Five distinguished faculty members from four different colleges across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus are joining Carle Illinois College of Medicine as Health Innovation Professors (HIP). The new HIP faculty bring expertise from a wide range of disciplines that will lead to advancements in the medical field and improve the human condition.
The new faculty join from the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES), College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), College of Education, and Gies College of Business.
“These new HIP faculty members will help foster new learning and research opportunities for our students and will champion CI MED’s interdisciplinary approach to advancing health care and training physician innovators,” CI MED Dean Mark Cohen said.
Health Innovation Professors will collaborate with Carle Illinois students, physicians, and other health care providers and experts to pursue new frontiers in health-related research and innovation, creating new opportunities for funding from government agencies, industry, and foundations. The new faculty members will also pioneer advancements in medical education and the integration of health-related concepts into undergraduate and graduate courses across the UIUC campus.
The new faculty members include:
Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, professor, Department of Crop Sciences, College of ACES
Professor Caetano-Anollés explores molecular diversity and how molecular structure determines biological function in plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of significance to agriculture. He studies the origin, structure, and evolution of genomes, proteomes, RNomes, and functionomes for applications including bioengineering, biomedicine, and systems biology. He is a University Scholar and is a 2016 recipient of the Fullbright Scholar Award. His GCA lab studies evolutionary bioinformatics, and he is interested in the origin and evolution of viruses. Professor Caetano-Anollés is also an affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.
Vidya Haran, teaching assistant professor, Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business
Vidya Haran is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Information Systems (IS) and the IS Undergraduate Major Director at the Gies College of Business. She is also the incoming Faculty Affiliate with Siebel Center for Design (SCD), and an advisory board member of INQUIRE (Initiative for Qualitative Research in Innovation and Entrepreneurship) at Gies. Her teaching includes courses on information systems analysis and design, and Design Thinking/User Experience Design at Gies. Her research involves collaborating with SCD in incorporating design thinking/human-centered design into projects across campus like the Illinois Virtual Partnership (with the College of Education and the Chancellor’s office), the COVID Safer Illinois app (with SHIELD), and recently (re)designing user experience for a leading enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) company in the Silicon Valley.
Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky, professor, Department of Special Education, College of Education
Professor Hedda Meadan-Kaplansky is the Margaret Joy Smale Valpey Professor in Special Education in the Department of Special Education. Her areas of interest include social-communication skills and challenging behavior of young children with autism and other developmental disabilities and intervention methods to enhance these spheres of functioning. Professor Meadan-Kaplansky and her team use a cascading intervention model in which they train and coach, via telepractice, natural change agents (e.g., family members, service providers, behavior analysts) to use evidence-based strategies to promote social-communication skills of children in the natural environment. She is the 2018 recipient of the DEC Mentoring Award from the Council for Exceptional Children.
Sara Pedron Haba, research assistant professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Pedron Haba’s work focuses on developing biomaterial-based platforms that recreate brain physiology to better understand neurological diseases and enhance the available treatment options. Her lab studies the dynamic interactions of brain tumors with their native environment and collaborates with The Cancer Center at Illinois, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and CI MED to advance understanding of biological alterations in the brain tumor microenvironment to improve patient care and prognosis. In 2021, Professor Pedron Haba’s was named a NextGen Star by the American Association for Cancer Research, and in 2016, she received the Nature Publishing Award from the Society for Biomaterials.
Brent Roberts, professor, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Professor Roberts' primary line of research is dedicated to understanding the patterns of continuity and change in personality across the decades of adulthood and the mechanisms that affect these patterns. Professor Roberts also researches personality assessment, including studies focusing on the traits of conscientiousness and narcissism, the relationship between conscientiousness and the health process, how best to assess social and emotional skills, and using machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to assess personality. He is the Senior Science Advisor to the Office of the Provost at UIUC and is affiliated with the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.
This is the college’s fourth cohort of Health Innovation Professors. Health Innovation Professors from previous cohorts include the first group from The Grainger College of Engineering, selected in February 2021:
Joe Bradley, Clinical Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
Wawrzyniec Dobrucki, Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Iwona Jasiuk, Professor, Mechanical Science & Engineering
Mariana Kersh, Associate Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering
Michael Oelze, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Harlee Sorkin Clinical Assistant Professor, Technology Entrepreneur Center
Jimeng Sun, Professor, Computer Science
The second cohort, selected from a limited set of colleges across the UIUC campus, included:
Yanina Pepino, Associate Professor of Nutrition, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Associate Professor of Nutrition, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Brian Aldridge, Clinical Professor in Rural Animal Health Management, College of Veterinary Medicine
Rebecca Smith, Associate Professor, Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine
Mehmet Ahsen, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Gies College of Business
Ujjal Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Gies College of Business
Sridhar Seshadri, Alan J. and Joyce D. Baltz Endowed Professor and Area Chair, Information Systems/Operations Management/Supply Chain/Analytics, Gies College of Business
Bruce Fouke, Professor, Department of Geology, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
The third group of Health Innovation Professors came from The Grainger College of Engineering, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences(ACES), College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), College of Education, the College of Fine and Applied Arts, the School of Information Sciences, and Gies College of Business, including:
Nir Ben Moshe, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Catherine Blake, Professor in the School of Information Sciences
Jacinda Dariotis, Professor, Human Development and Family Studies, College of ACES
Wenhao David Huang, Professor of Human Resource Development, Department of Education Policy and Organization and leadership, College of Education
Girish Krishnan, Associate Professor, Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering, The Grainger College of Engineering
Deana McDonagh, Professor of Graphic Design in the School of Art + Design, College of Fine & Applied Arts
Mary Pietrowicz, Senior Research Scientist, Illinois Applied Research Institute, The Grainger College of Engineering
Laura Shackelford, Professor, Department of Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Sonali Shah, Associate Professor of Business Administration and Robert and Karen May Faculty Fellow, Gies College of Business