Keep up with media citations about Illinois research and important media coverage of faculty, staff, students and alumni, and issues critical to the university. Illinois in the News provides a daily curated sample of mentions from local, regional, state, national and international media. Subscribe (illinois.edu) to Illinois in the News.

Volunteers are needed at the universitywide Commencement ceremony at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, May 11, 7:30 a.m. to noon. Please register here by April 8 to volunteer. An orientation and grab-and-go lunch will be held on Thursday, May 9, noon to 1:30 p.m. at Memorial Stadium.  If you have any questions, please call the Commencement Office at 217-333-8834 or e-mail commencement@illinois.edu.

The Doctoral Student Peer Mentoring Program connects students who are new to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with established peers in the doctoral program. The goal is to build a year-round professional and personal support network among doctoral students across academic units on campus. Apply to participate in the peer mentoring program. 

If you have a summer or fall assistantship you would like to fill, consider posting it in the Assistantship Clearinghouse. While most assistantships are awarded by academic departments directly to their own students, the clearinghouse is a great place for departments and other campus units to list positions when seeking applicants outside of their unit. 

The CQI Community is accepting presentation proposals for its 2024 conference to be held Oct. 9-10, 2024, in Champaign. This year’s theme is Practical CQI-Skills and Tools for Real World Application. We are looking for workshop sessions that will actively engage attendees and provide tools, innovative strategies and ideas for automation that attendees can readily apply in their own organizations.

Applications are now being accepted through Friday, May 31 for the SPaRC'Ed Research Administrator Certification Series.  All are welcome to apply, however, staff who perform sponsored programs and research administration duties and/or related work for their unit will be given priority. SPaRC'Ed courses will begin in August 2024 and conclude in April 2025.

Learn something new at the Summer Session of The Farms: An Allerton Folk School. Subjects will include cyanotype, dog training, wet felting, weaving lace, shibori stitching, filmmaking, poetry, leather working, jewelry beading, needlefelting, backpacking and more! Go here for a complete course listing.

Attn. Faculty, Postdocs, Staff and Grad Students, we need your help! We are seeking judges for the 2024 Undergraduate Research Symposium, set for Thursday, April 25, 2024. As a judge, you'll be assigned a 1.5-hour slot (based on your availability) to evaluate a subset of student presentations. Sign up at: https://go.illinois.edu/URSJudge. Great university service opportunity to add to your CV!

Join QCB as Bin Zhang, MIT, discusses how coarse-grained models enable large-scale simulations of complex biomolecular systems over long timescales, including elucidating the molecular determinants for the stability, internal organization and coarsening of biocondensates, and their contribution to genome organization. Light refreshments (by room 3151). Also on Zoom.

Join us at the ARC Nutrition Fair! Explore local food systems, nutrition and win prizes. On-campus departments and local food businesses will offer samples, coupons and insights. All are welcome! 

The Senate Committee on Educational Policy is collecting information regarding a Proposal to Create the School of Computing and Data Science in the Grainger College of Engineering.  A public forum will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. March 20, 2024, in Room 104 of the Illini Union. Follow this link for more information, RSVP to the forum or provide written comments.

Tired of getting zero results in your database searches? This workshop will break down how the professionals identify resources, and search for articles, books and other scholarly works. We’ll cover chasing citations, creating optimal keyword searches, using built-in database functions to improve your searches and other strategies to make you a more efficient researcher.

Are you interested in helping others handle burnout, work-life balance and general well-being? The Beckman DEI Committee & Counseling Center are offering “Life’s a lot – How to help others (and yourself) with improved mental well-being." Lunch for those who register (https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/149629920) prior to March 18th. Please encourage group members (post-docs and students) to attend!

This hands-on workshop will teach you how to make common word processing documents accessible for screen readers and how to make presentations accessible for a wide range of users. We’ll cover MS Word and PowerPoint, Google Docs and PDFs and strategies and checklists you can start using immediately to ensure your research, teaching and presentations are more accessible to diverse audiences.

Join Armelle Chabot of University Gustave Eiffel as she presents via Zoom at the Spring 2024 Kent Seminar Series Thursday, March 21, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. (CT). Food and soft drinks will be provided beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the ICT Classroom. 

Prototyping gives designers the opportunity to create, communicate and evaluate the ideas that have been developed over the human-centered design process. In this workshop, learners will experiment with prototyping the intangible - experiences! Learn how prototyping can help your designed digital or in-person experiences to reach their goal, whether that's to delight, inform or motivate. 

This session introduces the podcasting equipment and technology available to our campus community from the libraries. In addition to familiarizing ourselves with the equipment for recording, we will cover some beginning recording and audio editing techniques, particularly within the software Audacity.

Join us on Thursday, March 21 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for the next event in our Chef Cooking Series as we feature “wholesome desserts.” The series of live cooking demonstrations takes place each month at Table 1867 in the Illinois Street Dining Center, and you’re invited. Watch and learn as the chef prepares the dishes in front of you and then enjoy the tasty, wholesome desserts!

A member of the Spokane Nation and an artist, writer, educator, and activist, Charlene Teters rose to national prominence at the University of Illinois where she led protests against the degrading depictions of American Indian caricatures used as mascots. She is the subject of the documentary In Whose Honor? and has received numerous awards and honorary doctorate degrees.

Enjoy a free screening of "Ovarian Psycos" at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 21, at Spurlock Museum followed by a film discussion at 3 p.m. Friday, March 22 at the WRC. "Ovarian Psycos" is about a new generation of fierce, unapologetic and feminist women of color from the Eastside of Los Angeles who confront injustice, build community and redefine identity through The Ovarian Psycos Cycle Brigade.

The Illini Union Board's Annual Drag Show is back at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 21! Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the event starts at 8 p.m. in the I-rooms. Tickets are $10 for students, $15 for non-students and can be bought in the Illini Union Quad Shop (open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day) and the Illini Union Rec Room on the Lower Level (open noon to 9 p.m. on weekdays; 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends). 

Community-engaged researchers and writers of all levels are invited to join us as Diane Doberneck, Michigan State University, discusses key elements of community-engaged publishing, writing with community partners, unfurling a project into multiple publishing pieces and strategizing on where to publish your work. The morning workshop will be followed by a networking lunch.

The Grainger Engineering Library Information Center IDEA lab has a variety of technology and tools available to all students at the university. Tools include 3D printers, virtual reality headsets, crafting equipment and a variety of loanable technology that you can use to develop ideas and explore and learn in new ways. Come see the possibilities that this service offers for you.

The Pandemic was accompanied by a massive infodemic. This infodemic made it harder for individuals to make public health decisions. In his talk, Dr. Brooks will present the Anti-Infodemic Virtual Center for the Americas. Its goal is to develop tools that pair AI with human judgment to help public health decision-makers respond to infodemics. Join us for lunch, learning and conversation! 

As efforts to decolonize museums gain momentum, conversations have focused on voluntary repatriation, restitution and repatriation. While these efforts are important, in many museums they have remained largely theoretical. This conversation will instead focus on the small, cumulative acts of generosity and reciprocity that can ignite institutional change. 

The TAKEOVER is an annual event put on by all 180+ first-year students of the School of Art and Design. In one day, the exhibition is installed, celebrated for a day and then taken down (leaving no trace). Work is installed and performed all over the School of Art and Design's main building and grounds by participating students.

Saturday Engineering for Everyone is a free lecture series open to anyone interested in learning more about engineering. Virtual reality headsets have entered the mainstream, but our sense of touch is still underutilized in computing. On March 23, Craig Shultz will talk about how haptic technology adds another dimension to the virtual reality experience: the ability to “touch” virtual objects. 

Bizhiki Culture and Dance Company invites you to an event of traditional winter activities like maple sap boiling, lacrosse, birchbark basketry, beadwork and regalia making. Food provided by Indigenous caterer Mike's BBQ. All ages welcome. Some activities take place outdoors.

Heal your heart by connecting and collaborating with Earth at Discovering Earth Magic from 2 to 4 p.m. Sundays, March 24 and April 7, 14 and 21 in the Greenhouse Auditorium. Part of The Farms: An Allerton Folk School, this class will cover the healing properties of herbs, making cordage and fabric dye from backyard plants and the power of meditating with the trees. $80/person. Register here.

Do you use social determinants of health (SDOH) data in your research and/or classroom? We are developing a “SDOH Super User Group” to learn more about current practices and existing challenges of accessing SDOH data. We hope to use the information gathered at this meeting to support the development of the SDOH and Place Project. All participants will receive a $25 Amazon gift card for their time.

Our next Food for Thought will feature CAS Beckman Fellow Xiao Su and CAS Associate M. Teresa Cardador. Don't miss it!

Come join us for Coffee and Conversation on Wednesday, March 27, from 9 a.m. to 11 am at the Green St. McDonald's. No agenda, just the opportunity to ask questions and be a part of change in the community in which we live. We hope to see you there. 

The Illini Career and Internship Fair is next week! Explore and connect with 90+ employers, eager to engage with talent like you. Open to all majors and class levels. This is the last career fair of the school year, so don't miss it. Registration is encouraged but not required. Visit Handshake to view the list of employers and to register.

Join us for a Beckman Interdisciplinary Safety Seminar. Illinois psychology professor Florin Dolcos will present "Training Your Brain to Increase Resilience and Well-Being." Please register by 5 p.m. Friday, March 22. Pizza will be served to those who register. 

On Wednesday, March 27, University of Chicago economist and political scientist Chris Blattman will be on campus to present the 2024 Linowes Lecture on how the organizational structure of criminal gangs in Medellin, Colombia influences rates of violence in the city, with lessons that apply to cities across the United States and the world as well as relevance for policymaking.

Join the Cancer Center at Illinois and the Center for Genomic Diagnostics in a mini-workshop on Diagnostics for Animal Health and Animal Models. The workshop will develop collaborations and research strategies include point-of-use detection of infectious diseases in farm environments and the utilization of molecular diagnostics in animal models to understand cancer biology. Lunch will be provided.

Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems and Industries at UPenn; Itzhak Yanovitzky, professor of communication and public health at Rutgers; Julie Pryde, administrator of the C-U Public Health District; and Cherie Avent, assistant professor of educational psychology at Illinois, will explore how media, technology, infrastructure and community can come together. 

Sustainable Cooking Class with Common Ground Co-op: Join us at the ARC Instructional Kitchen to take a gastronomic journey of locally source products. Each participant will get a chance to make everything on the menu, learn tasty cooking techniques and enjoy it after the class. ARC Member $15; non-member $25.

Join us at the Cancer & Microbes Symposium on March 29 at Allerton Park and Retreat Center. Hosted by the Cancer & Microbes Working Group and the Microbial Systems Initiative, this event will explore the latest work in cancer and microbe research and opportunities for potential collaborations. Registration closes on March 22.

Please join us for a potluck and a chance to meet the Doctoral Research Support Program team and your fellow doctoral students. All are welcome to bring a dish. We look forward to seeing you there! 

Make plans to attend the 2024 TiME Day Symposium at the Beckman Institute from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 3. This year's event features speakers Sjoerd Finnema, Michael King, Yang Liu and Gregory Underhill; student presentations; and an awards ceremony. Register here.

The annual Poetry in Translation is a hybrid event and will take place in the Main Library 106 and on Zoom (registration below). All are invited. If you want to read a poem in an original language and then in English translation, email Marek Sroka (msroka@illinois.edu) or Paula Carns (pcarns@illinois.edu) by March 28. Refreshments will be served.

Hear inspiring keynotes, educational sessions and workshops at the 24th annual U of I Web Con held online April 4-5. Talks will address web design and development; accessibility; UX/design; social and digital media; diversity, equity & inclusion. U of I employees and full-time students get a discounted rate. Registration closes midnight on 3/22 and includes access to recordings for a limited time.

We are delighted to announce that the Edible Book Festival will be taking place on Saturday April 6 at the Common Ground Co-Op, Lincoln Mall in Urbana. This year will be particularly exciting since we have a new roster of judges including our very own dean of Libraries, Dean Claire Stewart, and some fun prizes to win! Register now to submit your culinary creation! 

Allerton Park and the Monticello Area Arts Council will offer a Youth Art Studio from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 13, in the Greenhouse Auditorium. Third through eighth graders will engage in an immersive artistic experience that allows artists to communicate through multiple mediums. The day will culminate with an exhibit in The Studio. $85/person (3rd-8th grades). Register here by April 1.

The 7th Health Summit "Healthy Aging of Brain and Mind" will delve into AI, neuroscience, healthy aging and health equity. Participants will learn from detection of age-related neurological disorders, the impact of exercise on cognitive health, machine learning for causal discovery in biomedical research to integrating AI into care delivery. Join us for shaping predictive healthcare. Registration.

Illini AstroFest is being organized to bring together members of the astrophysics community from around campus to showcase our research, encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration and build community. Who's Invited? All members of the Illinois campus community are welcome! This event is specially tailored for early career researchers and faculty. Registration is FREE! Register by April 12

Teens (13-17) are invited to hang out at Allerton Park for a movie, games, karaoke and snacks at a Teen Movie Night from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, April 26, at the Music Barn. Wear your favorite PJ’s and BYOBlanket and lawn chair to watch “High School Musical.” Teens will receive a ticket at entry for popcorn, a movie theater boxed candy, and a soda or water. $5/person (13-17-year-olds). Register here.

Discover a new outdoor hobby or backyard project! In the spring Four Seasons Gardening series, horticulture experts will share tips for backyard beekeeping, options for managing and replacing invasive Callery pear trees across landscapes and steps to achieve more natural, environmentally friendly lawn care. Learn more at go.illinois.edu/FourSeasons.

In this workshop, students will learn about best practices for creating infographics and be introduced to several free online tools that allow users to create their own infographics, including Piktochart, Infogr.am and Visme. The session will end with a practice activity where participants are encouraged to use the webtool of their choice.

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML) holds an extensive collection of primary source material, including 500,000 volumes and 5,000 linear sq. ft. of archival material. This workshop will explore the ways patrons can engage with the RBML’s collection, including introduction to the RBML, accessing the collection in person and virtually, classroom instruction and collaboration opportunities.

Explore the evolving impact of AI on job searching and hiring, leveraging tools like ChatGPT. Delve into the current AI landscape, address challenges, and discover best practices for ethical use in resumes, cover letters, and interviews. Gain insights into employer perspectives and discuss the future of these tools. Join our virtual event on Zoom. Register on Handshake.

Although sampling the work of others has been a natural part of image creation since humans have communicated through art, new AI tools have complicated that conversation. This workshop will look at how these tools are built and discuss the ways people are using AI generated images to create new bodies of work, streamline their research processes, and muddy current and future copyright waters. 

In this workshop, you will learn the basics of Illinois REDCap and how it can be used for the collection of research data, including how to create projects, instruments and surveys and how to start collecting research data. It is recommended (but not required) that you have a REDCap account prior to attending the workshop. No prior REDCap experience is necessary.

The next Online Student Service Watercooler Group (OSSW) meeting is on Wednesday, March 20, at 11 a.m. CT via Zoom. This month, Disability Resources and Educational Services (DRES) will join us to discuss how they can support online students at UIUC. 

This session will give you strategies for getting the most out of Scopus; the largest interdisciplinary database of peer-reviewed literature including journals, books and conference proceedings, particularly in the sciences. This session will highlight how to find literature, reviewing author details, using article citations to discover more information and evaluating sources. 

Web of Science is the widest-scoping, multidisciplinary platform of abstract databases for full-text articles, books and conference proceedings. This session provides insight and strategies for getting the most use out of the platform. We will highlight how to search for literature and authors as well as where to find citation tracking data and grant information. 

Are you preparing for an upcoming conference? Need to design a poster for your class? This workshop will give you tools for communicating your research for academic conferences and professional meetings in a concise and visually effective poster presentation. This event is co-sponsored by Teaching, Learning, and Academic Support, the Writers Workshop and the Office of Undergraduate Research. 

Albert Kettner, Assoc Research Professor at the University of Colorado and Associate Director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at CU-Boulder, will present "CSDMS: advancing research in the Geosciences by supporting finding, accessing, operating and coupling model integration tools for reproducible science," as part of CIRSS' Trustworthy Computational Science Speaker Series.

A manuscript should be evaluated by reviewers based on its quality and scientific merit. However, peer review has been pointed out in literature as a biased system comprised of biased people. This workshop will discuss types of bias in the peer review process such as gender, race, nationality, prestige and reputation of authors, and share recommendations to deal with reviewers and their biases.

From 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 26, the League of Women Voters of Champaign County is hosting a Keeping It Local Zoom session. Waste management representatives from Champaign, Urbana and the U. of I. will be discussing waste prevention and diversion efforts in the community. Come with questions!

The Education Justice Project is hosting a four-part series that brings together international and national organizations. The fourth panel is on Wednesday, March 27 @ noon CT over Zoom. It will bring together the Illinois Prison Projects and Pathfinders to discuss the importance of legal accessibility, access to justice and legal empowerment for communities in the pursuit of social justice.  

The March Collaboration Cafe webinar from the Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub will be on "Building Data-Enabled Climate-Resilient Communities" via the National Science Foundation's Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) program. We'll focus on Track A of the CIVIC solicitation and explore possible cross-sector collaborations and partnerships in the Midwest. Bring your ideas for data innovation!

Explore changes in hydrology and climate due to human changes to the landscape and greenhouse gas emissions. Discover findings related to rainfall and other precipitation in the latest report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The presentation will also include hydrology research updates focused on how climate variations impact extreme surface water movement and climate.

This presentation by Autumn Haagsma, Director of the Michigan Geological Repository for Research and Education, and John Yellich, Director of the Michigan Geological Survey, will cover how the Michigan Geological Survey and Geological Repository for Research and Education serves communities through research in natural resources, water, critical minerals, energy and climate resilience. 

Regardless of where you are in your student loan journey, there are many things to remember when it comes to managing those loans from application to pay-off (or forgiveness). Join us via Zoom on May 3, 2024, to learn the terms, tips, and tools to make managing your education debt easier.

Is drinking causing problems in your relationship? The University of Illinois is conducting a research study for people with drinking problems and their partners. Participants will receive 12 sessions of science-backed alcohol couples treatment and complete phone-based study assessments during their enrollment. Qualified individuals will be compensated for their time. 

Do you own a smartphone or smart TV? Are you 18-60 years old? We’re interested in exploring people’s experiences with ‘shoppable ads’ on social media and smart TVs. This study involves a 30-minute interview (Zoom or in-person).Upon completion of the interview, participants will receive a $15 Amazon gift code. Please send an email to Prof. Michelle Nelson (nelsonmr@illinois.edu) if interested.

We are exploring challenges encountered in daily activities for older adults (60+) with history of stroke. If you or someone you know is experiencing difficulty with thinking, memory or concentration, we would like to learn from your experiences to develop solutions. The study will be conducted using videochat. Participants will be paid. Contact KCH-HFA-ENACT@illinois.edu or 217-265-0885.

We are conducting a paid study to understand your concerns about managing your health. For example, whether to get any vaccines, take screening, start exercise, adopt certain treatments, etc. Participants will receive $25 for two-time study participation (<30 mins). If you are interested in the study, please fill out the Screening Form. Researchers will contact you to schedule Zoom meetings.

Are you a Latina woman who had a planned cesarean delivery in the past 12 months? We are looking for women (aged 18-45) to help us develop a mindfulness intervention for Latina women who plan to deliver by cesarean. Eligible participants will complete a brief online survey and receive a $10 electronic gift card. Contact us today at (217) 244-9363 or mamidappstudy@illinois.edu