News

2026-09-24 - The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences has named several accomplished faculty members to endowed chair and professorship positions. The positions are some of the highest honors that can be granted by the college. The recipients will be awarded discretionary funding to carry out research...

2026-09-23 - Entomology professor Dr. Gene Robinson has co-authored an opinion piece published on September 23 in the Chicago Tribune addressing the critical need for trust in artificial intelligence. The article, titled “Chicago must lead on building trust in AI,” explores how to navigate the...

2026-09-14 -   MADRE DE DIOS RIVER, Peru — It is one of our last collection nights in the Tambopata National Reserve in southeastern Peru and we are setting up light traps on a dock near our field station in the Amazon rainforest. The white light works like a false moon: insects fly toward it, and...

2026-09-08 - The topic of coffee is an extraordinarily lens through which to connect and integrate themes ranging from conservation biology and sustainability, global change, economic development, indigenous rights, supply changes, marketing, commodity processing and industrialization, and historical...

2026-09-04 -  Erin Murphy, an alumna of the University of Illinois, School of Integrative Biology (B.S., 2013), has been at the forefront of marine conservation through her leadership role at Ocean Conservancy. As the manager of a study published in 2025, Murphy and her team revealed that small amounts of...

2026-09-03 - The first lesson Marianne Alleyne learned from working with engineers had nothing to do with insects.It had to do with language."Actually doing interdisciplinary research or transdisciplinary research is really difficult," said Alleyne, a professor of...

2026-09-02 - The Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) has long been one of the Department of Entomology's top ambassadors to the community, connecting the public with the world of insects through hands-on outreach and...

2026-08-31 -  When Dr. Ya Min (Minya) joined the Plant Biology faculty, she already knew which course she hoped to teach."I love plants and teaching people the wonders of plants," she said. "So IB 103: Introduction to Plant...

2026-08-27 -  Plant Biology and The School of Integrative Biology (SIB) joins colleagues around the world in remembering Dr. Stephen P. Long, Stanley O. Ikenberry Endowed Chair Emeritus of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences, who passed...

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...

2026-08-13 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Five professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named 2026-2027 University Scholars in recognition of their achievements in teaching, scholarship and service.The program honors faculty excellence and provides $15,000 to each scholar for three years to...

2026-08-11 -  In the midwestern summer, humans and plants have to breathe through the heat and humidity. Researchers hope that a retooled crop plant—one with an improved ventilation system within its leaves—could thrive while avoiding drought stress by reducing “crop sweat”. Thanks to a next generation...

2026-08-10 -  Plant Biology graduate student Angelique Acevedo attended the Botany 2026 conference in Tucson, Arizona, where she received the Katherine Esau Award for her presentation, “Fascinating Fasciation, Whorls, and Spirals: Cellular and Molecular...

2026-08-06 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Two University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty members have been named as university endowed chairs, an honor awarded to highly distinguished scholars for their excellence and prominence in research, teaching and service.“An endowed chair represents one of the university’s...

2026-08-05 -  SIB is proud to share that Professor Xuguo "Joe" Zhou, the C. W. Kearns, C. L. Metcalf, and W. P. Flint Endowed Chair in Entomology, has been named one of nine distinguished entomologists honored as 2026 Fellows of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). This recognition highlights...