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  • Meet Our Fellows: Nubras Samayeen, American Association of University Women

    Jul 20, 2018 1:45 pm

    When she finishes her degree at Illinois, Nubras Samayeen may be the first woman in Bangladesh to hold a PhD in Landscape Architecture. This is the realization of a goal she's had since she was a child and is, in no small part, something she's doing for her own two young daughters and for other Bangladeshi women who, like her, have unconventional dreams. Here’s her story.

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  • Where Are They Now?: Morgan (McClain-McKinney) Limo

    Jun 15, 2018 8:30 am

    Morgan (McClain-McKinney) Limo graduated from the University of Illinois in 2011 with an M. A. in Political Science. Roughly a day after walking across the stage in her cap and gown, she was on a plane bound for Washington, DC to pursue her dream of a government position. Now, she works as a Foreign Service Officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and is based in Conakry, Guinea where she supports strategic planning, budget, and communications for a variety of sustainable development and post-Ebola recovery programs.

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  • Meet Our Fellows: Matt Haugen, Fulbright Fellow studying Chinese Sport Industry

    Jun 5, 2018 8:00 am

    Last April, after nearly a yearlong process and an arduous wait, Matthew Haugen was notified that he had been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, which would allow him the opportunity to complete his dissertation research project studying sport education in China. His fellowship experience ultimately encouraged him to pivot his dissertation research project to better represent and inform the future he sees for himself as a scholar.

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  • Roots, Routes, and Returns: Discovering an Effective Writing Process as a Graduate Writer

    May 30, 2018 11:30 am

    It might surprise you if I were to share that first as an MA student and now as a PhD student in English (Literature emphasis) here at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, I have accumulated several 9 x 12 or 8.5 x 11 spiral-bound sketchbooks and that they have played a central role in helping me discover an effective writing process. So too have I used up the last drops of ink in a fair number of colorful pens and markers when writing across these surfaces. Thinking and writing for me, then, are inextricably linked in a visual and tactile process.

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  • Where Are They Now?: Amber Hendricks

    May 14, 2018 12:15 pm

    Amber Hendricks graduated from the Illinois Professional Science Master’s Program in 2011 with a master’s degree in Agricultural Production. She has held multiple research positions in the agricultural industry and currently works for Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont™ as a Production Research Scientist at the Johnston, Iowa campus. In her role, she uses data to inform decision-makers on best practices for improving corn seed quality and cornfield yields.

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  • Getting Ready for Your First Conference Presentation

    Apr 30, 2018 12:30 pm

    Conference presentations are a curious genre. While they can draw from seminar papers, lab reports, and/or research proposals, moving from a written text to a spoken one—and delivering your work—can present a range of unique challenges. 

    Below are some tips and tricks that can help you get in the mindset of giving a conference talk, especially if you’re new to sharing your work in this way.

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  • Meet Our Fellows: Matthew Klopfenstein, Fulbright Fellow in Moscow

    Apr 23, 2018 12:45 am

    Matthew Klopfenstein has spend the last seven months deep in the world of Russian archives exploring how the deaths of female pop stars in the early 1900s entered the public realm and became national phenomena. Read about Matthew's day to day life as a Fulbright Fellow living in Moscow, Russia.

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  • Where Are They Now? Ryan McConnell

    Apr 23, 2018 12:30 am

    Where can a graduate degree from the University of Illinois take you? In this series, we catch up with one recent Graduate College alum and ask the question: “Where are they now?”.

    Ryan McConnell works at salesforce as a Senior Demo Engineer, writing code for applications that show off what the company’s software can do. After completing his PhD in Classical Philology, Ryan McConnell eagerly began work as a visiting assistant professor. But with the uncertainty of the faculty job market, Ryan began exploring new career paths and found that his hobby in computer programming could actually be a career.

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  • Broadening the Reach of Comedy in CU

    Apr 4, 2018 10:45 am

    Stephanie Brown always thought she’d go back to grad school to get her PhD “eventually,” the winner of the 2018 Graduate Student Leadership Award said. But a few years working in the entertainment industry in LA and New York convinced her that the time was right. It would be several years until the #MeToo sexual assault awareness campaign took off in late 2017, but for Stephanie, enough was enough. 

    Stephanie is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Communications Research at Illinois. This semester, she’s wrapping up her dissertation and plans to defend this summer. When she’s not exploring issues of gender in comedy for her research, she’s living them. Stephanie founded and runs Broad Comedy, a local comedy group in Champaign-Urbana that is dedicated to diversifying voices in the local stand-up comedy scene.  

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