Illinois Innovators

Co-taught by Prof. Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider (Grainger Engineering) and Prof. Karle Flanagan (Statistics), their CS/STAT 107 Data Science Discovery class is transforming the way students from 90+ majors approach data science. What’s the secret to its wild success? - Real-world datasets - Hands-on, project-driven learning - Discovering how every major—from History to Finance—can be empowered by data!...

Illinois researchers believe they are getting close to producing food anywhere on the planet — using only air, water and electricity. Join Lauren Laws as she sits down with principal investigator Ting Lu, and co-PIs Mohan Sankaran, Keith Cadwallader to learn more about this DARPA-funded project.

A shared love of physics, music and education outreach has been sparking a creative partnership between Maggie and Fahad Mahmood for the last 14 years. The couple is continuing their musical journey in the Physics Department at The Grainger College of Engineering by writing song parodies, which celebrate and teach all things physics.

On this episode of Illinois Innovators we're joined by Founder Professor of Bioengineering Rohit Bhargava. In March 2005, Professor Rohit Bhargava was the first external hire to join the Department of Bioengineering as it launched. Now he is an established researcher in chemical imaging and digital pathology techniques and has led the Cancer Center at Illinois since it was formed in 2011. As the C...

On this episode of the Illinois Innovators Podcast, we explore hypersonics. When a vehicle travels faster than the speed of sound, its exterior surface becomes extremely hot — risking the safety of the people and cargo inside. Molecules in the flow around the vehicle collide and change, creating a shockwave. This hypersonic environment is difficult to understand and even more difficult to study. W...

Vilas Dhar is President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, a $1.5 billion global philanthropy advancing artificial intelligence and data solutions to create a thriving, equitable, and sustainable future for all. He earned bioengineering and computer science degrees from The Grainger College of Engineering in 2004, followed by a JD from New York University School of Law and a Masters in Public...

Conversation with Prof. Girish Chowdhary from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and his team at EarthSense. They share about their work in AI robotics, sustainable agriculture, and how to address labor shortages in ag.

Ever wondered where the food on your plate came from? While it is much easier at Farmer’s Markets or Farm-to-table restaurants for the consumer to know its origination, supermarkets and restaurants are a little more complicated. A group led by Megan Konar, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has created the first comprehen...

As the world assesses how they can support projects in non-industrialized countries, a new study brought to light just how important cultural and environmental factors are when providing humanitarian engineering aid in these regions. Ann Perry Witmer, a lecturer of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, joins the program to discuss her study on h...

Nenad Miljkovic's research group, collaborating with colleagues at Kyushu University of in Japan, discovered a method to de-ice surfaces in a matter of seconds. The method does so by using 1% of the energy and point 0.01 percent of the time. Professor Miljkovic talks about the discovery and how it could impact a number of industries. His is the principal investigator of the Energy Transport Resear...

If modifications of Einstein’s general relativity do exist in nature, could they leave observable imprints in astrophysical systems and in gravitational wave observations? Hector Silva, a postdoctoral research associate with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Department of Physics discusses his observations specifically as it relates to black holes and neutron stars. A native of Braz...

In 2017, the U.S. Army began outlining plans for the Internet of Battlefield Things, allowing military to be connected on the battlefield the same we are connected in our homes. It includes not only common consumer items like smartphones, wearable devices, cameras, etc., but provides analytics to help predict and perceive the enemy’s movement, for instance or to give machines the autonomy to carry...

The is world’s leading expert in spectroscopic imaging and the Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, Rohit Bhargava joins the show to talk about several ways engineering is playing a role in solving diagnosis and treatment of a variety of cancers. His group has developed a 3D printer that makes highly precise scaffolds of living organs such as the heart.

Inventables is a 3D carving company that is helping ignite a revolution in digital fabrication. They are helping others start companies using their products, which include powerful machines, software, and materials. Zach Kaplan, the company's CEO discusses the unique technology, the Inventables business model, and his active role within the Chicago VC community.

Professor Krein talks about how he is helping shape the future of advanced energy applications, specifically in electric vehicles and solar power. A recent article in the IEEE Spectrum Krein, a research professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, detailed the ways the Colleges are prepping the next generation of manufacturers, which includes training in artifici...

Get to know Nancy Amato, the first woman to lead the Department of Computer Science at Illinois. In addition to some interesting personal background, she discusses her research in robotics, how the computer science field has become even more interdisciplinary, the success of the CS + X degree, and the upcoming Rising Stars Workshop, a gathering of top female CS PhD students.

On April 10, astronomers announced that they had captured the first images of a black hole through the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) – a planet scale array of eight ground based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration. University of Illinois Physics Professor Charles Gammie, is a member of the EHT Science Council and co-led a group which provided the theoretical analysis. The t...

The Illinois College of Engineering and what was then the Department of Military Science have similar beginnings, dating back to the 1870s. Those ties strengthened following the world wars. Today science and technology are intertwined with the United States military. Of note is that 55 Illinois engineering students are enrolled in the ROTC program at Illinois. On the latest Illinois Innovators, ho...

Continued advances in various fabrication processes and technologies have led to rapid developments in both top-down and bottom-up approaches to nanomanufacturing (nanoMFG). The nanomanufacturing (nanoMFG) node at Illinois presented its first two-day workshop on focusing on data-science enabled advances in nanomanufacturing and nanotechnology to explore future opportunities in nanomanufacturing. T...

Gul Agha, professor of computer science and Director of the Open Systems Laboratory at the University of Illinois, joins the program. His widely cited work, "Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computing in Distributed Systems," provided a basis for a number of research projects in concurrent programming. Actor frameworks have been used to program Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Chat, the British National H...

Lav Varshney, who leads the Information and Intelligence Group at the University of Illinois, talks about a number of topics related to artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, Professor Varshney led a session on Blockchain and the Scientific Method at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting in Washington. The chief scientist for Ensaras, Inc., he and the company...

Quantum information science has been called the next technological “space race.” And the University of Illinois is positioning itself to be at the forefront of that race. In November, the U of I pledged $15 million for the formation of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (or IQUIST). Two of the leading experts in the field, Illinois physics professors Brian DeMarco and P...

A native of India, Sakshi Srivastava came to Illinois to study engineering, earning a bachelor of science degree in 2015 and a master of science in 2017. She has served as a research assistant under associate dean and ECE professor Jennifer Bernhard on investigating the role of antenna parameters in reducing interference. She has also worked as an intern at Microsoft. Most recently, she is feature...

MakerGirl, a non-profit founded at the University of Illinois in 2014, has a mission to inspire the next generations through educational STEM sessions led by college mentors and instructors. In less than four years, they have impacted 3,000 girls in 18 states. This year they are expanding to Northwestern University and have hired their first CEO in Stephanie Hein, who joins us to talk about the or...

The University of Illinois hosted the 5th Health Care Engineering Systems Symposium, which brought experts to discuss simulation/virtual reality/augmented reality in health care and education, wearable computing, voice user interface, artificial intelligence in health care, medical and social robotics, and assistive living technologies. The program includes interviews with Darrin D’Agostino, Execu...