2026-08-17 -  In Spring 2026, PEEC graduate student Emmy Medina-Espinoza was awarded the Graduate College Dissertation Travel Grant, which provides funding to support travel and fieldwork essential for doctoral dissertation research. The grant enabled Medina-Espinoza to conduct fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, advancing her research on cockroach ecology and evolution. Medina-Espinoza’s dissertation...

2026-07-17 - This spring, PEEC graduate student Shasta Kamara was awarded the Graduate College's Dissertation Completion Fellowship. This fellowship helps outstanding Illinois graduate students complete the doctoral degree by providing a 9-month stipend, along with waivers of tuition, service fee, health service fee, AFMFA fee, and library/IT...

2026-07-16 -  In Spring 2026, PEEC graduate student Malavika Venu was awarded the Graduate College Dissertation Travel Grant, which provides funding to support travel and fieldwork essential for doctoral dissertation research. This grant allowed Venu to further her research at the University of Toronto, where she is expanding this work from dokb to a broader set of genes and neural pathways...

2026-04-21 -  This past year, PEEC graduate student Mary Heather Jingco achieved significant milestones in her research on the endangered Mariana Fruit Bat. In Fall 2025, Heather was awarded the FA25 Graduate College Dissertation Travel Grant, which...

2026-03-27 - Two PEEC graduate students have been named among the Top 9 Finalists for the 2026 Research Live! Finalist Showcase. Hosted by the Graduate College, this event invites students to present their research to a general audience in three minutes or less.The Research Live! event will take place on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Gregory Hall Auditorium, Room 112, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Come out and...

2026-02-03 - Corn bred with genes from wild relatives can reshape soil microbial communities and reduce nitrogen loss — with no yield reduction — according to new research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The advancement marks the first time corn’s genetic makeup has been linked with...

2025-09-23 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois once harbored more than 8 million acres of wetlands. By the 1980s, all but 1.2 million wetland acres had been lost, filled in for development or drained to make way for agriculture. Now, thanks to a 2023 Supreme Court decision, roughly 72% of the remaining 981,000 acres of Illinois wetlands are no longer protected by the federal Clean Water Act, putting communities at...

2025-09-18 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — One of the great challenges of ecology is to understand the factors that maintain, or undermine, diversity in ecosystems, researchers write in a new report in the journal Science. The researchers detail their development of a new model that — using a tree census and genomic data collected from multiple species in a forest — can predict future fluctuations in the relative...

2025-08-22 - A recent study published in Plant and Soil explores how tomato plants utilize both aboveground and belowground defense strategies when exposed to simultaneous environmental stressors. The research, titled "Interactions between soil source, flooding, and herbivory shape tomato plant volatile emissions and rhizosphere bacterial and fungal communities," was conducted by Assistant...

2025-08-05 - As SIB marks its 25th anniversary, the occasion offers an opportunity to reflect on how far the School has come and how much SIB has shaped biology education and research at Illinois. SIB was formally recognized by the university on July 1, 2000, after emerging from a pivotal reorganization of the School of Life Sciences. While other units pursued molecular specializations, SIB was formed around...

2025-07-22 - Four incoming graduate students—Sam Pring (Min Lab, Plant Biology), Marcus Brown (Punyasena Lab, Plant Biology), Mary Heather Jingco (Kingston Lab, PEEC), and Kehvyn Cedeño (Martínez Lab, PEEC)—recently completed the university’s competitive, fully funded 8-week Summer Predoctoral Institute (SPI).The program, designed to support students from underrepresented backgrounds as they transition into...

2025-06-13 - Juliana Soto-Patiño, a PhD candidate in the PEEC program at the University of Illinois and researcher at the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), received the Best Student Presentation Award at the...

2025-06-07 - A podcast created by two SIB alumni has been spotlighted in a recent YouTube video by science communicator Angela Collier, titled “The Best Science Podcast Isn’t What You Think.”From the 9:10 to 9:53 mark of the video, Collier praises This Podcast Will Kill You, hosted by Dr. Erin Welsh and Dr. Erin Allmann Updyke, calling it a fantastic science podcast for its engaging approach...

2025-03-31 - We are thrilled to announce that five graduate students from the School of Integrative Biology (SIB) have been named semifinalists in this year’s Image of Research competition! Each year, this exhibition showcases the stunning diversity and creativity of graduate student research.We invite you to explore the online exhibition and cast your votes for your three SIB favorite entries. Your votes...

2025-03-20 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Campylobacter infections are the most common foodborne illnesses in the U.S., sickening an estimated 1.5 million people each year. A new study examined records of Campylobacter jejuni infections from 10 states, plotting regional, age-related, and drug-...