SparkTalks Presenter Profiles | Nov. 13, 2025

Clinical Assistant Professor,
Department of Disability and Human Development
College of Applied Health Sciences

Bio: Dr. Bay is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development in the College of Applied Health Sciences. She is an Assistive Technology Professional (ATP) and speech-language pathologist (SLP) who has specialized in the areas of assistive technology (AT) and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for over 18 years. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses within the AT Certificate program within the Department of Disability and Human Development and provides clinical services to adults and children with unmet communication needs. In August of 2025 she became the Director of the Assistive Technology Unit, a clinic that partners with various State agencies and UIHealth to provide comprehensive AT services to community members with disabilities. She is the Director of the CREATE for Assistive Technology Professionals and Faculty Mentor for the IL LEND program. She earned her doctorate in Disability Studies from UIC. Dr. Bay has presented nationally and internationally on research and clinical issues related to AT and AAC. Her aim is to expand communicative access for individuals with disabilities across the lifespan. Her research centers around investigating factors that influence access to AT services, evaluating outcomes of AT interventions, and advancing post-professional training in the fields of AT and speech-language pathology.

Presentation Title: Assistive Technology Unit – 35 Years of Empowering Independence through Technology

Abstract: This year, the Assistive Technology Unit (ATU) proudly celebrates 35 years of providing comprehensive assistive technology (AT) services to individuals with disabilities across the lifespan. Housed within the Department of Disability and Human Development (DHD) in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the ATU operates from the Disability, Health, and Social Policy Building on the west side of campus. Our mission is to promote independence and participation for individuals with disabilities through the application of assistive technology. We pursue this mission through service delivery, education, research, and advocacy. Through long-standing partnerships with the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Divisions of Rehabilitation Services and Mental Health, the ATU ensures that individuals with disabilities have access to the AT resources and services they need to achieve their educational, vocational, and community goals. Over the past decade, we have expanded our reach through collaborations with The Autism Program (TAP) of Illinois and UI Health. In the coming year, we look forward to advancing equitable access to AT through new partnerships with the Lifespan Disability Clinic and the Developmental Disabilities Family Clinic — broadening our service reach while deepening our understanding of AT access and its impact on communities.

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Department Head and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Director of the UIC Mobilities and Methods Lab

Bio: Tarini Bedi is the department head and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and director of the UIC Mobilities and Methods Lab. From 2023-25, she was program director in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at the US National Science Foundation. From 2021-23, she held the Expanding Internationality Professorship at University of Heidelberg in Germany. She has been a distinguished visiting professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore, visiting researcher at the Center for Mobilities Research at University of Lancaster in England, and visiting faculty at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. She is a proud doctoral graduate of UIC where she received her PhD in Anthropology in 2009. Her teaching and research interests include urban, political and economic anthropology, environment and ecology, infrastructure and mobilities, gender studies, and technology studies. She conducts research in India, Pakistan, Singapore, Germany and the United States. Her research and collaborative work have been supported by the US Department of Education’s Title VI Program, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National Science Foundation. Her work is published in various academic journals, and she is the author of three books.

Presentation Title: The Social Life of Infrastructure

Abstract: Infrastructure has become one of the most important considerations in the planning and building of cities, nations and institutions and in the expansion of human mobility in every part of the globe. Using examples from my own research and collaborations on transportation and road infrastructures, I provide perspectives on the digital, environmental, social, cultural, technological and health and well-being impacts of infrastructure on human societies and institutions. Through my scientific and scholarly understandings of infrastructure, I also reflect on how a collaborative approach to infrastructure-building in all its forms — physical, social, inclusive, intellectual and technological — can be harnessed by institutions to support people and ideas. I conclude with reflections on building scientific and scholarly infrastructures based on my experience as program director in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at the US National Science Foundation.

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Clinical Assistant Professor, CCC Portal Manager and Digital Programs Librarian

Bio:  Jessica BrodeFrank spent the last decade in cultural heritage institutions, running digital asset management, digital humanities research and digital curation. She held positions at the Georgetown University Library, Adler Planetarium, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives, Gardens, National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of African American History and Culture. She leads the Chicago Collections Consortium portal as part of her role as a clinical professor and digital librarian at UIC. Her research, publications and presentations continue from her doctorate at the University of London and focus on community engagement as a means of digital engagement and digital literacy, and the enrichment of metadata taxonomies as a way towards inclusive search and access.

Presentation title: Activating Participation with Collections: Intervening with the public to build digital literacy within community

Abstract: This presentation focuses on addressing the intersections of digital literacy, crowdsourcing and ethical artificial intelligence, offering actionable strategies to mitigate bias and promote inclusivity in digital spaces. Cultural organizations like libraries and museums are spaces for discovery, innovation, interrogation, encouraging agency and exploration of not just objects but also the very missions of the organization. By adopting a mission around using collections items, crowdsourcing projects and programming to expose digital literacy concepts like bias, algorithms and more, institutions have a new ability to become essential to life-long learning geared towards this second quarter of the 21st century.

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Clinical Assistant Professor, Director of the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program and director of Simulation Research
UIC’s College of Nursing

Bio: Leah Burt is a Clinical Assistant Professor, Director of the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program and director of Simulation Research at UIC’s College of Nursing. After completing her PhD in Nursing Science with a focus on diagnostic reasoning, Burt engaged in postdoctoral training as a fellow in diagnostic excellence through the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine as well as postdoctoral training in simulation education and research. A Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator, Burt’s scholarship blends expertise in educational design with mixed methodology research to discover evidence-based ways to assess and enhance learner competency through innovative simulation. Burt is a sought-after international speaker and educational collaborator whose leadership and impact were recognized with an Emerging Leader Rising Star Award from the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. Recently named a fellow by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners for her contributions to NP education and research, Burt is a current Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholar.

Presentation title: Lead-Dx: Learning Equity, Addressing Disparities in Diagnosis

Abstract: Diagnostic errors affect an estimated 12 million people annually in the U.S., contributing to 40,000–80,000 deaths. Harms are especially pronounced among marginalized patients, where inequities related to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and other factors remain underrecognized. A key strategy to address this gap is enhancing professional education with diagnostic equity content. Lead-Dx, or Learning Equity, Addressing Disparities in Diagnosis, is an educational initiative designed to prepare nurse practitioners and other advanced practice nursing students to integrate equity into diagnostic reasoning. Using simulation-based learning, the program develops skills in clinical reasoning, differential diagnosis generation and communication – competencies critical for safe, patient-centered care. Lead-Dx introduces a novel co-design model in which faculty collaborate with standardized patients who have experienced diagnostic inequity. Unlike traditional community engagement approaches, these patients combine personal insights with professional training in simulation, making them uniquely positioned to create authentic, equity-focused scenarios. This partnership ensures that learner training directly reflects the perspectives of those most affected by diagnostic challenges. These scenarios will be used to train future nurses in recognizing and addressing diagnostic disparities. The program will also evaluate key metrics such as clinical reasoning, differential diagnosis generation and equity-focused communication to assess its impact and guide future improvements. By centering on lived experience, the program models an innovative, scalable strategy to reduce diagnostic inequities and improve patient outcomes.

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Associate Dean for Faculty Practice and Partnerships
College of Nursing

Bio: Carolyn Dickens is the associate dean for Faculty Practice and Partnerships in the College of Nursing. Her work centers on creating healthy, supportive environments where nurses and nurse educators can thrive. As a scholar and leader, she focuses on advancing strategies that strengthen the nursing workforce, reduce barriers to professional fulfillment and promote evidence-based leadership models. Her recent initiatives include creating educational videos for families and nurses about nurse burnout. She is currently collaborating with the College of Business and nursing leadership at UI Health to design an educational program for charge nurses centered on servant leadership. Through her dual roles in academia and practice, Dickens continues to champion innovative partnerships that elevate nursing practice, education and leadership development, ensuring sustainable and thriving workplaces for the nursing profession.

Presentation title: BRIDGeS: An initiative to reduce incivility toward nurses

Abstract: Nurses have encountered increased levels of bullying, incivility and even violence at work. A survey of nurses revealed that 57% experienced workplace bullying or incivility from patients and 53% from patients’ family members. Efforts to respond to the violence included placing two-dimensional signs in patient rooms and hallways to promote respect for nurses, as well as offering lectures to help nurses build resilience and support their overall well-being. Despite these initiatives, there has been little impact on reducing incivility from patients and their families directed towards nurses, which continues to contribute to nursing burnout. To create a new solution, we proposed a systematic process to address the issue of incivility that nurses face when working in the hospital setting. After four months of interviews with nurses, patients and their families, we learned the solution could be as simple as education. To raise awareness and change perceptions and expectations through mutual understanding, we collaborated with a production team of animators to develop videos that could be accessed on YouTube using a QR code and link. The two videos have been viewed approximately 2,000 times as the QR codes and links are being added to the “welcome packets” for patients of two health systems and displayed in patient rooms. Applying human-centered design principles, especially the principles of engaging in conversations, can help ensure that interventions are practical, culturally sensitive and effective.

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Associate Professor and Associate Head for Faculty Affairs and Strategic Initiatives
Department of Pharmacy Practice
Retzky College of Pharmacy

Bio: Robert DiDomenico is an associate professor and associate head for faculty affairs and strategic initiatives in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at UIC’s Retzky College of Pharmacy. He is also an affiliate member of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomic Research and Cardiovascular Clinical Pharmacist at UI Health with a practice site in inpatient cardiology. He is a UIC alum, obtaining his PharmD and completing his postdoctoral training as a pharmacy practice resident and cardiovascular pharmacotherapy fellow at the UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy. As a clinician-scientist, DiDomenico has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and abstracts on topics related to cardiovascular pharmacotherapy and has gained national recognition as a key opinion leader in the areas of heart failure and coronary artery disease. He is actively engaged in several professional organizations, achieving fellowship status in the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, Heart Failure Society of America and the American College of Cardiology.

Presentation Title: Community-based mobile programs to promote health awareness, prevention and wellness in underserved communities.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the health disparities encountered by members of underserved communities, evidenced by high prevalence, low vaccination rates and poor outcomes. The prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia and respiratory diseases is also high in these communities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed and implemented mobile vaccination programs seeking to educate members of underserved communities on the risks and benefits associated with COVID-19 infection and vaccinations through educational outreach while providing them opportunities to get vaccinated at various non-health care gathering sites within these communities using mobile vaccination clinics. Between Nov. 2020-Nov. 2021, our teams conducted more than 50 outreach events and more than 150 vaccination events across 38 zip codes in Chicago, most in communities with a medium-high Chicago COVID-19 vulnerability index. Collectively, more than 2,700 vaccines were administered to residents of these communities. Given the success of this approach, in 2022, we developed a community-based mobile health program to educate members of underserved communities on various cardiovascular risks while providing mobile health screenings at various non-health care gathering sites. We also completed 10 events across four sites in south suburban Cook County. The number of participants varied greatly among sites, ranging from 0-20 participants. Among the 51 community members screened for cardiovascular risk factors, 36 (71%) had one or more abnormal values, indicating poor risk factor control. Elevated blood pressure was present in 74%, abnormal lipid values were present in 69%, abnormal glycemic indices were present in 39% and abnormal spirometry was present in 30%. Participation in community-based mobile programs, which include educational outreach, screenings and vaccinations, varies significantly in underserved communities but can be beneficial for raising health awareness, detecting uncontrolled cardiovascular risk factors and promoting health and wellness.

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Clinical Assistant Professor
College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts

Bio: Robert DiFazio is a music business technologist whose career bridges creative practice, pedagogy and innovation in music recognition technology. As head of research and development at Song Sleuth, he led the development of analytic tools for automatic recognition of user-generated music online using machine learning and audio processing to detect unlicensed uses of copyrighted works. Song Sleuth’s 2025 acquisition by Epidemic Sound underscored its role in solving the industry’s “black box” problem. DiFazio began his career in the early 2000s while earning a BS in sound recording technology at DePaul University, working as a music engineer at StudioChicago with artists including Snoop Dogg and Machine Gun Kelly. He later joined the faculty at Columbia College Chicago, where he taught for 13 years and received the provost’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016. His interest in the intersection of music and data led him to pursue an MS in management information systems at UIC, where he now serves as clinical assistant professor and coordinator of music business, directing the BA program and mentoring emerging music industry professionals.

Presentation title: The Chicago Hip-Hop History Project: Building a digital home for the culture

Abstract: The Chicago Hip-Hop History Project is a digital humanities research initiative seeking to document, analyze and preserve the cultural, artistic and social history of hip-hop in Chicago. Emerging from a partnership between the School of Theatre and Music and the Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Museum, the project serves as both an academic and community-driven platform designed to elevate the city’s underrepresented contributions to global hip-hop culture. Together, these collaborators work to build an inclusive, data-rich ecosystem for research, education and public engagement that situates Chicago as a vital node in the national and international evolution of hip-hop. At the foundation of the project is a comprehensive bibliographic survey – a large-scale effort to identify, catalog and annotate all existing sources that document Chicago’s hip-hop scene across academic, journalistic, archival and community-based media. This survey functions as a scholarly mapping of the field: it captures how Chicago’s hip-hop history has been narrated, where gaps remain and how those narratives can be made discoverable through digital infrastructure. By developing metadata standards and semantic relationships among sources, the project aligns with contemporary models in information science and digital scholarship, ensuring interoperability with linked data environments and institutional repositories. Building on this bibliographic foundation, the Chicago Hip-Hop History Project is developing the Encyclopedia of Chicago Hip-Hop, an open-access, semantically structured knowledge base that uses wiki technology to connect elements of Chicago hip-hop such as emceeing, street dancing, DJing and more. Each entry functions as both a narrative article and a data node, forming a relational map of the city’s creative networks. The project’s collaboration with the Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Museum ensures that community voices remain central to the process of preservation and interpretation. Oral histories, photographs, flyers and personal archives gathered through this partnership contribute to a living, participatory record of the city’s hip-hop ecosystem. This reciprocal relationship bridges the divide between academic and community archives, positioning the Chicago Hip-Hop History Project as a site of co-authorship where artists, scholars and cultural workers collectively construct a public record of Chicago’s contributions to hip-hop’s global story. A key goal of the Chicago Hip-Hop History Project is to achieve inclusion in library and research infrastructures that support digital humanities and musicological inquiry. By aligning its data models with library discovery systems and digital repository standards, the project advances the discoverability of hip-hop scholarship and primary materials within academic catalogues and citation networks. This integration represents a crucial step toward legitimizing hip-hop studies as a formal area of musicological and cultural research, while also ensuring equitable representation in the digital preservation of American musical heritage.

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Associate Professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development
College of Applied Health Sciences

Bio: Yochai Eisenberg is an associate professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at UIC and an affiliated researcher at the Great Lakes Americans with Disabilities Act Center and the Institute on Disability and Human Development. He studies the ways in which policies, systems and environments impact community mobility, transportation use and health among people with disabilities. His research has contributed to a better understanding of the implementation of barrier-removal plans for the pedestrian infrastructure in the U.S., rideshare use and satisfaction among people with disabilities, and accessibility of environments that support healthy, active living for all. Eisenberg’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. Eisenberg teaches a course on disability, inclusive cities and environmental accessibility and mentors students across disciplines. He serves on the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Older Adults and People with Disabilities and was appointed by Secretary Pete Buttigieg to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity (2023-25).

Presentation title: Planning Smart and Disability-Inclusive Communities

Abstract:  “Nothing to see here, no issues, move on.” That is the message that many communities in the U.S. would like to send about the current state of accessibility of their infrastructure. We have seen this “hiding away” mentality before. However, a safe and accessible pedestrian infrastructure is a necessity for supporting walking and wheeling among people with disabilities. Yet, progress towards improving accessibility is limited, as is the amount of walking and wheeling among people with disabilities. Across the U.S., there have been hundreds of large lawsuits focused on the inaccessibility of sidewalks, curb ramps and pedestrian signals. These lawsuits are evidence of the current state of the walking and wheeling infrastructure in cities and have had a large impact on making infrastructure more accessible. Still, there is another way that involves less conflict, uses proactive planning and involves people with disabilities in charting the future of accessibility. This discussion will explain the current problem with how cities approach pedestrian infrastructure, how people with disabilities are opening the closet doors to show what is hidden, where things currently stand regarding accessibility of cities and what our research has found may be a stronger path forward towards building accessible and disability-inclusive cities. I will illustrate how we use Crowd+AI tools to support low-resource communities in gathering pedestrian infrastructure data to more easily plan for and prioritize improvements. I will also discuss the value of open data on accessibility and ongoing challenges.

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Professor of Law

Bio: Stuart Ford’s academic interests are constitutional law and public international law. In constitutional law, his focus is on understanding the original meaning of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. He has published articles on the role of preambles in 17th- and 18th-century America, public discussions of the Preamble during the ratification debates and the meanings of particular phrases in the Preamble. His goal is to rehabilitate the Preamble as a tool for understanding and interpreting the Constitution. In the field of public international law, Ford has written extensively about international criminal law and international criminal courts. His research explores the effectiveness of international criminal tribunals, with the goal of improving their success. Prior to joining UIC, Ford worked as an assistant prosecutor at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, an international criminal tribunal that was jointly established by the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations to prosecute senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge for atrocities committed in Cambodia. He received his JD from the University of Texas and an LLM from the University of Nottingham.

Presentation title: We the People of the United States: The Source of the Constitution’s Authority

Abstract: The Preamble is famous for its beauty and eloquence, but it is not just a rhetorical flourish at the beginning of the Constitution. It both establishes the goals of the government formed by the Constitution and identifies the source of the Constitution’s authority. This presentation explores the origin and meaning of the language about the source of the Constitution’s authority: “We the People of the United States . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.” It traces the origins of the words and phrases in this sentence from 16th century England to 18th century America and shows that they had pre-existing public meanings that would have been familiar to Americans in the founding generation. Americans in the 18th century would have known the words and phrases in the Preamble from English laws, colonial charters, early state constitutions and public debates. In particular, they would have understood the “We the People” language to be a reference to social contract theory and a claim that the power of the federal government derived from the people rather than being delegated from the state governments.

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Professor and Head of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Retzky College of Pharmacy

Bio: Nancy Freitag is professor and head of pharmaceutical sciences at the Retzky College of Pharmacy. She received her PhD in biological chemistry from UCLA and joined UIC as an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in 2006. She became a full professor in 2012 and vice provost of faculty affairs in 2018 before joining the College of Pharmacy. Freitag’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which pathogenic bacteria cause disease as well as understanding host immune responses that limit infection. The NIH has continuously funded her laboratory since 1997, and in 2016 she was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Microbiology. Freitag’s teaching has been recognized with several awards, including three Golden Apples. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and holds two patents. In 2017, she became a University Scholar.

Presentation Title: No pain, no gain: How anesthetics increase severity of microbial infection

Abstract: Health care-acquired infections are the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., with the direct economic burden estimated to be between $28 and $34 billion. Anesthetic administration has been associated with a significantly increased risk of infection in hospital patients and studies have connected the effects of commonly used anesthetics with a general decrease in host resistance to infection. Propofol is the most common anesthetic induction agent used for the induction of anesthesia in surgery, in the ICU and for routine outpatient procedures. In the nearly 30 years since its introduction, propofol has grown to become the predominant anesthetic in clinical use throughout the world, lauded for its rapid on- and off-set, relatively mild side effects and flexibility in both the induction and maintenance of anesthesia. We have found, using animals as models, that brief (5-minute) sedation with propofol dramatically increases the severity of infection. Experimental evidence implicates a metabolic breakdown product of propofol that increases host susceptibility to infection, and that this breakdown occurs more rapidly in females than in males, suggesting that women are more susceptible than men to the negative effects of propofol sedation. Slight chemical modification of propofol eliminates immune suppression without compromising the drug’s sedative effects. These findings should help with the development of modified drugs for anesthesia with reduced risk of adverse infection outcomes.

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Professor of Orthodontics, Director of Predoctoral Orthodontics
College of Dentistry

Bio: Dr. Maria Therese Galang-Boquiren is a tenured professor of orthodontics and currently serves as the director of predoctoral orthodontics at UIC, where she has been shaping the orthodontic curriculum for dental students since 2007. Dr. Galang-Boquiren is a proud alumna of UIC where she obtained her MS in Oral Sciences, Certificate in Orthodontics, Advanced Standing DDS and MBA. She holds dual board certifications as a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and the American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine, making her one of only a handful of professionals in the United States with this unique combination of expertise. Her research focuses on dental treatments for sleep apnea, having secured federal and foundational research funding and published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. She has been invited to speak and share her expertise at various institutions and scientific meetings across the globe. Dr. Galang-Boquiren completed the prestigious Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Fellowship, further enhancing her leadership skills in academic health care. She was also appointed an examiner for the American Board of Orthodontics and continues to be a site visitor for the Commission of Dental Accreditation. With her multifaceted background, Dr. Galang-Boquiren continues to be at the forefront of education, clinical care and research, particularly in the intersection of orthodontics and sleep medicine.

Presentation title: Leading UIC Dentistry’s Response to the Public Health Burden of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Abstract: Obstructive sleep apnea is a critical public health issue with far-reaching consequences on cardiovascular, metabolic and neurocognitive health. UIC’s College of Dentistry is uniquely positioned to address this silent epidemic by integrating dental sleep medicine into education, research and community engagement. This talk will highlight three key initiatives. First, I will describe how dental sleep medicine is being incorporated into both the didactic and, soon, the clinical curriculum to prepare future dentists with the knowledge and skills needed for effective obstructive sleep apnea screening, diagnosis and management. Through this inclusion, dental students gain early exposure to interdisciplinary approaches that expand their role in sleep health. Second, the talk will focus on our collaborative research efforts with colleagues in UIC’s Colleges of Medicine, Nursing and Engineering, as well as other institutions. These partnerships support studies on novel and optimized treatment options for obstructive sleep apnea, emphasizing the development and evaluation of oral appliance therapy, personalized care models and cross-disciplinary interventions that improve patient outcomes. These research endeavors underscore the vital role of academic medicine in generating evidence-based solutions. Third, the presentation will explore engagement with the broader community through symposia and outreach programs that raise awareness about obstructive sleep apnea’s risks and treatment possibilities. By partnering with key stakeholders and offering educational events open to health care professionals and the public alike, the College of Dentistry fosters local and global communitywide dialogue, bridges care gaps and promotes early identification and intervention at a population level. Together, these initiatives illustrate the College of Dentistry’s comprehensive and proactive approach to confronting the public health burden of obstructive sleep apnea. By advancing education, fostering interdisciplinary research and leading community outreach, UIC is establishing a sustainable, replicable model for integrated care that leverages dentistry’s potential to transform sleep health outcomes.

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Bio: Kaleb Germinaro is an assistant professor in the College of Education. His research focuses on the design of learning experiences in environments where space and place are central, and where youth, communities and ecosystems are actively resisting the hegemonic processes of displacement, gentrification and erasure of sociocultural ways of being and knowledge making. This research allows him to study the spatial, relational, political and historical dimensions where learning can be tethered and situated to address past injustices to ensure our collective just futures across difference.

Presentation Title: Gather, Design, Build: Speculative Inquiry for Resisting the Displacement of Peoples, Knowledge and Modes of Being

Abstract: Since 2019, I’ve co-led Estelita’s Library, a social justice-focused library and bookstore in Seattle, Washington. In 2019, we were displaced from our original location and able to receive a small surplus piece of land through the city’s Office of Arts and Culture. Through this surplus land program, youth from an organization called Sawhorse Revolution, an out-of-school-time design and build organization, chose us to receive the land and subsequently designed our tiny cultural space. Over the course of the last six years, we’ve gone through multiple cycles of gathering, designing and building that have now led us to returning to the neighborhood from where we displaced with the added bonus of building housing and a cultural center for our community that is resisting the same forms of displacement. In this talk, I detail the breadth of those involved, how community-based research serves as a process for shifting how we understand community knowledge as a set of relations for sociopolitical change and the ways this project connects to my current work in Chicago and at UIC.

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Associate Professor
Department of Psychiatry

Bio: Liz Glover completed her BS in zoology at Arizona State University in 2001 and subsequently worked as a research assistant studying nonhuman primate behavior at the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio, Texas. She earned her PhD in neuroscience in 2012 from Wake Forest University School of Medicine where she investigated the effects of chronic alcohol self-administration on the serotonin system in nonhuman primates. Following her graduate training, Glover completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina where she developed interests in alcohol-induced cortical plasticity and the role that aversion plays in addiction. Glover joined UIC’s Department of Psychiatry and the Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics as an assistant professor in 2018. Her laboratory uses a multidisciplinary approach that combines animal models of alcohol use disorder with sophisticated behavioral testing, viral tract tracing, ex vivo whole-cell patch-clamp slice electrophysiology and circuit-specific strategies to measure and manipulate cell activity in vivo. Using these approaches, Glover investigates the effect of chronic alcohol exposure on neural circuits mediating reward and aversion, and her ground-breaking research has provided new insight into the role of previously unstudied brain regions and neural circuits in the mechanisms underlying addiction. Glover’s research has been continuously funded since 2010, and she is consistently ranked in the top 25% of all NIH-funded psychiatry faculty in the U.S. In addition to her research accolades, Glover has been highly successful as a mentor with numerous undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral trainees obtaining independent grant funding and successfully advancing their own careers in research and medicine.

Presentation title: Rewiring the Brain: Leveraging breakthrough technology to provide new insights into treatment for addiction

Abstract: Alcohol use disorder is a brain disease that affects approximately 10% of the U.S. population — a level of prevalence that exceeds all other substance use disorders combined. Alcohol use disorder diagnosis is associated with myriad negative health consequences and can ultimately lead to premature death. Research in my lab is aimed at understanding the neural mechanisms underlying why individuals drink, susceptibility to heavy drinking and alcohol use disorder and the ways in which the brain changes after chronic drinking to impede sobriety in individuals trying to abstain. My lab combines fundamental methods in neuroscience research with recent breakthrough technologies like calcium imaging and opto- and chemogenetics, which allow us to measure and manipulate neural activity, respectively, to help answer many of these questions. Use of these approaches has allowed us to link the activity of previously unstudied neural circuits with behaviors like alcohol drinking and withdrawal symptoms with an unprecedented level of precision. Our work is among the first to demonstrate a role for a brain region known as the rostromedial tegmental nucleus in alcohol use disorder and the first ever to characterize the anatomy and function of a previously unknown connection between the rostromedial tegmental nucleus and the medial prefrontal cortex. Ongoing work in my lab is examining the link between the function of these two parts of the brain and alcohol use disorder susceptibility and how chronic alcohol exposure alters the structure, physiology and function of these brain portions to facilitate symptoms of withdrawal. This work has revealed new information about healthy brain function in addition to alcohol use disorder pathology. Our findings have the potential to provide crucial insight into the neural mechanisms underlying addiction, which can be leveraged to develop new tools to identify individuals at risk for alcohol use disorder and therapeutics for relapse prevention.

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Professor and Founding Director of Global Asian Studies

Bio: Anna Guevarra is a professor and founding director of Global Asian Studies. She is an interdisciplinary and public scholar whose work focuses on labor, the geopolitics of carework, migration and displacements. She is the author of award-winning works such as the book, “Marketing Dreams, Manufacturing Heroes: The Transnational Labor Brokering of Filipino Workers” and “Mediations of Care: Brokering Labor in the Age of Robotics” (Pacific Affairs). She co-founded a public history project “Dis/Placements: A People’s History of Uptown” that traces histories of urban displacements in a Chicago neighborhood. Guevarra’s work has been recognized with awards from the American Sociological Association, Ford Foundation, the Holland Prize, Fulbright, UIC Teaching Recognition Program and Silver Circle. She is a 2025-26 University Scholar and serves as a UIC senator on the Senate Committee on Educational Policy and Senate’s Executive Committee and a co-principal investigator of the Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions Initiative, which has designated UIC as a member serving institute since 2010. She was a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project and her work has appeared in Boston Review, TruthOut, Ms. Magazine and Chicago Reporter. She works with community organizations focusing on racial and economic justice and immigration rights. Her PhD is in sociology from the University of California San Francisco.

Presentation Title: Unearthing Submerged Histories and Engaging Multiple Publics

Abstract: This presentation highlights the mobility and immobility of migrants, the state’s regulation of labor, the geopolitics of carework and engaging in new ways of doing public interdisciplinary work that centers just, equitable and reciprocal engagements with communities.

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Assistant Professor of Marketing

Bio: Linda Hagen earned her PhD in Business Administration (Marketing) at the University of Michigan, was on the faculty at University of Southern California and is now assistant professor of marketing at UIC. She studies consumer behavior using experiments and is especially interested in consumer welfare outcomes, such as health and well-being.

Presentation Title: Pretty Healthy Food

Abstract: Marketers frequently style food to look pretty in photos for advertising purposes. In this work, I investigate how pretty aesthetics — defined by classical aesthetic principles, such as order, symmetry and balance — influence healthiness judgments. I propose that prettier food is perceived as healthier, specifically because classical aesthetic features make it appear more natural. In a pilot, six main studies and four supplemental studies across unhealthy and healthy processed and unprocessed, and photographed and real foods alike, people judged prettier versions of the same food as healthier (that is, with more nutrients and less fat). Even given financial stakes, people were misled by prettiness. Perceived naturalness mediated the effect; belief in a “natural = healthy” connection moderated it; expressive aesthetics, which do not evoke naturalness, did not produce the effect (despite being pretty); and reminders of artificial modification, which suppress perceived naturalness, mitigated it. Given that pretty food styling can harm consumers by misleading healthiness judgments for unhealthy foods, managers and policy makers should consider disclaimers of modification as a tool to mitigate the “pretty = healthy” bias.

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Dr. Robert G. Brunetti Professor and Department Head
Restorative Dentistry

Bio: Dr. Rand Harlow is a distinguished alumnus of the UIC College of Dentistry where he has maintained a strong association for more than three decades. He earned his DDS degree in 1992, followed by a two-year general practice residency at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. He went on to complete the advanced prosthodontics program at UIC, then joined the College of Dentistry faculty in 1997. From 2006-12, he served as director of predoctoral implant education and later led the advanced prosthodontics program as its director until 2021 when he was appointed department head of restorative dentistry. He currently holds the Robert G. Brunetti Professorship. Dr. Harlow is also actively involved in the broader dental education community as a diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics and fellow of the American College of Prosthodontists. He serves as a site visitor for the Commission on Dental Accreditation and is a board examiner for the American Board of Dental Examiners. Dr. Harlow lectures at local and national dental meetings, sharing his expertise in dental implant therapy, implant soft tissue management, and digital dentistry.

Presentation: Advances in Digital and Implant Dentistry

Abstract: This presentation will showcase how digital technologies can improve dental care for patients who have complex dental and implant needs. It will highlight the exciting work being done at the UIC’s Advanced Prosthodontics Program to bring these innovations into everyday practice to enhance diagnosis, treatment planning and patient outcomes. Attendees will learn how digital tools make dental treatments more precise, efficient and comfortable for patients. They will gain insight into the latest advancements in digital dentistry and learn how these technologies are transforming implant care and prosthodontic education.

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Clinical Associate Professor and Assistant Head of the Managerial Studies Department
College of Business Administration

Bio: Shahnaz Ibrahim is a clinical associate professor and assistant head of the Managerial Studies Department at the College of Business Administration. She holds a PhD in corporate social responsibility in SMEs in emerging economies from the University of Southampton (UK), an MBA in Market and Business Development from George Mason University (USA) and a BSc in Business Administration from Assiut University (Egypt). Ibrahim’s interdisciplinary research adopts a qualitative approach to examine the intersections of strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship. Her work primarily focuses on social and sustainable entrepreneurship, as well as the multi-layered corporate social responsibility practices of SMEs. Before joining UIC, Ibrahim served as a principal teaching fellow at Southampton Business School in the UK. In this role, she led both undergraduate and postgraduate programs, including program director for the BSc in Business Management, MSc in International Entrepreneurship and Management, MSc in Business Strategy and Innovation Management and MSc in Digital Business. At UIC, Ibrahim teaches courses in entrepreneurship, sustainability and strategy at both undergraduate and MBA levels. Her commitment to teaching excellence has been recognized with multiple honors, including the Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Award and the Student Union’s Best Academic Support, from the University of Southampton in the UK.

Presentation Title: UIC B Corp Impact Clinic: Advancing Experiential Learning Through Purpose-Driven Business Education

Abstract: UIC’s B Impact Clinic is a nationally recognized experiential learning initiative, launched as a pilot program during the 2023 fall semester, that was honored as the 2024 B Impact Team of the Year by B Academics for its exemplary dedication to making a positive impact through education. The Clinic is integrated into the required undergraduate course, MGMT 350: External Environment of Business, within the Managerial Studies Department at the College of Business Administration. This hands-on initiative is a partnership between Clinical Associate Professor Shahnaz Ibrahim’s class, Avi Mayerhoff (director of corporate partnerships in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Innovation) and B Local Illinois. In its first year, the clinic successfully engaged 74 students, pairing them in teams with eight B Corp-certified companies. The project’s central goal is to provide students with real-world, hands-on experience in sustainable business practices and consulting, thereby increasing their awareness of timely sustainability issues by understanding “how it works on the ground” through this industry collaboration. Student teams serve as consultants to Certified B Corps, working to assess their social, environmental and governance impacts. The core methodology of the project leverages the B Impact Assessment, an open-access, rigorous tool widely regarded as a comprehensive framework for measuring a company’s overall sustainability impact on its stakeholders. Academically, the project focuses on applying stakeholder theory learnings from the classroom. Businesses seeking B Corp certification commit to having positive impacts on five key stakeholder areas: their community, customers, employees, environment and company governance. Over the 15-week semester, students pursued two main goals: developing a comprehensive stakeholder map (a key deliverable and a requirement for companies certifying under the B Corp standard) and generating actionable impact recommendations. Students explored how their assigned company impacts its stakeholders by reviewing B Impact Assessment data and conducting independent research. Teams also explored complex sustainability questions, including how hybrid work locations impact the company’s environmental assessment, specifically considering greenhouse gas emissions and energy used in home offices. The projects concluded with student teams presenting detailed proposals designed to help companies improve their impact and thrive at the intersection of profit and purpose. Specific recommendations developed by the students included strategies such as investing in renewable energy, increasing the number of eco-friendly products, collaborating with local communities on recycling and monitoring water use with the goal of reducing it. Company representatives were highly impressed, noting that the students provided a fresh perspective on environmentalism and what a balanced workplace should look like.

This B Impact Clinic model successfully achieved its goal of equipping a diverse group of undergraduates with a sustainability mindset on Day 1 of their future careers. Students reported that the direct industry involvement motivated them and gave them a tangible taste of what a business role could be, strengthening their knowledge of internal business processes, management and the challenges of becoming sustainable. Due to its success, the project has been scaled up for fall 2025, now engaging more than 150 students with a local cohort of B Corps. This growing initiative aligns with UIC’s leadership efforts in preparing the next generation of socially responsible business leaders and entrepreneurs and reinforces our university’s commitment to education that drives meaningful, measurable impact.

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Director, UIC Nursing-Urbana Campus
Clinical Professor
Department of Population Health Nursing Science, Urbana Campus

Bio: Krista Jones, DNP, MSN, PHNA-BC, RN, is director of UIC’s College of Nursing’s Urbana Campus, a clinical professor in the Department of Population Health Nursing Science, a board-certified advanced population health nurse, and the inaugural endowed Jean Stout Faculty Research Scholar. Her scholarship addresses public health nursing workforce issues, academic practice partnerships, faith community nursing, the equitable care of disabled populations and strategies to enhance the delivery of nursing and interprofessional education. Jones is the primary or coinvestigator of 26 grants totaling more than $6.8 million. She is the primary investigator of Nursing Experts Translating the Evidence (NExT), a five-time National Library of Medicine funded nurse and librarian collaboration that has provided free, evidenced-based programming to more than 2,500 health professionals. She serves as chair of the Council of Public Health Nursing Organizations (CPHNO), immediate past president of the Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE), chair of the Illinois Nursing Workforce Center and president of the Champaign County Board of Health. She is an Illinois Board of Higher Education Nursing Faculty Fellow, American Association of Colleges of Nursing Elevating Leaders in Academic Nursing Fellow, fellow of the National Academies of Practice and a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Presentation: Nursing Experts Translating Evidence into Practice

Abstract: Nurses need to document and demonstrate that they engage in research and implement evidence to enhance health care quality, improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. The American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Recognition Program® requires hospitals to use evidence-based practice principles. Public and school health nurses provide evidence-based practice services in population settings unaffiliated with academic institutions and hospitals limiting access to evidentiary resources. Surveys of acute/ambulatory care nurses found low rates of evidence-based practice principles implementation in U.S. health settings.

As the primary investigator of NExT, I lead a multisite team of nurses and librarians that has received five cycles of grant funding from the National Libraries of Medicine to intensify nurses’ acquisition, translation and application of evidence in practice and creation of policy changes to prevent disease and improve health. The sequence of free online learning modalities provides a roadmap for the development of practice partnerships between hospitals, community agencies, and academia to share clinical expertise and evidence-based practice resources to impact health outcomes. Two tracks were developed, one specific to public and school health nurses and another for acute/ambulatory care nurses. A total of 37 video lectures ranging from 2-50 minutes were conceived with seven hours of free certified education units provided to all participants. This talk will discuss NExT’s success rates with more than 2,000 participating nurses and plans for the future.

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Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science

Bio: Ian Kash works on a number of topics at the interface between computer science and economics, particularly those connected to AI and machine learning. His current work includes economic problems which arise in cloud and high performance computing, multi-agent reinforcement learning, and algorithmic fairness. He has also worked on a number of other topics including market design, mechanism design, auction theory, proper scoring rules/loss functions, internet advertising, incentive engineering for networks and systems, and social computing.

Presentation Title: Fair decision-making for food inspections

Abstract: We revisit the application of predictive models by the Chicago Department of Public Health to schedule restaurant inspections and prioritize the detection of critical food code violations. We perform the first analysis of the model’s fairness to the population served by the restaurants in terms of average time to find a critical violation. We find that the model treats inspections unequally based on the sanitarian who conducted the inspection and that, in turn, there are geographic disparities in the benefits of the model. We examine four alternate methods of model training and two alternative ways of scheduling using the model and find that the latter generates more desirable results. The challenges from this application point to important directions for future work around fairness with collective entities rather than individuals, the use of critical violations as a proxy, and the disconnect between fair classification and fairness in dynamic scheduling systems.

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Professor of Medicine and Division Chief of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
Papasani Subbaiah and Subbalakshmi Endowed Professor

Bio: Dr. Layden earned his BS in psychology and PhD in chemistry from Loyola University Chicago, followed by his MD from UIC. He completed his residency and fellowship in the Physician Scientist Training Program at Northwestern University. His research spans cellular metabolism and diabetes therapeutics. A committed educator and clinician, Dr. Layden has held faculty appointments at Northwestern and UIC and serves as a staff physician at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. He contributes to multiple advisory boards and has received numerous academic honors. His career exemplifies a deep commitment to scientific excellence, patient care and transformative leadership in medicine.

Presentation title: Updates on the UIC Diabetes Center

Abstract: Diabetes, particularly Type 2 diabetes, represents a growing public health crisis in the United States. There are more than 50 million Americans diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and projections estimate there will be more than 300 million cases globally by the end of 2025. At UI Health, the burden is especially acute: more than 30% of hospitalized adults have diabetes, and emergency room screenings identify more than 300 new cases of undiagnosed diabetes or prediabetes monthly. Alarmingly, the youth population is also experiencing a sharp rise in new, onset Type 2 diabetes, underscoring the urgency for coordinated intervention. In response, UIC has established a comprehensive Diabetes Center designed to unify and amplify diabetes-related efforts across its colleges and departments. This center integrates clinical care, research, education and community outreach, drawing on the strengths of the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago, College of Nursing, School of Public Health, Jane Addams College of Social Work, College of Engineering and others. It serves as a vital resource for local communities, public health agencies and policymakers at the city, state and national levels. The Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at UIC currently anchors much of the university’s diabetes activity. With more than 25 faculty members, the division delivers more than 10,000 patient visits annually across multiple clinical sites, including UI Health, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center and the Illinois Department of Corrections. Its research portfolio exceeds $6 million annually, supported by prestigious grants such as the NIH T32 training grant, a NIH U01 for clinical diabetes research and two NIH P30 grants in collaboration with the University of Chicago – one of only 17 NIH-designated diabetes research centers nationwide. The center will continue to build upon this foundation, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and expanding the reach and impact of diabetes-related initiatives. Ultimately, the UIC Diabetes Center will embody the missions of both UIC and UI Health by advancing health equity, improving outcomes for vulnerable populations and positioning UIC as a national leader in diabetes care, research and innovation.

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Chief Strategy Officer, UI Health
Director of Health Systems Development
Professor
Department of Emergency Medicine

Bio: Janet Lin, MD, MPH, is the chief strategy officer at UI Health, helping to guide the overall strategy and lead transformative health care delivery system change for the hospital. She is a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, College of Medicine, an affiliate professor in Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health and a center affiliate at UIC’s Center for Global Health, serving previously as the director of Health Systems Development. Dr. Lin was the president of the Chicago Board of Health until Dec. 2024. Her work is dedicated to the pursuit of improving access to or the delivery of health care within resource-limited settings through a lens of equity and social justice. In her academic research, Dr. Lin’s work centers on creating and implementing programs related to “preventative – or pro-active – emergency medicine” which recognizes the complexity and nuances of our health care system and that the ER functioning as a safety net often serves as a microcosm of the public health challenges society faces. Dr. Lin is a recipient of the University of Illinois Presidential Medallion and was the 2021 Physician of the Year at UI Health. Dr. Lin serves on the executive board of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. She has also been a long-standing board member and previous President of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians and is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. She is also a Billings Fellow of the Institute of Medicine Chicago. She previously served on the board of directors of MedGlobal, a humanitarian organization providing locally appropriate care in difficult-to-reach areas of the world that are affected by war, natural disasters, famine and ethnic cleansing.

Presentation: Community-Centered Comprehensive Care for Chronic Conditions (C6) Model in SW Chicago

Abstract: Community-Centered Comprehensive Care for Chronic Conditions Model, also called C6, is a transformational initiative building on the 55th and Pulaski Collaborative to expand vital health care services to the community and ensure access to necessary health care on the Southwest Side of Chicago

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Associate Professor
College of Business Administration

Bio: Yingda Lu is an associate professor at UIC’s College of Business Administration. He obtained his PhD in information systems at Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. He has primarily focused on three research streams: 1) How do individuals contribute and consume content on social media platforms, and how do individuals interact with each other? (2) What are the desirable policies that could maximize the value of social media initiatives of an organization? (3) How to design AI and AI-policies to improve human-AI connection. To address these questions, he combines economic theory with state-of-the-art empirical methods — such as machine learning, Bayesian estimation, natural experiment and structural model — so as to provide actionable policies to improve the design of various platforms. His research appears in top academic journals such as Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly and Productions and Operations Management, as well as top conferences such as International Conference on Information Systems.

Presentation Title: Leveraging AI-assisted Coding to Reshape Business School Education

Abstract: This presentation explores the transformative potential of AI-assisted coding, a paradigm shift where the focus moves from writing complex code to clearly articulating desired outcomes in natural language. Often called “vibe coding,” this approach empowers individuals to translate ideas into functional applications with the help of AI coding assistants. By lowering the technical barrier to entry, AI-assisted coding is not just a technological trend but a business one, accelerating innovation and enabling the rapid testing of new ideas. This session will delve into how this technology is set to reshape business school education, particularly in the realms of analytics and project-based learning.
First, we will examine how AI-assisted coding is changing the landscape of analytics courses in business school. Traditionally, a significant amount of time is dedicated to mastering programming syntax and specific functions. With AI assistants, the educational focus can shift from the “how” of coding to the “why” of analysis. Students can spend less time on debugging syntax and more time on framing complex business problems, interpreting the results of their data analysis, and developing actionable strategies. This new approach cultivates a more critical and strategic skillset, where the ability to ask the right questions and formulate effective prompts for an AI becomes paramount. I will discuss how curriculum can be adapted to emphasize these higher-order skills, ensuring students learn to validate, critique, and refine AI-generated outputs. Furthermore, the presentation will highlight how AI-assisted coding can revolutionize project-based courses in business school, such as System Analysis Design and entrepreneurship practicums. Students are no longer limited by their technical abilities and can now build fully functional prototypes and applications to support their business ideas. This provides an invaluable hands-on experience that mirrors the dynamic and fast-paced business environment. For example, a student with a finance concentration could build a tool to aggregate and summarize real-time financial news, or a marketing student could develop a web application to analyze customer sentiment. By enabling students to bring their theoretical knowledge to life, AI-assisted coding fosters a more practical, innovative and impactful learning experience, preparing them for a future where technology and business strategy are inextricably linked.

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Assistant Professor, UIC Law School

Bio: Claire Johnson Raba is an assistant professor at UIC Law School where she teaches civil procedure, consumer law, and access to justice and legal technology. As a 2025-26 UIC Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and Social Engagement Fellow, she studies the impacts of civil asset forfeiture in on Black and Latine communities in Cook County in collaboration with community partner Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts. Raba is a former legal aid attorney and law school clinician, and she litigated in state, federal and bankruptcy courts to protect the rights of low-income consumers. Her empirical scholarship focuses on emerging legal technologies, access to justice and disparate impacts of the civil legal system on low-income litigants and their communities. Raba is a co-principal investigator with the Debt Collection Lab at Princeton University, and her research has been supported through grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the State Bar of California, the American Bar Foundation, the Student Borrower Protection Center and UIC.

Presentation Title: Impacts of Civil Asset Forfeiture in Chicagoland

Abstract: Consequences of over-policing of Black and Latine communities in Cook County extend beyond the criminal legal system. Through the process of civil asset forfeiture, traffic stops lead to seizure and permanent deprivation of personal property, cars and other assets from individuals suspected of criminal activity. In a mixed-methods project using community-based qualitative research and analysis of public records, we examined the impact of civil asset forfeiture on families and communities in Chicagoland who had property seized and forfeited by law enforcement between 2017-24. Building on court records and state administrative data sets, and with support from the extensive racial justice and community-driven advocacy experience of community partner Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, this research project examines:

• Barriers that impede property owners from asserting challenges to civil asset forfeiture
• The economic impacts of seizure and forfeiture of money, property and vehicles for individuals and families

Findings from this research will create narrative storytelling and community education tools to further advocacy and statewide policy reform. This discussion will share early observations from this ongoing study.

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Clinical Professor of Computer Science

Bio: Dale Reed is a clinical professor of computer science at UIC. As director of computer science recruitment, he led the department’s undergraduate growth from 187 students in 2005 to more than 1,400 in 2019, outpacing national trends through outreach to 10,000+ high school students. Reed holds degrees in English and computer science from North Park and a PhD in computer science from Northwestern. A long-time advocate for equity in computing, he has secured more than $3 million in grants. Reed helped make computer science a Chicago Public School graduation requirement, was on the AP computer science principles development committee and co-founded Chicago Alliance for Equity in Computer Science to advance equity in computer science education in Chicago. From 2019-25, he served on the AnitaB.org Board of Trustees and was curriculum lead for Break Through Tech Chicago, helping raise the percentage of women in computer science at UIC from 19% to 28%. Currently, he is developing the Google-funded Data+AI course to democratize the use of AI for UIC students.

Presentation title: Computer Mind-Reading

Abstract: Effective teaching and communication often emerge when learners are given opportunities for discovery and active engagement. Simple “magic tricks” can spark curiosity, and in the context of computer science, they provide a compelling framework for programming assignments. These assignments motivate students to create programs they are excited to share with friends and family. One example involves so-called “mind-reading” tricks, in which a computer program produces surprising output that appears to defy normal expectations. Beyond their entertainment value, these activities foster meaningful student conversations, as learners work together to explain the seemingly inexplicable. In doing so, they strengthen a shared sense of being a collaborative learning community. One classic example is the “guess the number” trick in which an audience member selects a number between 1 and 10,000, and the computer makes successive guesses based on the participant’s feedback (“higher,” “lower,” or “that’s it”). The program accomplishes this by continually dividing the search space in half, thereby demonstrating the principle of binary search in a memorable way. This presentation will explore another such “mind-reading” experience.

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Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology
College of Education

Bio: Jeremy Riel is an assistant professor of educational psychology at the College of Education. He conducts applied research and development with artificial intelligence and simulation-based systems for learning and instruction, with a focus on computational knowledge modeling methods and human/AI interaction. He also studies effective approaches for educating all ages about AI and computing fundamentals, as well as the effects of emerging technology policy and regulation. As the director of the Teaching and Research with AI Learning (TRAILblazer) Lab at UIC, he is engaged in projects with partners around Illinois related to educational artificial intelligence system design and computing/AI education. His projects have been sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation and Google. Riel serves as co-lead of the Science and Technology Working Group at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. Riel also coordinates the instructional design and training minor at the College of Education and enjoys teaching courses on educational technology, engaging learning design and media and AI.

Presentation title: Everyone is a Tech Person: Developing Educator AI and Computing Skills Across the Disciplines

Abstract: Up until recently, computing and AI literacy has been largely taught to students in dedicated computer science classes, most often in high schools. This has been a very powerful mechanism toward introducing students to STEM careers. However, with the rapid diffusion of AI across all aspects and grade levels in education, educators across all disciplines are now needing to develop their own computing and AI skills to engage with these transformative technologies in their classrooms. This talk highlights efforts to equip PreK-12 educators across the Chicago region with computing and AI skills toward encouraging every teacher to be able to confidently say “I am a tech person!” and use computing and AI in today’s landscape to engage every student in reaching their potential.

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Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer
Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering

Bio: Benjamin Sanchez is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer and the Richard and Loan Hill Department of Biomedical Engineering at UIC. His research on digital health technologies and wearables is focused on addressing highly prevalent global chronic conditions.

Presentation: Engineering Advances in Cardiology and Oncology

Abstract: Cardiovascular disease and cancer remain the leading causes of death worldwide, despite decades of advances in diagnosis and treatment. Many of these conditions — such as high blood pressure — are preventable, yet early detection and management remain limited by current clinical technologies. Our lab is developing the next generation of medically accurate wearable devices to enable continuous and convenient monitoring of human health. By advancing the scientific and engineering foundations of these technologies, our work is transforming how chronic diseases are detected, managed and ultimately prevented, improving both patient care and clinical outcomes.

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Clinical Professor
Retzky College of Pharmacy

Bio: Nancy L. Shapiro, PharmD, FCCP, BCACP, CACP is a clinical professor in the Retzky College of Pharmacy and the associate head for education. She serves as coordinator and clinical pharmacist of the pharmacist-managed Antithrombosis Clinic at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System. Shapiro received her Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from the University of Iowa and then came to UIC to complete her primary care residency. Shapiro has been a clinical pharmacist, scholar and educator in all aspects of anticoagulation pharmacotherapy since 1997. She has trained hundreds of UIC students, residents and international trainees looking to create anticoagulation services at their own institutions, or gain additional clinical skills in this practice area. Her specific clinical and research areas of interest include anticoagulation for venous thromboembolism, stroke prevention for atrial fibrillation and anticoagulation in special populations. Shapiro has been involved with the creation and oversight of the international summer program, “Contemporary Clinical Pharmacy Practice and Education,” since it started in 2013, which has now trained over 500 international learners.

Presentation Title: UIC RCOP Summer Program: Contemporary Clinical Pharmacy Practice and Education

Abstract: UIC’s Retzky College of Pharmacy has been collaborating with institutions around the world for more than 40 years to advance pharmacy practice and education. Partnerships have included sharing experiences for curriculum transformation, clinical practice development and faculty training, pathways for entry into the Retzky College of Pharmacy PharmD program, residency programs and fellowship and offering extended shadowing experiences in-patient care at inpatient and outpatient clinical pharmacy practice sites at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System (UI-Health). Collaborative degree programs with the University of Hong Kong and University of Malta are also in place. These efforts to provide skills enhancement and curricula transformation are aimed at educating the next generation of pharmacists for advancing pharmacy practice in their own countries. In 2013, we created a short-term classroom-based summer curriculum for international pharmacy students, pharmacists and faculty members to nurture interest in clinical education and practice. The four-week “Contemporary Clinical Pharmacy Practice and Education” program provides a comprehensive overview of the spectrum of clinical pharmacy practice and education opportunities in the United States. The program is conducted annually in July by more than 30 Retzky College of Pharmacy faculty members, each an expert in their clinical area. Topics have included common disease states in various inpatient and ambulatory settings, clinical skills enhancement, descriptions of unique clinical pharmacy practice models, leadership and career pathways and patient case-based teaching. The sessions combine didactic and hands-on skills laboratories and case-based teaching to facilitate the learning experience. UIC PharmD students are utilized as student ambassadors and help give the summer students a near-peer experience. There is no course credit provided for attending the summer program, and students stay in the Single Student Resident Housing for the duration of their stay. The course has been offered 10 times and has educated 509 participants from 13 countries and 28 institutions throughout Asia and Europe. Based on annual evaluations, the program has been successful in providing international participants an opportunity to learn about clinical pharmacy practice and to experience pharmacy education in the United States. Participants find the didactic lectures and practical skills sessions beneficial in shaping their future academic pursuit in clinical pharmacy and related areas and are grateful for the opportunity to learn about potential skills and activities that can be utilized when they return home. We look forward to continuing collaboration with our international partners to provide these experiences to many students, pharmacists and faculty members in future years.

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Professor
Department of Biobehavioral Nursing Science
Associate Dean of Research
College of Nursing

Bio: Lisa K Sharp, BSN, MA, PhD is a tenured professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing Science and associate dean of research for the College of Nursing. She is the associate director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science’s K-12 program, having mentored numerous junior faculty across disciplines who have successfully transitioned to independent National Institutes of Health investigators. With multidisciplinary education in nursing sciences, social psychology and clinical health psychology, Sharp’s research focuses on using mixed methods to develop, refine and test patient-centered behavioral interventions to improve health among those with persistent health challenges. She has maintained NIH funding as a principal investigator for more than a decade with over 170 publications. As a behavioral scientist, her expertise in integrating mechanistic behavioral models into research has broad applications across diseases and contributed to her successful collaborations on multidisciplinary teams.

Presentation Title: Daily Walking to Increase Asthma Control Among Black Women in Chicago

Abstract: Physical inactivity is associated with poor asthma control and greater health
care utilization. Rates of physical inactivity, asthma and asthma mortality among African American women are higher than those of their white counterparts. Our formative work identified barriers to physical activity among African American women with asthma, including a lack of social support, self-efficacy, unsafe neighborhoods and fear related to experiences with life-threatening asthma exacerbations. Given the unique barriers to physical activity and high rates of physical inactivity that are associated with poor asthma outcomes in African American women, there is an urgent need to optimize physical activity interventions for this population.

Our newest proposed study uses theory-driven intervention — ACTION: A lifestyle physiCal acTivity Intervention for minOrity womeN with asthma) — to deliver a 24-week lifestyle physical activity plan designed for and by urban African American women with asthma. Participants are being recruited through UI Health and University of Chicago outpatient clinics. Patients are randomized to one of two groups: 1) ACTION intervention (group sessions, physical activity self-monitoring and text-based support for goal-setting), or 2) education control (an individual asthma education session and text messages related to asthma education). Participants are followed for an additional 24-weeks after the intervention to assess the maintenance of intervention effects on asthma health outcomes. This efficacy trial focuses on self-reported improvement in asthma symptoms and spirometry as primary outcomes. Behavioral mechanisms of the intervention (walking) and factors that influence it are considered along with the reach and implementation potential. This trial will provide the first-ever evidence of the efficacy of a lifestyle physical activity intervention among urban African American women with asthma, a population that is understudied yet plagued by low levels of physical activity and poor health outcomes. Our study has high potential to advance clinical treatment of asthma and further the mechanistic understanding of physical activity interventions in minority populations living in low-resourced urban environments.

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Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine
Department of Medicine, Division of Academic Internal Medicine and Geriatrics

Bio: An internal medicine physician and health professions educator, Dr. Radhika Sreedhar leads the Evidence-Based Medicine discipline in the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago, co-directs the body systems and homeostasis block, serves as the director of curricular integration and is assistant sub-internship director for internal medicine. She has worked with Dr. Linda Chang in pioneering the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine discipline, the AI elective and establishing the AI-MED scholarly concentration program within the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago. Her research spans a broad spectrum of interests, including the assessment of medical students’ proficiency in providing discharge instructions, using simulation to enhance students’ ability to appraise medical literature and exploring the potential of large language models to deliver narrative feedback for assignments.

Presentation Title: Artificial Intelligence in Medicine discipline at UICOM

Abstract: The University of Illinois College of Medicine has developed a comprehensive, longitudinal Artificial Intelligence discipline that embeds AI principles across the medical education continuum. Guided by best practices in curriculum design, this initiative ensures that AI-related learning is relevant, progressive and reinforced throughout preclinical and clinical training. It aligns with national competency frameworks for health care professionals, underscoring the College of Medicine’s commitment to preparing graduates who can critically engage with AI-based tools in patient care, research and health equity contexts. This discussion will examine the curriculum design and implementation of the AI discipline, core competencies, curriculum phases and assessment and examination. By fostering critical appraisal, clinical integration and attention to health equity, the University of Illinois College of Medicine positions its graduates as leaders who are shaping the future of AI-enabled health care.

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Director, Urban Transportation Center; Research Professor, Urban Planning and Policy; Director of Metropolitan Transportation Support Initiative (METSI) and Research Programs
Urban Transportation Center; Urban Planning and Policy

Bio: P.S. Sriraj’s research focuses on understanding the transportation system (both the physical and the human) as well as its impact on many dimensions of quality of life. During his academic career, he has generated more than $35 million dollars in research leading to more than 125 academic products in terms of journal articles, reports and presentations. He has also conducted extensive research on public transportation systems, understanding travel behavior, as well as the impacts of public policy on transportation. The goal of his research is to incorporate multiple perspectives into the planning process using a mixed methods approach. He holds a PhD degree in civil engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has served in leadership positions with the Transportation Research Forum (vice president), Council of University Transportation Center (president), and is a governor’s appointee to the Board of the Illinois International Port District (vice chairman), and the High Speed Rail Commission for Illinois.

Presentation: Employer Perspectives About Work From Home

Abstract: The evolution of work-from-home in the US has stabilized a bit coming out of the pandemic. Currently, most employers are accommodating some form of remote work and the reasons for this are aplenty. There have been several studies that have explored this phenomenon from the employee perspective but very few that have focused on how employers are coping with this changing trend in the work environment. This research is an attempt to understand how employers prepared themselves for the possibility of remote work, how they are accommodating this in their organizations and what, if any, are the impacts of this on their organizational productivity, morale and work culture, among other things. We used a mixed-methods approach to understand the perceptions, attitudes and beliefs of employers with a combination of semi-structured interviews and a self-administered survey. The interviews have been analyzed using a cognitive mapping approach and the survey results are exploratory at this point. We will share the findings of interviews and survey results to shed light on how employers are reflecting on the changes in the work environment and how it might affect productivity going into the future.

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Educational Program Coordinator
School of Public Health

Bio: Derrick Stevens is the educational program coordinator for UIC’s School of Public Health. He works as an instructional designer with the public health faculty to provide faculty development opportunities, course design and course planning support, teaching and learning resources, and in-course facilitation support. He received his Master of Education in International Education and Policy Management from Vanderbilt University. He uses his training as a K-12 educator and administrator in schools abroad to inform his instructional design approach to supporting engagement and active learning in higher education environments.

Presentation Title: Teaching and Learning Support for Faculty in the School of Public Health

Abstract: The Office of Academic Affairs in the School of Public Health created an instructional design staff position in 2024 to support instructors’ teaching and learning needs. Since the creation of this office function, Academic Affairs has assisted with teaching workshops, a public health teaching guide, 1-on-1 consultations, in-class facilitation support and tailored support to the different degree programs and divisions in the School of Public Health. This presentation will provide examples and impacts of these efforts and emphasize the importance of promoting teaching and learning for continuous improvement.

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Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Research
Jane Addams College of Social Work

Bio: For over thirty-five years, my research has centered around substance misuse, including the epidemiology and treatment of substance use and substance use disorders (SUD) in disadvantaged or stigmatized populations (e.g., criminal offenders, LGBTQ, and socioeconomically disadvantaged minorities). My most recent work has focused on the opioid epidemic and studying ways to reduce associated overdoses and fatalities. I am currently the Principal Investigator on an ongoing 7-year study of the effects of legalized recreational cannabis in Illinois and assessing related changes in public health metrics such as incidence and prevalence of cannabis use, cannabis use disorders, cannabis initiation among Illinois youth, cannabis-related poisonings and hospitalizations, and traffic fatalities. To conduct public health monitoring, we have assembled a repository composed of data collected primarily by state agencies that track information on outcomes of interest, such as hospitalizations and discharges, EMS, and poisoning data.

Presentation Title: Public Health Effects of the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act

Abstract: Five years after legalization, Illinois’ cannabis data offer one of the clearest pictures yet of how legalization is unfolding from a public-health perspective. Our team at the University of Illinois Chicago works with the Department of Human Services, the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office, the Department of Public Health, and the Illinois Poison Center to produce the state’s annual report on cannabis use and health outcomes.

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Associate Professor of History and affiliate faculty in Black Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Bio: Elizabeth Todd-Breland is an associate professor of history and affiliate faculty in Black Studies at UIC. She is the author of “A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago Since the 1960s” and co-author, with Karen Lewis, of “I Didn’t Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education.” Her research and teaching focus on US urban history, African American history, the history of education and public policy. A frequent public speaker, she organizes professional development workshops on African American history, urban education, and racial justice. From 2019-24, Todd-Breland served as a member of the Chicago Board of Education, including serving as vice president of the board.

Presentation Title: Public History for the Public Good

Abstract or Description: As a historian of the recent past, my scholarship expands historical knowledge, influences policy and practice, and centers community engagement to advance justice. My research includes collaborative public history, oral history and creative nonfiction projects in service of the public good. Within and beyond the academy, my interdisciplinary research practice demonstrates how historical scholarship can offer new possibilities for addressing significant contemporary policy challenges.

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Professor of Science Education
Chair, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education

Bio: Maria Varelas is a professor of science education and chair of the UIC Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the president-elect of NARST: A Global Organization for Improving Science Education Through Research. She served as the director of the UIC Center for the Advancement of Teaching-Learning Communities and has co-coordinated for years the PhD program in mathematics and science education. Varelas’s research focuses on exploring possibilities and challenges related to student learning when educators consider and practice science education that centers equity and justice while using qualitative, phenomenological, narrative, multimodal discourse, ethnographic and arts-based methodological approaches. With multi-year and multi-collaborator NSF grants totaling over $12 million, her research has emerged and unfolded in collaboration with teachers. Together they seek to create transformative and generative learning spaces and places centered on minoritized students’ assets, agency, creativity and voice, which challenge the power of restrictive structures and scaffold students’ creation of knowledge consequential for their futures and the future of their communities. She has published two books along with more than 80 journal articles and book chapters, held various leadership positions in science education and received several teaching and research awards.

Presentation: Braiding the Performing Arts in Science for Knowledge and Identity Construction: “Science Theatre Makes You Good at Science”

Abstract: How may leveraging performing arts practices to address stubborn challenges in science education of young people in public schools materialize and what do young people teach us about the impact of such pedagogical imaginaries?

Project STAGE (Science Theatre for Advancing Generative Engagement) was initiated by a group of UIC and Chicago Public School (CPS) science, literacy, and theatre educators and scholars and has come to life by hundreds of CPS students as they have engaged in composing embodied performances of science ideas and phenomena and developing, expanding, and communicating understandings of science in the social world.

Dramatizing science resists the colonial divide between mind and body and practices of controlling certain bodies more than others as they move and exist in the world. Dramatizing also pushes back somatophobic traditions, embracing feminist perspectives that embodiment is political. Along with developing structures for young people to explore dramatizing science, we have also extensively studied the youth’s design and performance of embodying science through performing-arts practices. Our studies have shown that dramatizing science provides several affordances for science learning. It strengthens and showcases meaning and sense making of science ideas and practices. It allows young people to create spaces of exploration and places of belonging where affect is an integral part of thinking. It offers opportunities for making various and different identities valuable and recognized. It facilitates the development of connections and solidarity among peoples and materials. It provides opportunities for young people to engage through multiple modalities with ideas and with each other, making space for their agency to shine through their choices of body movements, words, images, and sounds, transforming traditional schooling structures.

In the words of elementary and middle school students, when engaging in science theatre: They get to know each other better. Things get exaggerated and they understand them better. They don’t have to tell others they don’t understand. They teach others. They are stars. Some understand better by moving. They like working as a group and helping each other. They can actually see what it is really about.

In this SparkTalk, Varelas will highlight aspects of the STAGE work and what we have called science-arts borderlands–spaces and places in classrooms and beyond where youth create short or long theatrical performances arranging and moving with each other in spaces available to them along with materials, music, and images they choose. Science-arts borderlands have the potential to transform structures that historically and contemporarily have limited equitable and just science education in schools. Such borderlands may also be useful in other disciplinary domains and can serve as structures for engagement across educational settings from preschool to graduate school as people study and interrogate ideas and practices.

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Associate Professor, Community Health Sciences
School of Public Health

Bio: Leslie D. Williams’ research involves studying predictors of and interventions to improve HIV- and substance use-related health outcomes. Her work has a particular focus on understanding stigma as a setting-level phenomenon, including its relationship to HIV and substance use-related outcomes, its relationship to health service and intervention uptake and access and the development and evaluation of interventions to reduce and address stigma. She was recently awarded $6.9 million in grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Centers for Disease Control, respectively, to conduct a trial of an expanded social network-based recruitment to HIV testing and stigma reduction intervention in South Africa and to study a peer-support intervention for reducing opioid overdose risk in Chicago.

Presentation Title: Overdose Prevention Champions!: Training non-drug-using friends and family of people who use drugs to provide social support around accessing harm reduction tools and services

Abstract: Older Black adults who use opioids on the West Side of Chicago have been disproportionately affected by opioid overdose. More than 34% of Chicago’s emergency medical responses for drug overdose in 2023 occurred in several predominately Black communities on the West Side and Black men aged 55-75 made up 24% of opioid overdose deaths in Cook County in 2024. This SparkTalk will discuss isolation and stigma as factors contributing to this trend. It will then describe the theoretical conceptualization, implementation and study design of “Overdose Prevention Champions!” This CDC-funded quasi-experimental study involves a novel intervention to educate people who care about someone who uses opioids on harm reduction tools and strategies and to train them to provide social support. More specifically, this talk will describe how the “Overdose Prevention Champions!” intervention will start with a combination of community outreach to faith-based organizations, educational videos, distribution of naloxone and fentanyl test strips and mental health counselor-facilitated conversations between peer pairs. The goals of this intervention project are to reduce stigma, increase knowledge about harm-reduction tools and services, reduce barriers to accessing harm-reduction tools and services and increase social support, all towards reducing risk for opioid overdose among this population.

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