This week’s 5 Questions Friday features Marin Skidmore, who received her bachelor and master’s degrees from the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics. After getting her Ph.D. and serving as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin, she recently returned to join the ACE faculty as an assistant professor.

What motivates your work?

The global impacts of two affiliates of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) were recognized at a banquet during International Education Week at the University of Illinois.

Nominations for the Illinois International Achievement Awards are solicited annually for five award categories. This year’s recipients included:  

Kaiyu Guan is a researcher with lofty goals – he hopes to monitor, model and ultimately optimize every farmland. Guan aims to achieve these goals in the coming decade or so. He’s a researcher with a mission; of helping create tools so farmers can check on and manage their crops – every single field – in real-time to maintain a healthy and productive growth cycle. But simply reaching that goal isn’t enough. Guan also hopes to achieve co-sustainability of environment quality and food security.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The first thing I notice when we step through white double doors of the growers’ house is that every one of the 1,200 or so chickens in this enormous room has stopped whatever it was doing to stare at us. A few of the birds step closer, peering at our legs as if they want to peck our shoes. But they don’t. They’re just curious. Chickens, I realize, are gawkers.

URBANA, Ill. -- With growing concerns about sodium intake in North America amid the limited impact of public health campaigns, strategies for reducing sodium in the food supply are increasingly important.

Sodium has been flagged for decades as a nutrient of public health concern for overconsumption. But the functional roles of sodium in baking, preserving, thickening, curing and retaining moisture, all complicate reduction strategies.

URBANA, Ill. – Nicolas Martin, assistant professor of crop sciences, and Bruce Sherrick, professor of agricultural and consumer economics, have been selected as 2022-2023 faculty scholars by the University of Illinois Office of Risk Management and Insurance Research (ORMIR) to advance academic research on risk management and preparedness.

In December 2020, the College of ACES celebrated surpassing its $200 million With Illinois campaign goal 18 months ahead of schedule. Now, the college—and the university—have set their sights on recognizing the impact of the generosity of its supporters.

"With Illinois" is the most ambitious philanthropic endeavor in the history of the University of Illinois, raising $2.7 billion from October 2017 to June 2022. A celebration was held on October 14, 2022, to showcase the transformational power of gifts accrued during the campaign. 

A team of Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) scientists, including faculty from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Crop Sciences, was awarded a grant from the Illinois Nutrient Research and Education Council to quantify streambank erosion across the state and its contributions to phosphorus loading of surface waters.