Apr 1, 2026 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
Cancer Scholar Program student Patrick Selby, an outstanding sophomore, earned the John C. and Elizabeth J. Chato Award in Bioengineering. This award is for undergraduate students involved in activities related to bioengineering. Selby is double majoring in...
Sep 8, 2025 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
Callie Miller joined the first researcHStart cohort in 2015, and she returned this summer to help plan the ten year anniversary and moderate the alumni panel. “Being in that inaugural researcHStart cohort, I could feel the energy that it was going to be a long-lasting...
Nov 6, 2024 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
Read time: 3 minutesKeywords: cancer survivor, cancer researcher, bioengineering Catherine Applegate is a postdoctoral researcher at the Beckman Institute and a graduate of the Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) Tissue Microenvironment (TiME) Training Program. She...
Sep 4, 2024 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
For bioengineering student Leah Ju, Illinois runs in the family. Her parents met at the university when they were students, and both Leah and her brother decided to follow in their footsteps. Having just returned for her senior year, Leah is one step closer to joining...
May 20, 2024 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight, TiMe Program
Graduate student Sourya Sengupta works in Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) member Mark Anastasio’s research group, focusing on developing and training artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to solve healthcare problems. As AI continues to be adopted in our everyday...
Mar 6, 2024 | Administration, Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
If your social media algorithm points you toward STEM, bioengineering, or cancer research, there’s a chance you might come across The Mad Bioengineer on TikTok. You might even be one of his 33,000 followers. With contagious curiosity, infectious demeanor, and a...
Jan 22, 2024 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
Cindy Mu is a junior at Illinois, double majoring in chemistry and molecular & cellular Biology During her junior year at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA), Cindy Mu traveled from Aurora, Illinois to Northwestern University every Wednesday to...
Nov 9, 2023 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
Blake Plotner is a junior majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology Blake Plotner can remember his excitement about science from an early age. With his mother working as a nurse, biology quickly became an interest. Despite growing up in landlocked Illinois, young...
Oct 25, 2023 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight
When Kianoush (Kia) Falahkheirkhah came to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the fall of 2016, he wasn’t too sure about America. “Growing up in Tehran, I was familiar with life in a big city surrounded by mountains. But here it was very different in a...
May 10, 2023 | Cancer Center News, Cancer Scholars Program, Student Spotlight
Katerina Baxter, Varshini Murugesh, and Jonathan Louis are undergraduate students affiliated with the Cancer Center at Illinois and recipients of the 2023 Mayo Clinic Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Two members of the CCIL’s Cancer Scholar...
Mar 30, 2023 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight, TiMe Program
Leonardo Molina at the 2023 TiME Day Symposium. Leonardo (Leo) Molina, a Tissue Microenvironment (TiME) Training Program member and graduate student in animal sciences, was recently awarded an NIH National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Individual...
May 4, 2022 | Cancer Center News, Student Spotlight, TiMe Program
Urbana, Ill. – Microorganisms like bacteria make up colonies and clusters that produce metabolites with particular properties, creating a microbiome that impacts human health and disease, including cancer. Yoon Jeong, a recipient of the Cancer Center at Illinois...