2019 Researcher, Scholar, and Inventor of the Year Awards Recipients

Stephanie Cologna, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Already recognized as a ‘Rising Star’ by the Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry journal, Stephanie Cologna’s research is focused on developing innovative approaches to understanding biomolecular signatures of neurodegeneration using mass spectrometry. Work by her laboratory has indicated that the NPC cholesterol transporter protein (NPC1), the defective protein in Niemann-Pick Type C disease, may have a function beyond that of only cholesterol transport. This new finding has the potential to transform multiple fields and change the paradigm for understanding the function of the NPC1 protein. Stephanie’s work is well funded: she is the lead on a multi-center $1.2M award from the Together Strong NPC Foundation, PI on an award from the Ara Parseghian Foundation and Co-I on an NSF award. In addition to her exemplary publication record, Dr. Cologna provides a high level of service to her field. A sought-after speaker, she also serves the American Society for Mass Spectrometry as a member of the Digital Communications Board and has served as a session chair at the annual conference. At UIC she has taken on the position as Academic Director of the Mass Spectrometry Core at UIC and in2019 managed to obtain a highly competitive NIH S10 award to modernize the core with a new Orbitrap HS mass spectrometer. Together with co-winner Laura Sanchez, Dr. Cologna created an annual conference to provide continuing education in this field to the UIC Community. Over the last two years, approximately 120 researchers from Chicago and the Midwest have attended this event which highlights research at UIC, demonstrates our capabilities in mass spectrometry and facilitates collaborations. It is clear that Dr. Cologna should be recognized as a ‘Rising Star’ by our community!

Laura M. Sanchez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy

A mass spectrometrist who has built a highly collaborative, interdisciplinary translational research program since her arrival at UIC in 2015, Laura Sanchez embodies the definition of a ‘rising star’. She has successfully competed for national funding from both NSF (Co-I) and NIH (PI), as well as from the Chicago Biomedical Consortium. The scope of Dr. Sanchez’s projects which include biofilm models of the microbiome, drug discovery of novel natural products, and mass spectrometry imaging of ovarian cancer, illustrates the breadth and flexibility of her work. In collaborations with others from UIC COP and computer science, she is working to create an innovative bioinformatics tool to classify and mine microbial libraries for drug discovery. Her research in the ovarian cancer arena has the potential to map molecular signatures, advancing detection and elucidating which environments drive initiation, promotion, progression and metastasis. It is hoped that this groundwork will lead to discovery of points of intervention.  Over the past 4 years, Dr. Sanchez has published 18 peer reviewed articles and earned an h-index of 14!  Comments on one of her most recent articles highlighting new mass spec techniques that track messenger molecules traveling between migrating cancer cells and ovarian tissue described the tool as “a beautiful example of developing an analytical method to go after a really important question in cancer biology”. Her significant contributions to her field(s) of research, her outreach to the broader community through her service commitments, publications, and invited talks coupled with her exemplary record of securing outside funding make her a true rising star and a deserving recipient of the 2019 UIC Rising Star award in the field of Basic Life Sciences.

Joanna Burdette, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy

An outstanding reproductive biologist who has developed a highly collaborative and translational research program at UIC, Dr. Burdette is one of the few individuals across our community who has been recognized as both a Rising Star and Distinguished Researcher of the Year in the Basic Life Sciences! Dr. Burdette’s active and diverse research program includes projects ranging from drug discovery of novel imaging agents, animal models for ovarian cancer therapy and prevention, mechanisms of ovarian carcinogenesis, through botanical dietary supplements as alternatives to hormone replacement therapy for women’s health. This broad research program has crystalized over the past three years with the development of an innovative, paradigm-shifting technology, a “fallopian tube/ovary on-a-chip”. This microfluidic 3D platform allows the study of polycysticovarian syndrome and speeds development of novel cancer chemotherapeutics for the treatment of high grade serous ovarian cancer. This organ culture system developed by Dr. Burdette to model ovarian cancer demonstrates the cutting-edge nature of her research.

Disseminating her cutting-edge research has resulted in authorship of over 100 peer-reviewed and review publications in high impact journals.  In addition to acquiring a very impressive track record of funding as a PI or Co-I on awards from, among others, NIH, DoD, and ACS, in recent years, she has assumed leadership positions within the UIC community. Her roles as Co-Program Director for the NIH-funded Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) program, Associate Director for the NIH-funded Center for Clinical and Translational Science KL2 training program for junior faculty, and Program Director of the ASPET Pharmaceutical Industry Internship Partnership for PhD trainees show her dedication to mentoring the next generation of scholars.  It is for all these reasons (any many more) that we are pleased to come full circle and award Dr. Burdette the 2019 Distinguished Researcher of the Year award for Basic Life Sciences.

Benjamin Antieau, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Dr. Antieau is uniquely valued for his exceptionally broad background, his ability to combine ideas and techniques from a variety of fields, and his distinctive insights. His exceptional work resulted in receipt of an NSF CAREER award; additionally he has been recognized internationally as the winner of the 2018 K-theory Award for his groundbreaking contributions to these rapidly developing areas. The prestigious K-theory Award is given to the one or two “most deserving young mathematicians in K-Theory” every four years in conjunction with the International Congress of Mathematics. In 2019 Dr. Antieau published two (unrelated) papers in Inventiones Mathematicae. This journal is among the top three or four journals for all of mathematics and having a single paper appear in one of the top ten journals is the pinnacle of success for a whole career. To publish two in the same year, in unrelated projects, is extremely rare, and indicative of the impact Dr. Antieau has on his field. His dedication to educating the next generation of mathematicians is noteworthy; he has graduated three Ph.D. students in the past three years with four more expected to defend in the next two years. Through his NSF CAREER award, he has hosted five summer schools and workshops over the last three years. In addition to his mentoring, he continues to be a sought after nationally and internationally as a speaker and a visiting professor. He was co-founder and served as fist director of the Mathematical Computing Laboratory, an undergraduate research center at UIC. In summary, Dr. Antieau is well deserving of the 2019 Rising Star award for National Sciences and Engineering and we look forward to continuing to hear about his tremendous accomplishments.

Sudip K. Mazumder, Ph.D., Fellow, IEEE, Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

A pioneer in the field of power electronics, the work of Dr. Mazumder has led to the development of radically new and highly successful mechanisms to control the performance of solid-state complex electronic power conversion systems at the semiconductor device level. Without his groundbreaking contributions to his field, modern applications of electrical power including smart grid, renewable energy, energy storage, electric vehicles, industrial automation, defense systems, to name a few, would not exist today. His work has resulted in building a multimillion-dollar sponsored research program with 12 grants from leading federal and industrial organizations in the last three years alone.  Dr. Mazumder was the driving force behind the development of the Laboratory for Energy and Switching-Electronics Systems at UIC, a world-class power electronics lab that collaborates with top engineering programs in power electronics (MIT, UIUC, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech) and major industry partners including GE, IBM and Intelligent Automation to name just a few. With over 225 publications in leading peer reviewed journals, 100 presentations, 10 patents, and invitations to serve on multiple NSF review panels and as a keynote speaker at NSF sponsored workshops, contributions to his field are significant and well recognized. He serves in multiple editor roles for IEEE publications, and served as an international judge for Google’s Little Box Challenge. His over 40 Ph.D. and M.S. students and postdocs routinely are recruited for positions at leading tech and academic institutions. He is exactly the type of accomplished, well-respected colleague the Distinguished Researcher of the Year award is designed to honor and a well deserving winner of the 2019 award.

Alana Biggers, M.D. MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

While highlighting her tremendous leadership potential, the nomination letters sent on behalf of Dr. Alana Biggers in consideration of the Rising Star award in the field of Clinical Sciences also cite her devotion to her clinical practice, particularly her work with patients who face significant obstacles dealing with chronic diseases. Her dedication to caring for patients facing difficulties managing their own care along with her sensitivity to social determinates of health, reflect her desire to facilitate health equity for all patient populations. In keeping with that goal, Dr. Biggers was recently recognized as a Distinguished Honoree by the Urban Health Program for her efforts on the Bias Reduction in Internal Medicine (BRIM) program, designed to raise awareness of biases and cultural stereotypes in healthcare settings.

Dr Biggers is also dedicated to supporting diversity at UIC. She currently serves as the Co-chair of the Inclusion Council in the Department of Medicine, leads the curriculum on population health in the College of Medicine and routinely finds time to mentor, students, residents and fellows providing professional guidance.

Since joining UIC in 2014, Dr. Biggers has been exceptionally busy. While developing two conference presentations, writing and submitting three manuscripts, and writing two grant applications, she also managed to meet her goal and recruit 40 participants for a clinical trial! Her work on the role of sleep and stress in management of Type 2 diabetes including cardiovascular disease among African Americans has broken new ground in the use of mobile health approaches to capture objective and subjective sleep data. Her interdisciplinary approach to work in her chosen research area has led to her building significant collaborations internal and external to UIC and has introduced mindfulness based standard stress reduction programs to minority populations.  It is for all these reasons and more that Dr. Biggers has been named the Rising Star Awardee in Clinical Sciences for 2019.

Rachel N. Caskey, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

Dr. Rachel Caskey is a highly regarded physician scientist who has developed an impactful program of clinical and research activities focused on improving maternal and child health through research, public health programming and advocacy. Her unique approach, focused on providing a lifetime cycle of care to her patients, has led to changing the paradigm on how care is delivered for women and their offspring. The I PROMOTE IL program aims to decrease racial and ethnic disparities through implementing innovative training and service delivery projects to improve maternal health through an innovative, novel two generation medical home model where mothers and their infants will receive comprehensive care together, including mental health care, child development and social work services. Dr. Caskey is poised to develop a new care model that is financially sustainable, which can be expanded and adapted to other medical centers across the country. Dr. Caskey is exactly the type of accomplished, well respected colleague the Researcher/Scholar of the Year Award was designed to honor and she is truly deserving to be named the winner of the 2019 Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award in the field of Clinical Research.

Charles Hounmenou, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Jane Addams College of Social Work

Dr. Hounmenou’s scholarship on human trafficking at both national and international levels is illuminating challenging issues and contributing to changes in policy and practices in the field. In the past few years, he has conducted three major studies on human trafficking, two in the U.S. and one in West Africa. His West Africa project was

particularly impactful since it was the original study to explore child sex trafficking across country borders in the region. Through this project, child prostitution sites in each of three countries were mapped, allowing baseline data on child sex trafficking in the area to be provided to fellow scholars. The study finding resulted in development of major assistance programs for child victims. Maps of child prostitution sites have been instrumental in use by law enforcement to arrest buyers preying on children. To date, Dr. Hounmenou has published 12 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 books, 1 book chapter, 7 research reports and 2 monographs; in addition, he has made 17 peer-reviewed professional conference presentations just on trafficking. Dr. Hounmenou’s technical reports and fact sheets on trafficking are among the most widely used reports by policy makers, law enforcement, and community organizers in Illinois. His research and scholarship in this area, coupled with his leadership roles at UIC make him well positioned to be named the 2019 Rising Star in the Social Sciences.

Elizabeth S. Todd-Breland, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

A single statement from the nominating letter for Elizabeth Todd-Breland sums up why she should receive this award: “Perhaps the most compelling reason that Professor Elizabeth Todd-Breland deserves recognition with the Rising Star Award is because she is one – not only within her discipline, but at UIC and in the public sphere.” Noted as both a scholar and a civically engaged historian who does not shy away from translating her ideas and research to broader publics, and in non-traditional settings, Dr. Todd-Breland’s commitment to producing deeply researched and carefully constructed historical scholarship on schooling in the city of Chicago and beyond, speaks directly to UIC’s mission as the largest public university in Chicago. In her prize-winning book, A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Post-Civil Rights Chicago, Todd-Breland Clarifies and magnifies how public schools, especially those in racially and economically segregated cities such as Chicago, must be understood as key sites for detailing changing notions of both the state and labor. Todd-Breland’s relevance in the public ecosphere is most clearly evident in her appointment by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to the Chicago Public School Board. Her work on the CPS Board in service to the young people of the city of Chicago is one of the best ways she can use her research to put UIC’s community engagement mission into practice. As noted by one of her champions for this award, Elizabeth Todd-Breland exemplifies the criteria named in the award description for Scholar of the Year, Rising Star. Her historical scholarship promises to have a lasting impact on how policy makers, future historians, and community- groups will make equitable and just schools to address the historical realties of racial segregation and its effect on schooling. She is a highly deserving recipient of the 2019 Rising Star Researcher/Scholar of the Year Award in the field of Art, Architecture, Design and the Humanities.

Clare Lyster, MArch., Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, College of Architecture, Design and the Arts

Described as a dedicated, rigorous and thoughtful researcher, whose work has been both instrumental in advancing disciplinary discussions in architecture as well as expanding the role of architecture into the domains of planning, landscape, and territorial design, Clare Lyster epitomizes the qualities sought for the Distinguished Scholar of the Year award. Her unique contributions to her discipline involve how form, time, and flows have particular interdependencies that can only be analyzed as a system. While her work is rooted in how space and time are defined in the 21^st century, she is constantly moving between research and design which not only advances scholarship in contemporary urbanism, it also creates meaningful methodologies for designers to tackle. The impact of her work will be noted in urban history/theory books and be unpacked by designers and researchers for many years to come. The breadth of Professor Lyster’s work is truly amazing.  She has written articles for a range of national and international magazines, chapters in numerous anthologies and has received a total of four grants from the Graham Foundation (most architects receive one or two at most). Well recognized for her exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the V A Museum in London and HNI in Rotterdam, she has also exhibited at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2016), the Seoul Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism (2017), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018) and is part of the group ANNEX that will exhibit at the Irish Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale (2020). In addition to being named recipient of the CADA Distinguished Faculty Award for the 2019-2021 school years, she also has been awarded an OVCR Grant in Art, Architecture, Design and the Humanities in 2015, and a “Cutting Edge Work Shop Initiative” from the Institute for the Humanities in 2017. She was also nominated for a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2018. Professor Lyster is well deserving of the honor of being named the 2019 Distinguished Scholar of the Year in Art, Architecture, Design and the Humanities.

Irena Levitan, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Medicine, College of Medicine

Shane A. Phillips, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, College of Applied Health Sciences

We are pleased to announce Dr. Irena Levitan and Dr. Shane Phillips as the winners of the inaugural team research award. What began several years ago when they teamed to combine their expertise has led to ground-breaking and unique contributions to the field of vascular physiology and electrophysiology. Through their joint efforts, they established that endothelial potassium (Kir) channels are an essential component of endothelial response to flow in both murine and human resistance arteries.  This work is currently supported by two NIH R01 grants conducting research on populations with elevated cholesterol and elevated blood pressure. These research programs have led to the isolation of specific effects of cholesterol and blood pressure on inward rectifying potassium (Kir) expression in the human microcirculation focusing on resistance arteries, the major site of peripheral resistance. These are the first in-human studies and make their work extremely clinically relevant. The unique sets of complementary skills Dr. Levitan and Dr. Phillips bring to translational methodology involving the use of physiology, pharmacologic, molecular and electrophysiological approaches leading to an understanding of how Kir regulates microvascular endothelium could not be reproduced in other laboratories. Dr. Phillips maintains one of the only labs routinely studying resistance artery flow induced dilation in biopsies from humans, and Dr. Levitan is a leader in the field of Kir channel function and electrophysiology. Their collaborative work has provided a solid foundation to inform future research focused on bridging ion channels biophysics and human vascular biology, potentially leading to new strategies for treating cardiovascular dysfunction.

Bellur S. Prabhakar, Msc. Ph.D., Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine

Dr. Bellur Prabhakar has spent over 30 years dedicated to autoimmune diseases and oncology, focused not only on increasing our understanding of the basic science and mechanistic questions and issues, but also developing novel, broad based clinical applications aimed at improving human health. Dr. Prabhakar had two notable, successful industry collaborations in which a mAb to treat SARS infection and a vaccine carrier platform were developed with Amgen and Nanodisc, respectively. He also demonstrated successful translation and commercialization with a type-1 diabetes project that was licensed to Tolerogenics and a VA Merit awarded oncology project that is licensed and in pre-clinical development by Jivana Therapeutics. Dr. Prabhakar’s most recent project on targeting OX40L/JAG1 to treat autoimmune diseases has received funding through the University of Illinois Chancellor’s Innovation Fund Proof of Concept Award, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and Sirazi Foundation. Dr. Prabhakar has founded Sahane Biotech and is currently seeking STTR funding to advance this project for treatment of diabetes, cancer, and lupus. His passion and dedication for translational research has yielded 49 patent applications and his innovative contributions culminate in this well-deserved recognition of Inventor of the Year.