Ingenious: Eureka Moment
Salvador E. Luria’s breakthrough research on bacteria and genetics can be traced to a chance encounter on a stalled trolley in Rome during which he struck up a conversation with
Ingenious: Field Guide
Victor E. Shelford has been called “the father of animal ecology” because he was one of the first scientists to study natural environments as communities of complex relationships among animals
Ingenious: A Light on the Prairie
Ollie Watts Davis, MMUS ’82, AMUSD ’88, has been enamored with lighthouses ever since her childhood. Davis says she collects lighthouse statues because “they serve their singular purpose effectively. I
Ingenious: The Joy of Research
Rudolph A. Marcus’ world changed forever when he garnered the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1992. The honor “was an order of magnitude bigger than anything I had experienced—maybe two
Ingenious: Photometry Star
When Joel Stebbins began his astronomical research at the U of I in 1903, his new wife, May Louise, wasn’t happy that her husband spent so many evenings at the
Ingenious: At the quantum level
When University of Illinois physics professor Anthony Leggett was 7 years old, he had a fascination with digging holes in the family garden in Englefield Green on the outskirts of
Ingenious: Old Man River
William Warfield was expecting a long day of recording, as he prepared to sing the iconic song “Old Man River,” for the classic MGM musical, Show Boat, in 1951. But
Ingenious: The father of special education
Samuel A. Kirk recalled that just before a 1963 conference in Chicago, a friend of his said, “We’re going to ask you to give us a term” to describe children
Ingenious: Mapping the pig genome
When it was announced in 2001 that the University of Illinois would lead the first efforts to sequence the pig genome, Animal Sciences Professor Lawrence Schook had a lab party
Ingenious: Did exploding supernovas cause mass extinction?
A new study led by U of I Astronomy and Physics Professor Brian Fields explores the possibility of astronomical activity leading to an extinction event that occurred 359 million years
