Affiliate Highlights – Advancing personal, public, and planetary health
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s health research and innovation community is passionate and driven to improve human health, so we are thrilled to celebrate when their work is recognized through awards, publications, research funding, and media mentions.
IHSI affiliates advance our mission to address personal, public, and planetary health challenges. Through innovative research, meaningful partnerships, community engagement, and a commitment to health equity, Illinois researchers are making a positive impact across campus and beyond.
Innovation
Reimagining AI for critical thinking
Prof. Jodi Schneider co-authored a position paper, “Toward reasonable parrots: Why large language models should argue with us by design,” which advocates for innovation in the design of large language models (LLMs) toward more reasonable human-computer interactions.
Despite their well-documented limitations (like hallucinations, learned biases, and implicit inferences), large language models are used to meet a variety of needs, including in sectors like healthcare, where their outputs can be downright harmful.
Building on the metaphor that LLMs are little more than stochastic parrots—they do not actually “understand” what they generate—Prof. Schneider and colleagues propose a conceptual framework that treats LLMs as “reasonable parrots,” tools that lead users through argumentative dialogical processes that foster critical self-reflection and perspective-taking. Read the paper.
Health Equity
Supporting families impacted by disaster
Congratulations to Prof. Tara Leytham-Powell, a faculty member in the School of Social Work at Illinois. Prof. Leytham-Powell received a Spring 2025 Small Grant from the Center for Social and Behavioral Science (CSBS) for her project “Enhancing Disaster Resilience for Vulnerable Children: Exploring Neighborhood Determinants of Hurricane Risk and Intervention Barriers.”
The project explores how social, economic, and environmental conditions at the neighborhood level affect children’s vulnerability to natural disasters and identifies barriers to implementing behavioral health interventions in hurricane-prone communities across Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. By combining macro-level data analysis with implementation science, the team aims to build a framework that improves access to mental health services and strengthens community resilience for children affected by hurricanes. Get details about the project.
Providing leadership and guidance in nutrition science
Congratulations to Prof. Sharon Donovan, who was inducted into the 2025 Class of Distinguished Fellows of ASN by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) on June 1. Induction as a Distinguished Fellow of ASN is the highest accolade bestowed by ASN, honoring individuals for their significant contributions and outstanding lifetime achievements in the field of nutrition. Learn more.
Prof. Donovan also commented on an announcement by the United States Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services that the agencies have initiated their first Comprehensive Review of Nutrients in Infant Formula since 1998, saying the review will offer the opportunity to incorporate years of research into "human milk composition and how infants digest, absorb, and use nutrients in human milk and infant formulas." She pointed to iron, which European formulas include at a far lower level than those in the United States as one nutrient to consider reducing.
She also responded to concerns about seed oils in baby formula, explaining that the oils mimic the fat content of human milk, "If these were not included in infant formulas, babies would not be receiving their essential fatty acids." Read the article.
Community Engagement and Impact
Bringing summer youth empowerment to Urbana
Tracy Dace, Founding Director of DREAAM (Driven to Reach Excellence and Academic Achievement for Males) and Urbana Police Chief Anthony Boone presented to the Urbana City Council about a new summer camp launching in June.
The new camp, DREAAM Believers, is a collaboration between DREAAM, the Urbana Police Department, and several other community partners. DREAAM Believers will host around 20 boys entering sixth grade, and offer programming on conflict resolution, life skills, educational support, teamwork, and mental and physical health. The aim of the program is to address youth violence and improve police-community relations. A consummate university partner, DREAAM has also built program evaluation into their implementation plan. If the pilot is successful, DREAAM Believers will transition to after-school programming in Fall 2025. Watch the city council presentation.
Connecting policy to people
Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford provided critical context on the impact of another round of federal budget cuts to climate research. Drawing on his expertise, Dr. Ford explained how reduced funding for key assessments—like the National Climate Assessment—could compromise Illinois’ ability to prepare for and respond to climate-related risks. His insights underscored the importance of data-driven policymaking and how local climate resilience depends on strong national support. Read the story.
Advances in Translational Research
Robotics in real life
Prof. Wendy Rogers and her team recently published the results of their efforts to investigate how the Stretch robot improved the functional performance of everyday activities of an individual with quadriplegia. Stretch has become a well-known feature in the McKechnie Family LIFE Home, a cutting-edge research center focused on innovations in home environments. Assistive robots have great potential to support independent living for people with physical disabilities, but few are commercially accessible to users in their homes. Using a person-centered, goal-oriented research design approach, the study helped Prof. Rogers and her team identify facilitators and barriers of using Stretch in a home environment and offered invaluable insights for future design possibilities. Read the paper.
Equine research for human health
In a recent spotlight, clinician-scientist Dr. Annette McCoy talked about her work as an equine surgeon, her interest in genetics, and how Illinois resources help to advance her research on the role that genetics plays in the development, diagnosis, and treatment of musculoskeletal diseases in horses and humans. “Horses are a great dual-benefit model for musculoskeletal disease – research findings are relevant to clinical disease in both horses and humans,” McCoy said. Read the spotlight.
Advancing the science behind cravings and weight loss
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign News Bureau recently highlighted Prof. Manabu Nakamura’s research finding that reduced cravings—not just caloric deficit—are key to sustained weight loss.
Prof. Nakamura’s recent publication, “Reduced food cravings correlated with a 24-month period of weight loss and weight maintenance,” suggests that individuals’ reduced cravings correlated with decreased body fat rather than the negative energy balance of dieting. “This basically debunks the hungry fat cell theory, a longstanding hypothesis that fat cells become starved for energy and trigger cravings, causing dieters to eat and ultimately regain what they lost. But that is not the case. As long as you stay at a healthy weight, your cravings will remain low,” Nakamura said. Read the story from the Illinois News Bureau. The story was also picked up by Yahoo News.