In August, campus and community members came together to learn more about and celebrate the work of the 2025 Community-Academic Scholars (CAS), the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI)’s undergraduate research program that pairs students with community-academic research teams to address critical community issues in Champaign County and beyond.
The poster session and final celebration was cohosted by CAS community partner Sola Gratia Farm. Dedicated to improving the health of individuals, the land, and the community as a whole, Sola Gratia welcomed the community to St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Urbana, who founded the nonprofit urban farm. The Philo Road location made this space an ideal venue for opening the poster session and sharing research with the community at large.
The only undergraduate research program of its kind
When program co-leader Max Wallace kicked off the celebration program, he described CAS as the only undergraduate community-based research program on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus.
“We are proud to offer students these immersive, hands-on experiences that bridge academic research and real-world impact,” Max shared.
The CAS program has made quite the impact over the past six summers as well, supporting 101 undergraduate scholars and partnering with 57 faculty mentors and 54 community organizations on 89 research projects to improve the health of individuals, communities, and the world.
For 10 weeks this summer, scholars worked alongside Illinois researchers and community or clinical partners on hands-on projects addressing a wide range of community needs. From creating a culturally responsive STEM curriculum at DREAAM in Rantoul to evaluating how assistive robots can support aging adults, people with impairments, and those who care for them, scholars had the opportunity to see how their research contributions are making a positive impact on our community.
Sophia Stierwalt, a junior majoring in Statistics with minors in Data Science and Math, most enjoyed the time spent with the community partners on her project, Building Confidence and Connection through Culturally-Rich STEM Experiences.
“I loved visiting DREAAM's summer camp to work with all the amazing students on their STEM activities! I really enjoyed how hands-on it was and being able to directly see what the effects of our project were,” Sophia said.
During the program, the undergraduate scholars met weekly for a check-in and professional development opportunities. Topics included addressing bias in research, community outreach, study design, science communication, developing a research poster and more.
Community-Academic Scholars also advanced research projects addressing maternal health equity, healthy aging, promoting cultural and community health and wellness, harnessing technology to improve human health, and promoting equity, inclusion and belonging in diverse spaces across Champaign County.
“The CAS program challenged my academic and media abilities in ways that I have never experienced before,” said Emma Oyola, a junior in Media and Cinema Studies. “Exposure to the culturally rich community of Urbana-Champaign has made this such an influential summer and experience I will carry with me in any research projects in the future.”
Supporting Illinois’ community-engaged researchers
The Community-Academic Scholars’ unique program model is what makes CAS so special. Each fall, IHSI opens a call for community-engaged research projects that involve established, mutually beneficial relationships between Illinois researchers and local organizations and that would allow undergraduates a chance to contribute meaningfully to projects that directly serve the needs of Champaign County residents. Students are then matched with projects based on their unique experiences, passions, and abilities.
IHSI provides support and professional development to the student researchers as well as lends ongoing support for the research teams before, during, and after the program ends. In addition to an orientation and mentorship training, IHSI team members offer continuing support for project teams, including, proposal development support, workshop offerings (like the Community-Engaged Research Series), and additional connections to faculty and community collaborators. The end results? Enduring community relationships, more effective research, greater trust between campus and community partners, and a healthier community for all.
As IHSI’s Research Development Manager for Community-Academic Partnerships, Dr. Celina Trujillo is out in the community on a regular basis, connecting with both researchers and community leaders.
“As a research institute, IHSI is committed to advancing health research and innovation with a focus on health equity in all we do. Community-academic collaborations make this more possible. Working alongside community members grounds our research in lived experience, mutual respect, and more importantly trust. I am excited to find new ways to bridge these connections and support these vital research collaborations,” Trujillo said.
Dr. Lara Hebert, the Associate Director of Engineering Outreach & Public Engagement for the Grainger College of Engineering and an IHSI affiliate who has collaborated with the IHSI and CAS teams in the past, sees the value in this model. In her role as the Interim Director of The Illinois Center for Family and Community Engaged STEAMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math, and Medicine), also known as the Illinois FACES Center, Hebert saw CAS as a great a fit for her latest community-engaged project with Driven to Reach Excellence and Academic Achievement for Males (DREAAM).
Hebert has been collaborating with DREAAM for the past seven years to bring STEM-related content to DREAAM students and their families. This summer, Community-Academic Scholar Sophia Stierwalt worked with Lara and Precious Kelly, DREAAM Assistant Director of Programs and Services in Rantoul, to design and assess a series of culturally rich STEM experiences for students in grades 3-5 who participated in DREAAM’s summer program. The activities developed during the summer program will build upon the foundation of DREAAM’s cultural pride curriculum used in the Saturday School program.
While Sophia participated in a unique undergraduate research experience, the DREAAM staff further developed and refined their curriculum. Hebert and the Illinois FACES team were also able to achieve their programmatic goals.
“All three of us made gains personally and professionally because of the triad model put in place by the IHSI Community-Academic Scholars program,” Hebert shared.
Investing in the future
Wendy Rogers, a professor of health and kinesiology and an IHSI affiliate, also values the program model. For five of the past six summers, Rogers invited undergraduate scholars to help advance her research using technology to improve the quality of life for adults with mobility and mild cognitive issues.
This summer, undergraduates Shreya Rana, a senior majoring in Brain and Cognitive Science, and Yuheng (Leo) Wang, a junior majoring in Industrial Design concentrating on human-centered technology, worked with Rogers and her partners at the ClarkLindsey Life Plan Community to evaluate the potential for assistive robots to support ClarkLindsey residents and staff. The students explored the capabilities of two assistive robots - Stretch, a mobile manipulator robot, and SoRoSH, a soft robotic shower head.
Rogers has mentored students working with Stretch for a few years now. The SoRoSH project aims to take a human-centered approach to develop a soft robotic handheld shower (SoRoSH) to address mobility challenges affordably and accessibly. The SoRoSH is being iteratively designed based on stakeholder input to ensure it meets users’ needs. By conducting the needs assessment, scholars had a chance to contribute to the prototype testing and validation on a project that ultimately could facilitate independent bathing and enhance the confidence and quality of life for people aging with mobility disabilities.
For the past three years, Rogers has mentored two scholars per year and provided funding for one of the scholars to advance her lab’s research. Rogers, along with Linguistics Prof. Anna Mendoza, offered funding for additional scholars for their 2025 projects, and the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering (WYSE) program also funded Building Confidence and Connection through Culturally-Rich STEM Experiences.
Rogers credits the Community-Academic Scholars Program with bringing new energy and talent to their research.
“The Community Academic Scholars Program has been a wonderful opportunity for the Human Factors & Aging Laboratory to engage top notch students in our research projects. They are able to work on teams with our community partners and industry partners to design and test technology that will support successful aging. Many of the students continue as research assistants in our lab after their summer in the program. They are always energetic, creative, smart, and hard-working - we are lucky to have them!” Rogers said.
Trujillo expressed deep appreciation to Rogers and colleagues who offer to sponsor a scholar.
“We sincerely appreciate when we receive support for additional scholars. The feedback we have received from past scholars tells us that this is a really impactful program. We are eager to offer it to more students,” Trujillo shared.
Fostering community collaboration
Community-Academic Scholars Rena Amarteifio and Lara Terpetschnig were able to make an impact helping local organizations better understand how older adults experience food insecurity in Champaign County. For the past three years, Healthy Champaign County (HCC), a nonprofit comprised of campus and community members working to ensure all residents have access to nutritional food and other resources to make healthy lifestyle choices, has convened the Feeding Champaign County Food Summit. More than 100 leaders representing organizations across the county come together annually to discuss the community’s needs and find ways to coordinate their efforts; and yearly, the issue of how to address the needs of specific communities within Champaign persists.
In light of their conversations around the needs of specific communities, HCC members Richard (Ric) Weibl and Traci Barkley, wanted to get a better understanding of how older adults experience food access and insecurity in Champaign County. Weibl, an IHSI affiliate who serves on the HCC board and Barkley, the director of Sola Gratia Farm, partnered with IHSI affiliate Minakshi (Mina) Raj, a professor of health and kinesiology, to conduct a countywide needs assessment.
Weibl and Barkley lent their expertise on accessible and sustainable food systems to shape this community-driven project. They were involved in developing the research plan, including formulating questions, determining sites to visit, and providing important feedback and guidance to the undergraduate scholars.
The community partners were thrilled with what the scholars were able to accomplish this summer. Weibl spoke more about the experience at the annual poster session and celebration.
“It's important to note that our two wonderful scholars were all over the city, participating as observers and volunteering, watching how meals got distributed and who was doing it, how the transactions took place and all those kinds of things that were made possible by a whole bunch of other people that aren't here and aren't represented, but their names are on the poster. You can learn more about that by following up with the scholars because they are now experts in a service area that most students are never even aware exists throughout their time at the university,” he shared.
Weibl also expressed how support from the IHSI team enhanced the partnership, including a workshop with IHSI Senior Research Development Manager Maggie Berg, who shared her expertise in mentoring and professional development with workshop attendees.
“It was really nice as a community person to have that kind of experience,” he continued. “So, all of them helped make it easy for this to happen. In the end, the work that Rena and Lara did is going to help our organizations to better serve the residents of Champaign County.”