LAS Faculty Research Bulletin | Spring 2024

LAS FACULTY RESEARCH BULLETIN

Spring 2024 | Vol. 2, Issue 2

01 04 05 –11

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

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LAS FACULTY IN ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

GRANTS, HONORS, AND FELLOWSHIPS

HONORS AND AWARDS

OFFICE OF THE VICE CHANCELLOR FOR RESESARCH/SCHOLAR AND RISING STAR AWARDS

SILVER CIRCLE AWARDS

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION FACULTY EARLY CAREER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (CAREER) AWARDS

POLICY AND SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT FELLOWSHIPS

LAS RESEARCH COVERED IN UIC TODAY

MESSAGE

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to Volume 2, Issue 2 of the LAS Faculty Research Bulletin! It is a pleasure to share these achievements with you.

In the months since our last bulletin, we’ve had a lot of exciting developments in the College. The March 7 LAS Faculty Research Symposium on Drug Discovery was a huge success. Professor and Head of Chemistry Wonhwa Cho led an amazing day of scientific inquiry and discovery, with nearly 200 attendees, a lively poster session, two stellar keynotes, four exciting plenaries, and several presentations on UIC drug discovery efforts. You can view the livestream recording on YouTube.

You’ll see in the bulletin below that LAS faculty are not only winning major funding from national organizations, but also leading scholarly societies, being recognized for their accomplishments by their peers and excellence in teaching by their students, and inspiring news stories in UIC Today and other outlets. In fact, while we strive to be as comprehensive as possible within the parameters of “faculty research,” the reach of the ideas, paradigms, and discoveries in LAS extends well beyond what we can cover here.

Reviewing these bulletins inspires me and fills me with pride in my colleagues and in our College. It is my hope that it does the same for you.

Yours,

LAS FACULTY IN ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP POSITIONS

TARINI BEDI, PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY: Program Director for Cultural Anthropology at the National Science Foundation

SARA F. HALL, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF GERMANIC STUDIES: President, German Studies Association

LISA A. FREEMAN, DEAN OF LAS AND PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH: President, American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies

NAN JIANG, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY: Vice-Chair, American Vacuum Society Prairie Chapter

MARYA SCHECHTMAN, PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY:

President of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association

ASTRIDA ORLE TANTILLO, DEAN EMERITA AND PROFESSOR OF GERMANIC STUDIES AND HISTORY: 10th President and Librarian of the Newberry Library. Tantillo was dean of LAS from 2010-2022.

DANIEL SUTHERLAND, PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY: President, North American Kant Society

GRANTS, HONORS, AND FELLOWSHIPS

A. JEAN-LUC AYITOU

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, received a $450,395 grant from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Exploiting Pro-Aromaticity for Triplet Photochemistry: Synthesis, Aromaticity, & Photophysics.” His research will create a library of triplet chromophores with advanced photophysical properties by investigating the role of molecular aromaticity and spin-orbit coupling using advanced spectroscopy and computational modeling.

DARIUS BOST

Associate Professor of Black Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies, has been awarded the Clark/Oakley Fellowship, a residential fellowship co-sponsored by The Clark Art Institute and the Oakley Center at Williams College to support humanities scholarship that takes an interdisciplinary approach to aspects of the visual. Professor Bost will spend his residential year completing his book, Sensual Histories: Visual Cultures of the Black Queer Atlantic.

ALEXANDER ADIBEKIAN

Professor of Chemistry, received $150,000 from Enveda Biosciences to study “natural product target identification,” with the goal of understanding the molecular mechanism of action.

STEPHANIE COLOGNA

Associate Professor of Chemistry, is the lead PI on a $1,561,838 grant from the United States Food and Drug Administration for her project, “Clinically Relevant Biomarkers for Niemann-Pick Type C.”

The research team aims to establish biomarkers for Niemann-Pick Type C disease, facilitating clinical trials by providing insights into disease progression, prognosis, and therapeutic response. By studying neuropathological alterations, they seek to aid parental counseling and stratify patients for therapeutic trials.

CLAIRE DECOTEAU

Professor of Sociology, was awarded $250,000 from the Society for Family Planning for “Abortion on the Move: Navigating the Fractured Reproductive Healthcare Landscape.” This project seeks to uncover the challenges and barriers lower-income, racially marginalized, and undocumented pregnant people experience in traveling for abortion care, how abortion funds support access, and where barriers are still prohibitive. The research will provide valuable insights to support policies for expanding access to abortion care.

ALEXANDRA FILINDRA

Associate Professor of Political Science, was awarded $751,254 from the National Institute of Justice for the project “Domestic Terrorism Targeting America’s Political Elites,” which will field a large national survey of local elected officials to explore how politically motivated violence and threats of violence impact the democratic process. Rebecca Littman, Assistant Professor of Psychology, is a co-PI.”

PHILIP ENGEL

Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, received a $200,848 training grant from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Combinatorics of Complex Curves and Surfaces.” The project will not only study the mathematical concepts described in the abstract, but will also disseminate these findings to the wider public and develop a cohort of young researchers, postdocs, and PhD students focusing on these ideas.

RUIXUAN GAO

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biological Sciences, has been awarded the National Institute of Health Director’s New Innovator Award. This highly competitive and prestigious award supports “bold and highly innovative” projects proposed by early career investigators of “exceptional creativity.” Professor Gao will receive $1.5 million over 5 years for his project, “A Biochemical Approach Towards Subcellular, Label-Free Molecular Imaging,” which will establish a novel process of sample expansion to allow for investigation of subcellular anatomy and pathology with conventional mass spectrometry instrumentation.

MATTHEW HARRISON-TRAINOR

Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, received a $125,970 National Science Foundation grant for his project, “Information Coded in Mathematical Structures.” The project will study the ways that mathematical logic is encoded in all types of mathematical problems

NEMAT KEYHANI

LAS Distinguished Chair in the Natural Sciences and Professor of Biological Sciences, was awarded $764,269 from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Developmental and genetic dynamics of fungal-ambrosia beetle symbioses.” The research studies the intricate relationship between ambrosia beetles and their fungal partners, focusing on the dynamics and genetics of fungal colonization within the beetle to evaluate and mitigate the devastating impact of these pathogens on tree populations.

CONSTANCE JEFFERY

Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, received a $164,998 grant from the American Heart Association for her project, “UICHeart: University of Illinois Undergraduate Mentoring and Experience in Heart Research, ” which offers cardiovascular research opportunities through mentored projects and professional skills training to 5 qualified UIC undergraduates every year over three years. The program targets underrepresented groups and fellows selected for the program will participate in cutting-edge research in cardiovascular disease pathology, prevention and treatment.

ROBERT KLIE

Professor and Head of Physics, , is the lead PI on “Towards Automated Atomic-Resolution Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy and Machine Learning for Achieving High-Efficiency Cd(Se) Te solar-cell devices,” which received $294,238 from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a division of the United States Department of Energy, as part of their Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium.

EARTHSHOT PROJECT 09

Fatemeh Khalili-Araghi, Associate Professor of Physics; Russell Hemley, LAS Distinguished Chair in the Natural Sciences and Professor of Physics and Chemistry; Ksenija Glusac, Professor of Chemistry; and Jordi Cabana, Professor of Chemistry, are part of a Department of Energy-funded “Earthshot” project led by Amin SalehiKhojin, Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UIC, and involving researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of Nebraska. The $3 million project will develop advancements supporting multiple Earthshot goals including carbon capture and hydrogen transportation. Professor Cabana is also involved in a separate project funded by Earthshot and based at Argonne National Laboratory to develop new processes for the cleaner production of steel called C-STEEL.

CLARE KIM

Assistant Professor of History and Global Asian Studies, has been elected a Diversity of Mathematical Research Cultures and Practices Fellow, joining a cohort of international scholars. The two-year, renewable fellowship provides research and publishing support and carries no formal obligations. It is managed by the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH) within the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

ALISON ONDRUS

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, received the National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH NIGMS) Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA – R35), a prestigious 5-year award for “highly talented and promising” investigators. Professor Ondrus was awarded $550,000 for her project “Molecular tools for cholesterol metabolite signalling,” which will develop innovative tools to understand and target cholesterol metabolites’ molecular signaling mechanisms, addressing a critical gap in the current ability to study their interactions and potential therapeutic applications in diseases such as neurodegeneration, cancer, and immune disorders.”

NADINE NABER

Professor of Global Asian Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies, secured a $20,000 MacArthur grant from the Chicago Commitment fund for her work with MAMAS (Mamas Activating Movements for Abolitions and Solidarity), a collective that organizes mothers and parents of incarcerated people and people involved in liberationist struggles.

YURY POLIKANOV

Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, received $1,996,084 from the National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH NIGMS) for his project entitled, “Structural bases for ribosome function and inhibition in bacteria.” The work focuses on understanding ribosome functioning, antibiotic action, and resistance mechanisms through structural, biochemical, and microbiological techniques and will offer novel insight into protein synthesis to aid antibiotic development.

MITCHELL ROITMAN

Professor of Psychology, received a $482,006 grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for his project, “Investigating the effects of cagrilintide, semaglutide and the combination (Cagri + Sema) on the encoding of value by the mesolimbic system.”

The project employs four paradigms to assess the encoding of reward and measure phasic fluctuations in dopamine signaling in rats, which can ultimately advance understanding of human disorders of motivation such as obesity and drug addiction.

PRESTON SNEE

Associate Professor of Chemistry, is the lead PI of “EAGER: Semiconductor Designing Nanomaterials to Reveal the Mechanism of Single Nanoparticle Photoemission Itermittency,” which received $195,373 from the National Science Foundation. The EAGER program (Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research) supports exploratory work on untested but potentially transformative ideas considered “high risk, high payoff.” The project will investigate quantum dot blinking to understand its mechanism and its impact on technology applications to help rethink prevailing power-law models.”

RODRIGO SOLINIS CASPARIUS

Assistant Professor of Anthropology, is the lead PI on “Collaborative Research: Processes Which Guide Imperial Emergence,” which received $254,784 from the National Science Foundation. The research team will conduct a multi-year effort focused on excavation of five public religious and funerary complexes in Mexico, such as pyramid-plaza compounds, dating to the critical window of empire formation using mortuary analyses, precise mapping with LiDAR, GPS, and photogrammetry, and several dating methods including C14, archaeomagnetism, and bone collagen. This will permit tighter chronology for the site and bring new lines of evidence to understand how the empire first developed a core-region and then expanded outwards.

JAN-HENDRIK SPILLE

Assistant Professor of Physics, has been awarded $1.9 million from the NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences for the project “Structural and functional determinants of biomolecular condensates in transcription organization.” The research aims to understand how chromatin features influence the formation of transcription condensates in the nucleus and their impact on transcriptional activity, using advanced microscopy and molecular analysis. This investigation sheds light on fundamental cellular processes and their relevance to health and disease.

DAVID STONE

Professor of Biological Sciences, is PI on “Tracking shallow and dynamic chemoattractant gradients –how yeast cells amplify both internal and external signals to locate mating partners,” National Science Foundation, $1,626,167. The project investigates gradient sensing in cells using yeast as a model, aiming to understand how cells detect chemical gradients and polarize towards them. Jie Liang, UIC Professor of Biomedical Engineering, is Co-PI.

DANIEL SUTHERLAND

Professor of Philosophy, received an NEH Fellowship to spend next year completing a book manuscript titled Immanuel Kant on Human Experience and Its Mathematical Character about how the German thinker’s philosophy of mathematics is grounded in ordinary human experience NEH Fellowships are very competitive awards granted for exceptional research in the humanities.

CONTACT US

If you would like assistance identifying funding opportunities or developing a proposal, please get in touch with Anna Brailovsky, Assistant Director of Faculty Research Activities at abrailov@uic.edu or visit the LAS Research Development Website at rd.las.uic.edu.

If you have news to share, please get in touch with our Director of Marketing and Communications, Jon Cecero at jcecero@uic.edu, or via the News Tips at go.uic.edu/las-news-tips.

HONORS and AWARDS 13

RALPH KEEN

MARC BUSLIK

Lecturer of Criminology, Law and Justice, received the 2023 Innovation in Policing award from the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Policing for his “Collaborative Police Legitimacy” model and the creation of a new police response for people in mental health crisis. He is the only Chicago Police Department member to have received this honor.

Professor of History, Arthur J. Schmitt Foundation Chair in Catholic Studies, and Dean of the Honors College, received the 2023 Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Catholic Historical Association.

MARIA DE LOS ANGELES TORRES

LAS Distinguished Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, was named a 2023-2024 UIC Distinguished Professor in recognition of her ground-breaking research on Cuban exile politics, unaccompanied minors, youth civic participation, and democracy.

MALGORZATA FIDELIS

Professor of History, won the Oskar Halecki Award in Polish and East-Central European History from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences for her 2022 book, ImaginingtheWorldfromBehindtheIronCurtain:YouthandtheGlobal Sixties in Poland (Oxford UP).

KATE WARPEHA

MARK LIECHTY

Professor of Anthropology and History, won the 2023 Surya Subedi Prize from the Royal Asiatic Society for his book, WhatWentRight:SustainabilityVersus DependenceinNepal’sHydropowerDevelopment. The prize is for a book or article related to the Himalayas. The book was also reviewed in the Nepali Times.

Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, and her research group have published a paper in the Journal of Translational Medicine that was featured as one of the “Papers of the week” by the International Association for the Study of Pain.

OFFICE OF THE VICE CHANCELLOR FOR RESEARCH DISTINGUISHED RESEARCHER/SCHOLAR AND RISING STAR AWARDS

These awards celebrate the efforts and commitment of individuals who are making exceptional progress advancing knowledge in their areas of research and scholarship. These individuals inspire and promote continued excellence at UIC.

DISTINGUISHED RESEARCHER

DISTINGUISHED RESEARCHER

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR

RISING STAR

RISING STAR

SILVER CIRCLE AWARDS

The Silver Circle awards are awarded annually at Spring Commencement to honor UIC teachers’ excellence, as judged by the committee of graduating seniors who select the winners. Each year only eleven faculty across the university are selected, and this year LAS represents over half of the awardees.

Winners receive a $500 prize and an engraved Silver Circle plaque.

ELIZABETH AGUILAR

Senior Lecturer and Assistant Director of the Spanish Basic Language Program, Hispanic and Italian Studies

FOTEINI TZACHRISTA Lecturer, Economics

JULIA YUN SOO KIM-COHEN Senior

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION FACULTY EARLY CAREER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (CAREER)

AWARDS are prestigious and competitive five-year grants that support particularly promising early career researchers who are on track to become role models in their discipline as well as advance research.

OSAMA KHALIL, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, STATISTICS, & COMPUTER SCIENCE

was awarded $440,000 for his project, “Mixing and Equidistribution in Number Theory and Geometry,” which develops new methods in algebraic dynamical systems to address central questions in number theory and geometry. It will focus on understanding how points are spread near specific shapes, studying certain limits, and figuring out how fast geodesic flows mix on curved surfaces using novel mathematical techniques and train graduate students and postdocs on active research directions in dynamics.

NICOLE LOOPER, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, STATISTICS, & COMPUTER SCIENCE

was awarded $400,000 for the project “Arithmetic Dynamical Systems on Projective Varieties,” which explores arithmetic dynamics, merging number theory and dynamical systems, to investigate conjectures on abelian varieties, Arakelov invariants, canonical heights, and their connections to pluripotential theory. Project activities will support the training of graduate students and early career researchers in arithmetic dynamics.

Policy and Social Engagement Fellowships

Four LAS faculty have received Policy and Social Engagement Fellowships from UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy for the 20242025 academic year. These fellowships fund UIC faculty working with community organizations on community action projects related to race, ethnicity, and policy. The fellowship provides up to $10,000 to teams of faculty-community collaborators for year-long projects.

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Theawardeesare:

JESSICA BIRD

Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice, for research with the Justice Cream Collective on the solidarity economy.

IAN KENNEDY

Assistant Professor of Sociology, for research with the Chicago Area Fair Housing Association to research and document the prevalence of exclusionary language in online rental advertisements.

CLAIRE DECOTEAU

Professor and Interim Head of Sociology, for research with the Midwest Access Coalition on access to reproductive healthcare since the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.

BETH RICHIE

Head of Criminology, Law, and Justice and Professor in Sociology, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Black Studies, for research with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project to expand the abolition and teaching network.

LAS RESEARCH COVERED IN UIC TODAY

Open Source Textbook Makes STEM Education More Accessible PRESTON SNEE

Associate Professor of Chemistry, wrote and released a new, open-source textbook available online for free specifically for advanced-level and specialized courses called FreeEnergy.

UIC Research Helps Create New Antibiotic That Evade Bacterial Resistance

YURY POLIKANOV, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, and longtime collaborators at Harvard University have developed an antibiotic that could give medicine a new weapon to fight drug-resistant bacteria and the diseases they cause.

Early Career Researchers First From UIC to Receive NIH New Innovator Awards

RUIXUAN GAO

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biological Sciences, received a New Innovator award from the National Institutes of Health to fund high-risk, high-reward research at the cutting edge of science. His research develops new imaging and sensing methods for studying the molecular building blocks of life.

New Biomarker Offers Hope for Earlier Ovarian Cancer Detection

STEPHANIE COLOGNA

Associate Professor of Chemistry, was involved in the experiments that led to the discovery of a new biomarker for ovarian cancer.

Digging Into Facts and the Field, UIC Anthropologists Aid Search for War Veterans

JOHN MONAGHAN, Professor of Anthropology; LAURA JUNKER, Professor of Anthropology; and ELIZABETH GOODMAN, Clinical ASsistant Professor of Anthropology and Director the Center for the Recovery and Identification of the Missing (CRIM), play a pivotal role in the search for missing war veterans, providing peace and closure to families.

Why does puberty trigger us to stop growing?

ALEXANDER SHINGLETON

Professor of Biological Sciences, and collaborators have published a new study on fruit flies in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that sheds light on what might be happening to humans during puberty.