, exploring how to create sustainable nature-based tourist experiences by walking 'with' the forest.