Research examines neuroelectric and behavioral indices of physical activity and cognitive control. Interested in determining how physical activity/exercise relates to component cognitive processes involved in attention, working memory and processing speed. Because of the belief in early...
Past Speakers
Professor Charles Hillman talks about the surprising links between exercise, intelligence and aging — and how a fit child is a smarter one.
Artist and visualization expert Donna Cox talks about the power of "visiphors" -- powerful renderings of complex systems which make the previously unknowable explainable.
Cox is a recognized international keynote speaker at events in countries around the world including Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Finland, Japan, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, UK, Wales, and Italy. Inviting institutions include MIT, Princeton, ATR in Japan, Kodak, Motorola, Eli Lilly, and the...
Journalist and "Play Money" author Julian Dibbell talks about death in videogames -- not killing, but what it means to die over and over in massively multiplayer games like "World of Warcraft," and how it's changing our perception of death.
Julian Dibbell is an American author and technology journalist with a particular interest in social systems within online communities.
His 1993 article "A Rape in Cyberspace"[1] detailed attempts of LambdaMOO, an online community, to quantify and deal with lawbreaking in its midst. The...
Pulitzer Prize-winner Leon Dash talks about the protagonists of his masterwork "Rosa Lee" and their life-and-death choices in the inner city poverty of Washington D.C.
Dash grew up in New York City and later attended Howard University. He spent 1969-1970 as a Peace Corps high school teacher in Kenya. He joined the Washington Post in 1965 where he worked as a member of the special projects unit, as part of the investigative desk, and as the West Africa Bureau...
Noted entomologist and bee expert May Berenbaum delves into the mysterious deaths (and disappearance) of millions of honeybees -- the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
Berenbaum is interested in the chemical interactions between herbivorous insects and their hostplants, and the implications of such interactions on the organization of natural communities and the evolution of species. Her particular research interests focus on the secondary chemistry of the...
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Ingrassia talks about the near-death experience of Detroit's Big Three, and the afterlife of the American auto industry.
Paul Ingrassia: journalist, author. Born Laurel, Miss., 1950. Graduated University of Illinois, 1972 (B.S.) and University of Wisconsin 1973 (M.A.). Reporter, editor and executive with The Wall Street Journal 1977 - 2007.
The New Music Ensemble, under the musical direction of Professor Eduardo Diazmuñoz, is a student ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary music. It is both a learning tool and a way of introducing the participants to an experimental environment.
Its repertoire includes works...
Rose Marshack is a researcher, teacher, computer programmer, performer, and artist living in Champaign, IL.
Rick Valentin is is a musician, artist and web developer living in Champaign, Illinois.
About Rose:
As a founding member of the bands Poster Children (...
Prof. Stephen E. Levinson asks whether we will ever be able to teach a robot to learn the way children do. "We will never be able to build a Terminator," he says. "But if I could, I would."
Stephen Levinson received his Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island in 1974. From 1976 to 1997, he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories, from 1990 to 1997, as head of the Linguistics and Research Department. He is a professor in the University of Illinois Department of Electrical and...
Wolfram Research co-founder Theo Gray talks about the importance of risk in science education -- is a good experiment worth dying for? (Maybe just a little bit.)
Theodore W. Gray is one of the founders of Wolfram Research and is currently Wolfram's Director of User Interface Technology.
He is a prominent element collector and created a wooden periodic table with compartments for samples of each of the elements. This table won him an Ig Nobel Prize...