WHERE CURIOSITY DRIVES IMPACT

Change begins with curiosity.

From exploring new ideas to solving the world’s biggest issues, LAS empowers thinkers and doers to transform curiosity into measurable impact.

We believe that education is more than lectures and textbooks. It’s about cultivating minds that question, explore, and act with purpose. And we know that when curiosity meets opportunity, innovation follows—and the impossible becomes possible. 

Explore where curiosity drives impact
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LAS News

neurons dna
RNA barcodes enable high-speed mapping of connections in the brain
By tagging neurons with molecular “barcodes,” researchers mapped connections among thousands of neurons in the mouse brain with unprecedented speed and resolution. The approach could expand understanding not only of the layout of elaborate networks in the brain, but also how the brain...
Mark Lara, Zhuoxuan Xia
Team tracks vegetation recovery from sudden permafrost collapse
 Some Arctic regions regain their “greenness” within a decade of a sudden permafrost collapse, while others can take a century or more to recover, researchers report in a new study. The difference is directly related to each site’s gross primary productivity, a measure of its photosynthetic...
Clancy, Gammie, and Kramer
Three LAS faculty members named AAAS Fellows
 Three faculty members in the College of LAS have been named 2025 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society....
Robert Pahre wearing virtual reality goggles in front of a screen showing wilderness
Exploring a wilderness area, virtually
 It’s a cold February day in Illinois, but I’m enjoying the view of a backcountry trail in Yellowstone National Park. I see a sunrise over Heart Lake, a lodgepole pine forest, a geyser basin, the yellow leaves of aspen trees above a canyon along the Snake River and views of Mount Sheridan.I’m...
Cathy Li presents the Stranger Things Citrus Coolers
The story behind a drink for Stranger Things
 On store shelves across the country last fall, a bright orange sports drink with a retro label and a black sports drink with an upside-down label began appearing alongside the usual rows of Gatorade bottles. For fans of Netflix’s Stranger Things, the limited-edition Citrus Coolers offered a...
Jessica Greenberg and balance scale
How has political populism affected transatlantic relations?
 Jessica R. Greenberg is an anthropology professor and the co-editor of the policy report “Populism and the Future of...
Student on computer in a classroom
Video games, the ancient world, and a higher level of learning
 Eduardo García-Molina, professor of classics, was introduced to his future career through video games. “That’s how I got into antiquity,” he said. “It wasn’t through Homer or anything like that. It was playing Rome: Total War.”Playing this...
Research team
Team simulates a living cell that grows and divides
 By simulating the life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell — from DNA replication to protein translation to metabolism and cell division — scientists have opened a new frontier of computer vision into the essential processes of life.The researchers, led by...

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