2015 Highlight Video
Merging Robotics and Neuroscience to Develop 3D-Printed Prosthetics
CSL Professor Tim Bretl investigates two distinct areas of research: robotics and neuroscience. Yet Bretl’s research, enabled by a multidisciplinary team of students, merges the two disparate areas in applications that aim to positively impact society.
One of Bretl’s four active projects involves developing upper-limb prosthetic devices. He and graduate student Aadeel Akhtar are building a prosthetic hand that connects to the user with electrodes that read muscle activity (called an electromyographic [EMG]-based interface) and incorporates sensory feedback.
Why companies across the U.S. are flocking to this downstate research park
About 150 miles south of Chicago, past open fields and small-town water towers like pushpins on the Illinois map, you'll find a surprising corporate outcropping. Twenty-five big-name businesses—from Dow Chemical to Yahoo—have set up shop in a cluster of buildings at the University of Illinois Research Park in Champaign.
The draw: The university is one of the country's biggest producers of computer science, math and engineering students, a resource corporate America is desperate to tap. Eight companies arrived just last year, the biggest wave since the park opened in 2001.
Read more about how 520+ students are making money working for top companies
Project embeds computer science lessons in math instruction for K-5 students
Researchers at Illinois and Champaign Unit 4 Schools are collaborating on a study that is exploring ways to embed computer science instruction within mathematics curricula. U. of I. special education professor Maya Israel (holding computer) is a co-principal investigator on the grant, funded by the National Science Foundation STEM C initiative. Shown with Israel are (from left) enrichment teacher Jinsoo Park, teacher Wendy Maa and principal Trevor Nadrozny, all of Kenwood Elementary School. Read More
Engineering Program
The undergraduate engineering program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ranked 5th in the 2016 America's Best Colleges edition of U.S. News and World Report (published in September 2015).Quick Facts
Enrollment, 5,943 undergraduates and 2,539 postgraduates
Rankings:
- Computer Engineering - 5th in the nation
- Electrical Engineering - 5th in the nation
- Mechanical Engineering - 6th in the nation