Awards

Paul Wallem turned 91 earlier this year, but that hasn’t slowed him down one bit. He is a regular columnist at Farm World and the author of six books, and that’s just since his retirement a decade ago.

The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences has announced the Finalists for the 2025 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists.

This fall, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will welcome its 2025 freshman class, along with a distinguished cohort of new and newly promoted faculty. In 2025, the college promoted 12 faculty members and welcomed 17 new hires, strengthening its academic, research, and outreach excellence.

A scientist in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is the recipient of the 2025 national agInnovation award for Excellence in Agricultural Research Innovation. 

Stephen Long, Ikenberry Endowed Chair Emeritus of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been selected as a 2025 Top Agri-food Pioneer (TAP) by the World Food Prize Foundation. The honor recognizes trailblazers who are driving change in agriculture and global food security.

Sandesh Poudel and Abichal Poudel (no relation), doctoral students in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have received 2025 Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) fellowships. 

Faculty from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences are teaming up with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) on groundbreaking projects to tackle climate change and drive the future of the bioeconomy.  

The three selected projects from a competitive open call for proposals are: 

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign each year presents Campus Awards for Excellence in Instruction to exceptional faculty and staff members, graduate teaching assistants and advisers campuswide. This year’s recipients, four of which are from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, were honored at a ceremony on April 15.

2025 ACES award recipients include:

The Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute has announced their 2025 Community-Academic Scholars. The program offers University of Illinois undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue community-based research projects in Urbana-Champaign over the summer.

Hannah Sundararajan, a junior at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was awarded a $30,000 Truman Scholarship. Sundararajan is one of 54 Truman Scholars selected from a pool of 743 nominees from colleges and universities across the country.

Sundararajan, from New Berlin, Wisconsin, and a graduate of New Berlin High School, was selected by the Truman Foundation based on her academic success and leadership accomplishments, as well as her likelihood of becoming a public service leader.