The New Philadelphia National Historic Site in western Illinois, commemorating the first U.S. town to be legally founded by African Americans, is the nation's newest national park. The national park designation in late December is the result of years of work by descendants of New Philadelphia's inhabitants, Pike County residents living near the former village, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professors and students, and collaborators from across the nation.

A project to examine the circulation of newspaper reports about anti-Black violence in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century U.S. newspapers could provide context to the spread of white supremacist ideologies in social media today. "The Virality of Racial Terror in US Newspapers, 1863-1921" (VRT) is a partnership between the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northeastern University, and Washington University, with Illinois serving as the lead institution. VRT was recently awarded a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, as part of its Higher Learning program that supports inquiry into issues of vital social, cultural, and historical import.

With their nearly completed "Whole Tale" project, Bertram Ludäscher, professor and director of the Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS), and his team have created methods and tools for scientists to link executable computer code, data, and other information to online scholarly publications, which helps ensure reproducibility and paves the way for new discoveries.

iSchool researchers presented their work in game studies and design at the Playful by Design Conference, which was held on January 10 in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. The conference included presentations on topics such as the gaming industry in Portugal and the U.S., games for learning, serious games, and emerging technologies.

The University of Illinois is part of a nine-university consortium led by the University of Buffalo that has been awarded a $20 million grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a national institute that develops artificial intelligence systems that identify and assist young children with speech and/or language processing challenges.

Assistant Professor Jessie Chin and her team have received a $30,000 Arnold O. Beckman Research Award from the U of I Campus Research Board for their project, "Augmenting Health Self-Regulation across the Cancer Survivorship Continuum by Digital Phenotyping." The researchers will develop a model of how breast cancer survivors manage their health by passively tracking survivors' interactions with their personal digital devices to identify when assistance is needed. 

The work of an iSchool team led by Visiting Research Scientist Chris Havlin and Assistant Professor Matthew Turk is at the center of a National Science Foundation (NSF) project to better understand the microphysical activities of rocks that affect the upper mantle of the Earth.

A new book edited by Associate Professor Sarah Park Dahlen and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, associate professor in the University of Michigan's School of Education, has received a starred review from School Library Journal. In Harry Potter and the Other: Race, Justice, and Difference in the Wizarding World (University Press of Mississippi, 2022), Dahlen and Thomas examine how the original Wizarding World in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series depicts diverse identities, social subjectivities, and communities.

Dean and Professor Eunice E. Santos has been named a 2023 Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The organization is the world's largest technical professional society and serves professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic, and computing fields and related areas of science and technology.
This recognition, the highest grade of membership, is bestowed on fewer than 0.1 percent of voting members each year. It is given to eminent scholars and scientists whose outstanding accomplishments in engineering, science, and technology have shown significant value to society. Santos was honored "for leadership in computational social networks."

Professor Emeritus Chip Bruce has authored a new book that examines the future of education. In Beyond the Classroom Walls: Imagining the Future of Education, from Community Schools to Communiversities, which was recently published by Rowman & Littlefield, he asks readers to adopt "a critical and comprehensive view of education" that transcends the classroom. According to Bruce, our educational systems are organized in ways that complicate the integration of online learning, schools, and learning through work.