News

2026-10-30 - They say when one door closes, another opens. But what happens when that door opens to nowhere?On the east side of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Natural History Building, a door sits suspended several stories above the ground, with no obvious way to reach it. Open it, and you would...

2026-10-21 - Kelvin Droegemeier, professor of atmospheric science and special advisor to the chancellor for science and policy, will deliver the 2027 LAS Dean’s Distinguished Lecture at 4 p.m. on March 11...

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...

2026-09-18 -  From hundreds of kilometers above Earth’s surface, satellites can detect movements measured in mere millimeters. For geophysicist Lin Shen, those seemingly tiny changes can reveal much bigger stories about earthquakes,...

2026-09-08 -  For four or five days, the research vessel barely moved.Locked in Antarctic sea ice, the ship crept forward only about 100 yards a day as researchers waited for conditions to improve. For many aboard, the delay was frustrating. But for Rose Malanga and her advisor, professor ...

2026-08-27 - Researchers, city leaders, and community organizations have worked together to build one of the nation's largest urban air quality monitoring networks across Chicago. Now, a new public-facing...

2026-07-08 - Cities are often described as “heat islands,” with media reports warning that some neighborhoods can be 20°F hotter than others. But those temperatures are often based on satellite data rather than the conditions people actually experience, due to the dearth of near-surface urban observations. This...

2026-06-29 - Long before he helped draft federal hazard mitigation legislation in the U.S. Senate, Robby Goldman (PhD, Geology, ‘23) was learning a different lesson as a graduate student: understanding complex problems starts with listening.When Goldman...

2026-06-16 -  Katie Straus crossed the finish line of the 1,500 meters exhausted. After two days and nine previous events of sprinting, jumping, throwing, and vaulting, the final race of the decathlon is less about speed than endurance — pushing forward even as the body begins to break down. By that...

2026-06-15 - Scientists have long understood that rivers and lakes influence one another, but actually observing where one system gradually transitions into the other has remained a challenge — until now.A new study led by...

2026-06-15 - Taking apart a watch and reassembling it is one thing. Rebuilding an entire river landscape from scratch is another.A collaboration among researchers across the United States and China is offering scientists a new way to understand how river landscapes form — not only on Earth, but also on worlds...

2026-06-10 -  Global rice production nearly doubled between the 1960s and the 2010s, despite the negative impacts of climate change, according to a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The study found that management decisions — including expanded irrigation and increased nutrient...

2026-06-01 - Nearly 69 million people in the United States speak a language other than English at home, yet weather warnings have long been issued almost exclusively in English. A new study documents how the National Weather Service is using artificial intelligence to change that, developing a comprehensive...

2026-05-28 - The College of LAS is where curiosity drives impact, and the new Curiosity to Impact (C2I) Fund helps faculty members to do exactly that.Announced in the fall of 2025, the C2I Fund is part of the college’s Strategic Investment Program....

2026-05-28 - PURSUE LAS is a program at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences with the goal of expanding access to transformative undergraduate research experiences. It supports both established...