Partnering with Purpose for the Public Good

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's College of Education has launched a healing, training, and research clinic offering free mental health services. The program matches people in the community with graduate students who are training to become clinicians.

A new $1.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will strengthen and expand the Soybean Innovation Lab's testing of new soybean seed products across sub-Saharan Africa.

With the help of a new federal grant, researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago want to advance the implementation of requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act in public agencies across the country. 

UI Health and Wings, the largest agency in Illinois that addresses domestic violence, have partnered to provide domestic-violence services and training to UI Health patients and staff. The partnership aims to end domestic violence and break the cycle of abuse, focusing on 16 ZIP codes in Chicago.

NASA’s Artemis missions are preparing to return humans to the moon and establish a permanent lunar base before the end of the decade, and three University of Illinois Chicago students are contributing their talents to help make those missions successful.

Preventing nitrogen from draining into watersheds is important for reducing harmful algae blooms downstream. One method uses woodchip bioreactors — a basin of woodchips at the drainage end of an agricultural field. A new University of Illinois College of ACES Department of Crop Science study shows that these elegantly simple bioreactors can also reduce dissolved phosphorous.

Man-made reefs have become a popular way to provide a habitat for fish in coastal communities. But these Lake Michigan rubble ridges are also designed as a cost-effective tool to prevent erosion.

The University of Illinois Chicago has been recognized as a top-tier research university since 1987, but contributions from the research done at the university date back farther than that. UIC researchers and professors have amassed more than 750 patents held by the university in technology, medicine, dentistry, pharmaceuticals and more.

A new project from University of Illinois Extension is putting local food resources on the map. The Find Food IL map connects residents with food pantries, summer meal sites, established farmers' markets, and other resources in their area.

Professionals of all kinds—from artists to architects to scientists—have been drawing inspiration from nature for millennia. Now, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign engineers have managed to produce extremely fine fibers inspired by spider silk and hagfish slime.

A Cancer Center at Illinois team translated nanometer-scale data into a working version of Minecraft to create CraftCells, allowing for 3D exploration of cellular structures in a format that's easy for both researchers and the general public alike to use.

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign team named their designed infrastructure module the Trans-lunar Hub for Exploration, ISRU, and Advancement – or THEIA, after the proposed object that crashed into the Earth that created the Moon as we know it today.

Students from the Carle Illinois College of Medicine are making a difference for local children with disabilities by using their engineering skills to create free assistive devices and toys.

A southern Illinois man who spent over three decades behind bars for a murder that evidence proves he did not commit was freed last month thanks in part to the University of Illinois Springfield-based Illinois Innocence Project (IIP). 

The Community Research on Climate and Urban Science project, or CROCUS, deploys advanced sensors around Chicago to study the influence of trees and skyscrapers on the city's climate and then meets with communities to understand their most urgent problems and questions.

With a general election coming soon on November 5, deepfakes are a growing concern. AI-generated images, videos and audio recordings are being used to spread misinformation, at a time when voters are relying on digital media to learn about candidates and their campaigns.

A rapid-detection sensor for toxic gas, an AI tool for agriculture and the inaugural arts and theater program at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum were among five research proposals selected for the 2024 science team grants from Discovery Partners Institute, part of the University of Illinois System. 

University of Illinois Chicago scientists will play a key role in realizing that potential through a new computing platform they are building for researchers and the public that can be used in different cities and around the world. UIC will bring strengths in visual data analysis, civil engineering and government and community partnerships to design accessible computational tools for environmental justice, transportation and other public priorities.

At Home with the Collective challenges architects to reimagine housing from the individual unit up to large buildings and neighborhoods. The project’s aim is to create affordable living spaces for people — such as refugees, the elderly or Native Americans — who suffer most from the housing shortage.

Oil drops from underwater oil spills can break into tinier droplets at the surface that remain suspended in the water, according to research from the University of Illinois Chicago. That means cleanups after disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill may be removing less oil from the environment than was thought.

Researchers at Solar Farm 2.0 are investigating how crops such as grains and soybeans grow with solar panels obstructing their full view of the sun. This counterintuitive practice is called agrivoltaics, a nascent industry that partners solar developers looking for large plots of land and farmers looking to make additional income.

In a chase straight out of a movie, the Department of Climate, Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences' Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARM) team intercepted the deadly Greenfield, Iowa tornado to deploy instruments and radar that measured wind speeds over 300 mph. 

DeepCover is a phone game application in which users play games like Match 3, word finding, and other popular games, particularly among older adults. As the game starts, you create an agent and start a mission to help stop a scam. As you work through puzzles and prizes allowing you to customize your character, you’re given short tips about how to identify scam behavior. 

With the assistance of two groups of graduate students from the University of Illinois Chicago, River Forest officials have started work on creating a climate action plan for the village. Village President Cathy Adduci said she attended the April 30 presentation, which she called “great” and said she was “quite impressed with our collaboration and partnership with UIC.”

A new $6 million collaborative agreement between the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and engineers from the University of Illinois Chicago will develop fuels and technologies for sustainable aviation and autonomous vehicles. These innovations could help commercial aviation transition to sustainable fuels and improve the use of drones for package delivery and rescue operations.

University of Illinois Extension's Josie Rudolphi works to educate the farming community on the prevalence of hearing loss within its ranks, and to encourage both testing and preventive measures such as the use of noise-canceling headphones or ear plugs.

As part of the Sustainability at UIC program, the Food Recovery Program diverts otherwise-wasted food to communities in need on the city's West Side.

A University of Illinois Chicago Earth and Environmental Sciences doctoral student's Moon-mapping app won big at the 2023 NASA International Space Apps Challenge. Juan Manuel Losarcos will be honored at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. this summer. 

If you could improve one CTA "L" stop, how would you do it? That's the question at the core of a project helmed by UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs students. Their survey focuses on three of the busiest stations in the transit system, on the Blue and Red lines.

Carbon capture is a critical technology in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities. However, a suitable material for effective carbon capture at low cost has yet to be found. The research teams are using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to dream up previously unknown building block candidate materials.

The Medical Evaluation Response Initiative Team (MERIT) is the only program in the Rockford area that provides specialized, pediatric expert medical exams in a child-friendly atmosphere to suspected victims of child abuse and neglect. The Department of Child and Family Services, Children’s Advocacy Centers, law enforcement and physicians in Northern Illinois rely on MERIT to provide objective, balanced and defensible diagnoses and offer insight into children’s experiences and treatment needs.

In 2023, the University of Illinois Extension, in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, conducted statewide listening sessions in rural and urban areas to gain an in-depth understanding of experiences, barriers and opportunities within the Illinois food system.

Cutting boards, non-stick pans, mixing bowls, even tea bags: in the kitchen, plastics can be hidden in plain sight. It’s something that Jessica Brinkworth, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, realized once she began looking for ways to cut down on plastic use in her own kitchen after her workplace started doing the same.

Trent Ford is the Illinois State Climatologist for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The latest USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Maps (released in November 2023) show a drastic change in a warming of average temperatures.

State funding helps make Dixon Springs Agricultural Center a magnet for research, information, and interaction. Funding also supports innovative and environment-friendly tactics like high tunnels that benefit the region.  

“When farmers succeed, their communities prosper,” said Jay Walsh, who oversees the University of Illinois System-led Illinois Innovation Network, which is helping unite key partners in the broadband mission. 

The UIC student organization Engineers for a Sustainable World recently designed, built and installed a solar refrigerator for The Love Fridge Chicago at its Chicago Patchwork Farms location. 

From workforce development to enhancing rural healthcare, expanding broadband internet access to recruiting more underrepresented students, the University of Illinois System addresses real-world challenges to further bolster the state’s social, cultural and economic viability.

DPI uses sophisticated analytical techniques to evaluate how tree canopy coverage reduces temperature and energy demand amid our world’s changing climate. For example, on a typical day the temperature within a block can vary as much as 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit with quality tree shade compared to open sidewalks.