PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 20, No. 15, March 1, 2001

When it's really big news

News releases about research or teaching at the UI frequently draw national media attention, but the past few weeks have been a bit unusual: Two UI releases have attracted the interest of the news media worldwide, as well as some venues off the normally beaten path ("The Tonight Show," "Saturday Night Live" and "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn").

History professor Juliet E.K. Walker's course titled "Oprah Winfrey, The Tycoon" is believed to be the first of its kind in higher education in the United States and has been the subject of stories in numerous publications, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, the London Daily Express, the Los Angeles Times, the Ottawa Daily Sun, People magazine, the Statesman (India), U.S. News & World Report, the Vancouver Sun and the Washington Post. Walker has been interviewed by The Associated Press, the BBC, CBS News, Fox television, the Times (of London), United Press International and radio stations in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois and Iowa.

Recent UI research on self-healing plastics has been the subject of articles distributed by Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service and United Press International. The work has been cited on many broadcasts, including ABC News, the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio and Voice of America, as well as on the TV shows named earlier. Articles highlighting the work have appeared in dozens of publications, including Chemical & Engineering News, Chemistry & Industry, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.), the Daily Telegraph (London), Dallas Morning News, Design News, the Financial Times (London), the Florida Times-Union, the Independent (London), the International Herald Tribune, New Scientist, The New York Times, the Ottawa Citizen, Popular Science, Science News, USA Today and the Washington Post.

UI researchers involved in the work are aeronautical and astronautical engineering professor Scott White, theoretical and applied mechanics professor Nancy Sottos, aeronautical and astronautical engineering professor Philippe Geubelle, chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore, and graduate students Eric Brown, Michael Kessler, Suresh Sriram and Sabarivasan Viswanathan.