The next Graduate Seminar is held Wednesday, October 5, at noon in Room 1005. Brian Metzger from the Mechanisms of Cognitive Control Group, Shachi Mittal from the Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, and Fatemeh Ostadhossein, bioengineering, are the presenters. Lunch will be served.
Steven A. Culpepper, associate professor of statistics, has joined the Beckman Institute as an affiliate faculty member in the Intelligence, Learning, and Plasticity Group within the Intelligent Systems research theme.
Congratulations to Scott Carney, professor of electrical and computer engineering and member of Beckman's Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, Ioannis Chasiotis, professor of aerospace engineering and member of the Autonomous Materials Systems Group, and Rebecca Stumpf, associate professor of anthropology and member of the Bioacoustics Research Laboratory, for being named University Scholars. The program recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship, and service.
Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a system to better analyze and improve the statistical power of magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging (MRSI), which can lead to better analysis of metabolite levels in the brain.
Beckman faculty members were named for Grainger Engineering Breakthroughs Initiative endowed appointments. Rashid Bashir, professor of bioengineering and member of Beckman's 3D Micro- and Nanosystems Group, has been named as the first Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering. Rohit Bhargava, professor bioengineering and member of the Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, Yoram Bresler, professor of electrical and computer engineering and member of the Organizational Intelligence and Computational Social Science Group, and Dan Roth, professor of computer science and member of the Illinois Language and Literacy Initiative Group, were also recently named as Founder Professors of Engineering.
In an interview with ChicagoInno, Naira Hovokimyan, from the Cognition, Lifespan Engagement, Aging, and Resilience Group, discusses her work finding new applications and challenges for drones, particularly on farms and in nursing homes, as well as what's ahead in her work with robotics.
This week, Timothy Bretl, associate professor of aerospace engineering and member of the Mechanisms of Cognitive Control Group, is taking part in the National Academy of Engineering’s eighth Frontiers of Engineering Education (FOEE) symposium. The Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium provides a forum for creative engineering educators to generate novel approaches, share early implementation schemes, establish a national network, and serve as change agents in their home institutions. The attendees were nominated by NAE members and engineering deans and chosen from a highly competitive pool of applicants.
Oluwasanmi Koyejo, assistant professor of computer science, has become a part-time faculty member in the Intelligence, Learning, and Plasticy Group, within the Intelligent Systems Research theme.
Dipanjan Pan, assistant professor in bioengineering and member of Beckman's Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, was recently named co-recipient, with Ph.D. student Aaron Schwartz-Duval, of an American Heart Association award for developing a controlled non-seed mediated gold nano-architecture with supreme branching and anisotropic behavior. The preliminary work was recently published in Nano Research. It is the first time the team demonstrated that supreme hyper-branching is possible even with inorganic nanocrystals and polymer hybrids.
A study by Ning Wang, professor of mechanical science and engineering and member of the Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, and colleagues from the University of Illinois and China has demonstrated that external mechanical force can directly regulate gene expression. The study also identified the pathway that conveys the force from the outside of the cell into the nucleus.
Aron Barbey, associate professor of psychology and member of Beckman's Intelligence, Learning, and Plasticity Group, Marta Zamroziewicz, graduate research assistant, and Chris Zwilling, postdoctoral researcher, conducted a new study linking blood levels of a key nutrient to brain structure and cognition in older adults.
The Huang Symposium on Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2016, at Beckman Institute honors Thomas S. Huang, a longtime Beckman faculty member.
Susan Schantz, professor of comparative biosciences and member of Beckman's Cellular and Molecular Foundations of Intelligent Behavior Group, will continue – and broaden – her research into environmental factors that affect child brain development, thanks to a new $2.9 million award to Illinois and the University of California, San Francisco. This grant will fund the first two years of what is expected to be a seven-year effort.
Kathryn Clancy, associate professor of anthropology and faculty member in Beckman's Social and Emotional Dimensions of Well-Being Group, spoke recently on the subject of sexual harassment and assault in higher education at a conference sponsored several prominent scientific societies. This week, Clancy joins a federal legislative effort, led by U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier of San Francisco, 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. Clancy spoke to University of Illinois life sciences editor Diana Yates about how awareness of sexual assault and harassment on campus has changed in recent years.
Illinois researchers, including Xiuling Li, professor of electrical and computer engineering and member of Beckman's Nanoelectronics and Nanomaterials Group, developed a method to etch tall, thin transistors for high performance with less error.
The first fall semester 2016 Graduate Student Seminar will be held on Wednesday, September 21, at noon in Room 1005 Beckman Institute. Lunch is provided.
Beckman researchers Jean-Pierre Leburton and Lav Varshney recently received an Illinois Proof-of-Concept Award from the Office of Technology Management for a project entitled “Machine Learning for Nanopore Biodetection.”
Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition and member of the Bioimaging Science and Technology Group, and colleagues discovered that higher levels of the nuclear transport gene XPO1 indicate when a patient is likely to be resistant to the popular drug tamoxifen.
Alejandro Lleras, professor of psychology and member in Beckman's Mechanisms of Cognitive Control Group, is presenting on "Modeling Parallel Information Processing in Goal-Directed Vision," noon, Thursday, Sept. 15, in Room 1005 Beckman Institute. Lunch is available.
Heidemarie Laurent, assistant professor of psychology, has been named an affiliate faculty member in the Cognitive Neuroscience Group within the Biological Intelligence research theme.
Viktor Gruev, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been named an affiliate faculty member in the Bioimaging Science and Technology Group within the Integrative Imaging theme.