Madhu Khanna, ACES Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics (ACE) has been named Interim Director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment at the University of Illinois. Khanna, who served as iSEE Associate Director for Research, assumed the role on Sept. 1.

URBANA, Ill. – A group of applied economists launched a new research center this week at the University of Illinois. The Center for the Economics of Sustainability (CEOS) is made up of agricultural, development, environmental, financial, and consumer economists who collaborate with stakeholders and researchers from many other disciplines. Together, they study how best to manage natural resources and how to design policies and markets to achieve sustainability at the lowest possible cost.

URBANA, Ill. – Canadian women who experience food insecurity during pregnancy have increased risk of post-partum depression, and their children have higher frequency of emergency room visits, according to a new study from the University of Illinois and the University of Toronto.

CHICAGO, Ill. -- The Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) is launching eight world-class research teams from the University of Illinois System and partner universities with more than $1 million in seed funding.

The goal is to develop these multi-disciplinary teams into international centers of excellence that will achieve significant economic and societal impact. Each nascent team is receiving $125,000 as well as administrative and grant-writing support, access to corporate partners and DPI’s downtown Chicago office. 

URBANA, Ill. -- Biofuel and bioenergy systems are integral to scenarios for displacing fossil fuel use and producing negative emissions through carbon capture and storage. But the net greenhouse gas mitigation benefit of these systems has been controversial, due to concerns around carbon losses from changes in land use and foregone sequestration benefits from alternative land uses.

URBANA, Ill. - Jacinda K. Dariotis has joined the Family Resiliency Center (FRC) at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as director and as Pampered Chef Ltd. Endowed Chair in Family Resiliency in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES). She began the new role Aug. 16.

URBANA, Ill. – Representing some of the most troublesome agricultural weeds, waterhemp, smooth pigweed, and Palmer amaranth impact crop production systems across the U.S. and elsewhere with ripple effects felt by economies worldwide. In a landmark study, scientists have published the most comprehensive genome information to date for all three species, marking a new era of scientific discovery toward potential solutions.   

URBANA, Ill. – On Wednesday, the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes announced a $20 million award to the Center for Digital Agriculture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop a new Artificial Intelligence for Future Agricultural Resilience, Management, and Sustainability (AIFARMS) institute.

URBANA, Ill. – Imagine a tropical forest and you might conjure up tall trees hung with vines, brightly colored birds, howling monkeys, and … rain. Indeed, precipitation patterns, along with temperature, dictate where tropical forests are distributed around the world, but surprisingly, scientists know very little about the direct effects of rainfall on animals.

URBANA, Ill. – Chances are you’ve heard of or even taken probiotics: supplements delivering “good microbes” to the gut, providing a wide range of health benefits. If you’re really up on your gut health, you may also be aware of prebiotics: supplements designed to fuel the good microbes already living in our guts.