URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. and China recently agreed to a phase one trade deal that aims to resolve the current trade war between the two countries. But that is just the latest development in longstanding and complicated U.S.-Chinese trade disputes.

URBANA, Ill. – Affirmative action policies (AAP) such as quota systems based on racial or socio-economic criteria are often recommended as a way to increase enrollment of underrepresented students in higher education. But those policies can be controversial and their results are sometimes questioned.

URBANA, Ill. – School test scores often show gaps in performance between white and non-white students. Understanding the complex reasons behind this can help reduce those gaps and promote social equality, explains Mary Paula Arends-Kuenning, associate professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois.

Arends-Kuenning is co-author of a study that analyzes math test scores for 9^th-grade students in Brazil and breaks down the characteristics associated with performance gaps between different racial groups.

URBANA, Ill. – An international research team has received a $1.4 million grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council to investigate food availability and food security among indigenous mothers and children in remote Australian communities.

Jimmy Smith (M.S. ’82 and Ph.D. ‘86 in animal sciences ) recently received the Madhuri and Jagdish N. Sheth International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement as part of the 2019 Illinois International Achievement Awards.

Article submitted by ACES Education Abroad

In recognition of the recent Illinois International Achievement Awards, ACES Study Abroad is honored to highlight Sadie Marks, recipient of the Undergraduate Achievement Award. This award recognizes one University of Illinois undergraduate student “for their significant service and contribution resulting from their participation in an international study abroad course, program, or project.”

The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) welcomed back alumnus Allan P. Mustard, a retired ambassador and accomplished Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) professional, to present the annual ACES Distinguished International Lecture.

The newly named director of the first ever Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), Haley Oliver, engaged her audience by asking a question everyone had to answer in the affirmative: “Have you ever had diarrhea?”

Usually an uncomfortable inconvenience for most of us in the developed world, foodborne illnesses such as Norovirus, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, and toxoplasmosis kill 420,000 people annually. Thus, Oliver’s work puts food safety at the core of food security.  

URBANA, Ill. – The United States is the world’s leading producer of soybean and the second-leading exporter. Nearly 90% of oilseed production in the U.S. comes from soybean. A biological threat to soybean crops in America could affect the global economy, and the result could be devastating to the American soybean farmer, according to researchers in the USAID Soybean Innovation Laboratory (SIL), housed in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new tool uses an interactive database of geographic and genetic information to help authorities quickly identify where the confiscated tusks of African elephants were originally poached.

Developed by an international team of researchers, the Loxodonta Localizer matches genetic sequences from poached ivory to those stored in the database. It relies on genetic information from a small, highly variable region of mitochondrial DNA from African elephants.