Aadeel Akhtar received his MS in Engineering and PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in December 2017. His dissertation, "Mechanisms for enabling closed-loop upper limb sensorimotor prosthetic control," was the culmination of his research on prosthetic limbs driven by an encounter he had as a child with a young girl in Pakistan who had been missing a leg. He was...
NSP Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
New LAS & NSP FacultyLAS welcomed 18 new professor positions this fall. NSP welcomed 3 new faculty member affiliates.
Covid-19For student and faculty information
The University of Illinois has recently shared a new "Mental Health and Self Care" resource page. The university understands that many may need to find resources for their own struggles or for someone they know.
Recently Published: Embryo movement is more frequent in avian brood parasites than birds with parental reproductive strategies
Abstract Movement of the embryo is essential for musculoskeletal development in vertebrates, yet little is known about whether, and why, species vary. Avian brood parasites exhibit feats of strength in early life as adaptations to exploit the hosts that rear them. We hypothesized that an increase...
More Department News
- This year's SfN Poster Night, held on October 26th, 2021, was a rousing success. The Neuroscience Program holds the SfN Night each year as a preview to the Society for Neuroscience's Annual Meeting. Attendees include faculty, researchers, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students...
- Cockatiels, one of the world’s most favored pet parrots, don’t just masterfully mimic. In fact, a new study shows that they can spontaneously join in a song—much like humans do—drawing us closer to our winged ancestors than previously thought. After teaching his three male cockatiels a rendition...
- Over a decade ago, behavioral ecologist Diane Colombelli-Négrel was wiring superb fairy wrens’ nests to record the birds’ sounds when she noticed something odd. Mother fairy wrens sang while incubating their eggs, even though it would have made more sense to keep quiet to avoid attracting predators...
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Faculty Spotlight
How would you describe your background? (I.E. Where are you from? How did you first get interested in your area of research? Etc.) I grew up in Colorado, and then I went to undergrad on the east coast. I really wanted to live somewhere with deciduous trees, having grown up with a bunch of pine trees. When I started college, I had a lot of different interests and I wasn't really that sure what I wanted to do. So definitely not one of those people who knew from day one what they wanted to be when they grew up. I took a range of classes. I was taking some...
Alumni Spotlight
Career Development What field in Neuroscience did you study? I studied behavioral neuroscience. What about the research process did you enjoy? I love coming up with questions that expand on current research. I also love working with students and helping them learn how to conduct research. Did you prefer gathering the data, brainstorming its meaning, the writing process, defending your research, presenting your research, etc? I love gathering and analyzing data. Not a huge fan of the writing process but that is part of...