Research, Creative Activities & Innovation > Research Highlights > Featured Research

Featured Research

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The research culture at DePaul is typified by the pervasiveness of new ideas, the stimulation of dialogue, and a commitment to engaged scholarship. The below featured research provides a brief a vignette of select projects that highlight the exciting work being done by DePaul faculty.​


February 2024 - Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

Heath informatics — the intersection of health care data and machine learning — is a rapidly growing force throughout many hospitals. Researchers at DePaul University and Sinai Urban Health Institute argue the technology has been underutilized to examine issues of inequality. In a new study using predictive AI models, DePaul computer scientist Roselyne Tchoua finds a human element could prevent at-risk patients from falling through the cracks. In a study of more than 1,300 patients at Chicago’s Sinai hospital system, Tchoua and her coauthors compared data from patients who had interacted with community health workers and those who had not. The research was presented at the Transdisciplinary AI conference in late 2023 and is now available online. Tchoua was named an Equity Research Fellow with the Sinai Urban Health Institute in 2022. She conducted the research with Kelly MacCabe, associate director of community health innovations at Sinai Urban Health Institute, and DePaul alumna Kate Karam, who worked on the study as a graduate student. Read more. 

February 2024 - College of Education

DePaul’s College of Education was tapped in 2021 by the Illinois State Board of Education to participate in the New Principal Mentoring Program, which pairs new principals with experienced ones. The program aims to build leadership capacity and reduce principal turnover, particularly for diverse leaders and in schools serving diverse student bodies. New principals receive 40 hours of mentoring throughout the course of the school year and participate in monthly networking and professional development opportunities with DePaul’s Office of Innovative Professional Learning. Led by Donna Kiel, an instructional assistant professor in the department of leadership, language and curriculum, this office has built a strong reputation throughout Illinois for supporting teachers and schools through customized training. So far, DePaul has shepherded 52 new principals through the program across three years. Read more.

January 2024 - College of Science and Health

Professor Kenshu Shimada of the Department of Environmental Science and Studies and Department of Biological Sciences recently published new research showing O. megalodon was a more slender shark than previous studies suggested. The megatooth shark is often depicted as being a monstrous version of the modern great white shark, but no full skeleton of the creature exists. The breakthrough study, co-authored with students, is published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal “Palaeontologia Electronica,” and the news has been picked up by more than 400 media outlets, including CNN, Science News, and Forbes.​ Stephen Colbert even mentioned the research​ in a "Late Night" segment on science. Dr. Shimada's research was supported by the University Research Council. Read more.

January 2024 - Irving W. Steans Center

Equitably and sustainably sourced foods are vital to the wellbeing of all people, yet the inaccessibility of such food makes healthy living difficult for many. Multiple bus rides to grocery stores filled with processed foods and costly organic produce isolate many people from these building blocks of wellness. Furthermore, those who produce food locally and regionally are not always able to reach buyers. Howard Rosing, Director of DePaul’s Irwin W. Steans Center, researches this type of inequity as part of the center’s service-learning initiatives integrated into DePaul’s curriculum. The Cook County Department of Environment and Sustainability recently awarded him $148,943 to further his research on agricultural business practices and support growers that increase community access to fresh, healthy food in the county. The award builds on $90,000 plus in prior awards from the National Science Foundation and the Chicago Food Policy Action Council. Read more.

December 2023 - College of Science and Health

Bridget Tenner, Professor of Mathematics in the College of Science and Health, is at the forefront of studying how permutations and patterns work and fuel knowledge. Her research in combinatorics, a branch of mathematics focused on the numbering and patterning of mathematical elements and their relationships, is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Tenner's work in combinatorics has been widely published and presented. Read More.

December 2023 - College of Science and Health

Principal investigator Kathryn Grant and co-principal investigator Jocelyn Carter of the College of Science and Health received a $175,000 award from The Wallace Foundation to support their work on The Cities Project. The project aims to create sustainable infrastructures to support students in the Chicago Public School district fighting urban poverty and associated stress exposure. The award covers the period of April 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024. Read More.

November 2023 - College of Science and Health and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

The National Science Foundation has awarded $750,000 to Kimberly Quinn, professor of psychology, and Michelle Stuhlmacher, assistant professor of geography and geographic information systems (GIS), to fund the research, which has been featured in the Chicago Tribune. Quinn and Stuhlmacher are also collaborating with environmental neuroscientist Kimberly Meidenbauer of Washington State University, as well as social psychologist Sophie Trawalter, and infrastructure designer Leidy Klotz, both from the University of Virginia. With community nonprofit partners, their aim is to develop a social impact protocol that architects and urban planners can use to ensure spaces are equally enjoyable for visitors, regardless of their socio-demographics. Read more.

 

November 2023 - DePaul Study Abroad Office
 
Many DePaul students who want to participate in one of these experiences face cost and process barriers. This is why the DePaul Study Abroad program funded 50 passports for fall 2023 first-year students who met certain criteria and wish to study abroad during their DePaul career. The scholarships were made possible by a one-time grant from the IIE American Passport Project. In addition to removing the cost barrier, Study Abroad staff also meet with the grant recipients to help them complete their passport applications. Martha McGivern, director of Study Abroad explains, “It is our responsibility to create equitable access to these transformative, high-impact experiences for all DePaul students, and these grants are one way to do that.”

September 2023 - College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

In an effort to compile America’s best high school writing into one publication, DePaul English faculty member Chris Solís Green and student editors from English, journalism, and writing, rhetoric & discourse have spent the past year connecting with thousands of schools across the U.S., seeking outstanding submissions in both English and Spanish from emerging young writers. The result is a collection of 55 works from young poets, fiction writers, essayists and journalists hailing from 11 states and the Dominican Republic. “DePaul’s Blue Book: Best American High School Writing 2022” was released in print Sept. 2. The national edition builds on a project Solís Green started in 2020 to honor the best works by Illinois’ high school writers. Thanks to the efforts of Miles Harvey, chair of the university’s English department, and Margaret Storey, associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, DePaul is supporting the initiative through a $100,000 Academic Growth and Innovation Fund Grant. Read more. 

July 2023 - College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

DePaul University's  Mellon Foundation-funded  Social Transformation Research Collaborative, housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences has  announced it second cohort of fellows.  Faculty  members Rocío Ferreira, Juan Mora-Torres, Maria Ferrera, and Jacqueline Lazú will spend their fellowships studying topics involving Peruvian culture, Mexican neighborhoods in Chicago, narratives of asylees, and developing and managing archival collections.  The collaborative supports faculty and students who study how the humanities can be a source of justice and healing for communities historically shaped by, and continuously facing, racism, violence and dispossession.  Read More

June 2023 - School of Music

 

Tom Miller

Dr. Miller's film score to the 1927 classic film Metropolis was premiered with picture in surround sound on March 4, 2023, to a packed house by the DePaul Wind Ensemble under the direction of Professor Michael Lewanski. The premiere was recorded and videotaped in the Holtschneider Performance Center Gannon Hall, it featured 30 student musicians and the composer handling the theremin solo.    Learn More

May 2023 - College of Education

A five-year, $4.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education aims to prepare more than 800 DePaul University graduates to serve as teachers in high-need Chicago Public Schools. The effort builds on an eight-year partnership between the Academy for Urban School Leadership’s Chicago Teacher Residency program and DePaul’s College of Education.  Read More.

Spring 2023 - College of Science and Health

Julie Brosnan of the College of Science and Health was awarded $270,000 from the Community Mental Health Board to support the program “Mindfulness Matters: Strengthening Resiliency Skills for Anxiety, Depression, and Executive Function.” The program addresses the mental health needs of elementary- and middle school−aged students and their families.

April 2023 - College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

 

Spalding Book Cover

 

Professor Rose Spalding has released a new book entitled Breaking Ground: From Extraction Booms to Mining Bans in Latin America (Oxford University Press 2023).  The book examines metallic mining policy practices in four Central American countries—Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica, specifically exploring the interconnection of mining policies, politics, social movements, and the environment to identify distinct pathways to reform. This project was supported by funding from URC, the Society of Vincent DePaul Professors, and a Center of Latino Research Fellowship.  Read More

 

April 2023 - School of Music

Assistant Professor Ann Marie Brink, delivered a Lecture Recital at International Viola Society/ American Viola Society Festival and Congress.  Brink discussed and performed several works for viola and piano by Hans Sitt, a noted pedagogue who taught violin, viola, composition and conducting at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1884-1921. These Romantic compositions are rarely performed, yet fulfill a much-needed body of repertoire for intermediate-level viola students.

 

February 2023 - College of Science and Health

The National Institutes of Health has awarded Jason $842,000 to further his research on ME/CFS with Lurie Children’s Hospital, bringing a focus on long COVID into the longitudinal study. Jason is also editor of a book on long COVID set to be released this spring. With both projects, Jason seeks to catalyze global knowledge about virally induced chronic illness and push forward discovery.  Read More.

January 2023 - Driehaus College of Business

The Driehaus College of Business opened the BETA Hub – short for Business Education in Technology and Analytics Hub —  to infuse emerging technologies into student classwork and faculty research.  The BETA Hub offers a collection of teaching and research resources that includes virtual reality headsets; a blog creators’ studio; a Neurobusiness Lab for conducting research based on eye-tracking and other neuroscience indicators; and a Big Data Analytics Computer Lab with tools for data and text analyses.  Read More.

January 2023 - College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Megan Alderden of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences was awarded $75,000 by the United States Department of Justice to fund the provision of evaluation services on the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership's Road Home Reentry Initiative grant. The Road Home Reentry Initiative serves to be the region’s response to the difficult realities presented when people exit incarceration. The program aims to implement the foundations of a coordinated reentry system by convening one of the most comprehensive reentry stakeholder bodies in the region.

January 2023 - College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Margaret Storey and Euan Hague of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences were awarded $340,000 by the Julian Grace Foundation to fund teams of faculty, student and external partners to pursue cutting edge research as part of DePaul’s Urban Collaborative (UC). The funds cover the period of January 2023 to June 2025. Community Project-Based Learning Internship Scholarships and the Student Urban Research Corps offer real-world experiences to build essential skills to make students more marketable graduates and financial support allows students to pursue meaningful projects otherwise off-limits due to limited resources.

January 2023 - College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Assistant Professor Danielle Vance-McMullen, an assistant professor in the School of Public Service, is part of a research team that recently received a $750,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the most wide-ranging research project on donor-advised funds to date.

January 2023 - College of Science and Health

A study from DePaul University researcher Noé de la Sancha models new dimensions of biodiversity among small mammal populations, as a function of how far they dwell from the forest’s edge.  Noé de la Sancha's work is funded by the Walder Foundation.  Read More.

DePaul University and Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine are funding three faculty research projects that bring together artificial intelligence, biomedical discovery and health care.  Faculty teams include experts in bioinformatics, machine learning, robotics, geography, biology.  Read More

"Breaking Barriers Through Creative Collaboration,"  was the theme of the 2023 annual celebration of innovation at DePaul.  The January 27, 2023 event  which coalesced the DePaul community, focused on bringing a creative spirit to research to find unexpected partnerships and approaches to solve problems.  Read More.

Three DePaul faculty whose research is driving innovation have been named Researchers to Know by the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition. Ecologist Jalene LaMontagne, environmental scientist Mark Potosnak and cybersecurity expert Filipo Sharevski made the fifth annual list, which draws nominations from throughout the state. ISTC’s list highlights researchers who have achieved milestones, such as publishing an influential paper, receiving national recognition, or commercializing a new innovation.  Read More.

December 2022 - College of Law

This Colleg of Law initiative will bring together students, lawyers, researchers, policymakers and activists to collaborate on community-driven solutions to advance racial justice, specifically in Chicago and Illinois. Working at the nexus of public policy and the legal system, RJI will take an interdisciplinary approach to tackling racial injustice and inequity in policing, housing, economic opportunity, education, health and voting rights.  Manoj Mate  will serve as the inaugural faculty director and Nathan Fleming will serve as fellow of DePaul Law's Racial Justice Initiative.  Read More.

January 2023 - Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

 

Insert Coin Movie Poster

Josh Tsui, director of innovation at Jarvis CDM, created and directed the film "Insert Coin" to chronicle Chicago's historic role as an epicenter of video game development. After a successful film festival run, including at South by Southwest, "Insert Coin" made its Chicago debut at the Music Box Theatre in January 2023.

November 2022 - Student Affairs

 

Luciano Berardi

Dr. Luciano Berardi of DePaul’s Access, Attainment and TRIO department has secured a $261K grant, per year for the next five years, from the U.S. Department of Education in support of DePaul 's McNair Scholar's Program. DePaul's award, one of 189 new awards to institutions of higher education across the United States, is designed to assist historically underrepresented college students (i.e., ethnic minority, low-income and first-generation college students) effectively prepare for and access a doctoral-level education.

The McNair Program is one of seven federal TRIO programs, targeted to serve and assist historically underrepresented students in higher education, and individuals with disabilities to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to post-baccalaureate programs. This initiative aims to increase the number of TRIO eligible students in both post-graduate programs and the professoriate career.

October 2022 - Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

 

Black Country Music Cover

After a century of racist whitewashing, country music is finally reckoning with its relationship to Black people. In Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions, the first book on Black country music by a Black writer, Francesca Royster uncovers the Black performers and fans, including herself, who are exploring the pleasures and possibilities of the genre.

Informed by queer theory and Black feminist scholarship, Royster's book elucidates the roots of the current moment found in records like Tina Turner's first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On, Lil Nas X''s "Old Town Road" and Rhiannon Giddens and Our Native Daughter's Black banjo reclamation, Songs of Our Native Daughters.

October 2022- Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

 

Tanu Malik

Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media Associate Professor Tanu Malik has a secured $1.38M multi-year grant from NASA entitled “Reproducible Containers for Advancing Process-oriented Collaborative Analytics” . This project aims to establish reproducible scientific containers that will transparently encapsulate complex, data-intensive, process-oriented model analytics to share easily and efficiently between collaborators, and will enable reproducibility in heterogeneous environments. On a related note, Dr. Malik and her students recent paper "Reproducible Notebook Containers with Application Virtualization" was recognized as the Best Paper at IEEE eScience 2022.

Read More

August 2022 - College of Communication

 

Kelly Chu

Diversity and Multicultural Issues in Advertising is a topic of Professor Kelly Chu in the College of Communication's research. Her other research areas include social media, electronic word-of-mouth, corporate social responsibility, and cross-cultural consumer behavior.

Chu's recent research has identified that of research articles published in advertising journals from 2011 to 2020 suggests only 8.03% used diversity and multicultural variables in their conceptualization. Chu believes that examining diversity in advertising through the lens of new technology and digital media is timely and necessary. She hopes that this article will help brands, marketers, and agencies identify issues in diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion and provide useful strategies to implement the needed change.

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June 2022 - Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

Michael Flores, Assistant Professor in DePaul’s Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media, has secured funding from CHA's Springboard to Success to conduct 2022 summer programming for select CHA high school students on filmmaking, screenwriting, and photography. At the core, the programs are designed to provide new economic pathways for minority youth and to arm them with the tools to become effective visual storytellers. This year’s programs will be taught in-person on DePaul’s Loop Campus from June 27th through August 4th, 2022.

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June 2022 - Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences has released a new edition of Creating Knowledge, a journal of undergraduate scholarship and creative activity. Essays and artwork are a product of advanced coursework during the 2021-2022 Academic Year. First published in 2008, Creating Knowledge showcases the best student work produced across LAS programs of study. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Barry)

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March 2022 - Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

Dr. Zhen Huang, Assistant Professor in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media has secured a National Science Foundation (NSF) CRII award for his project SaTC: Towards Detecting and Mitigating Vulnerabilities. The project promotes a novel research agenda that seeks to improve software vulnerability detection and mitigation. A diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students are participating in the project and developing their interests and expertise in software security. The NSF CRII Award is a prestigious, highly-competitive grant that is awarded to young Assistant Professors at the beginning of their academic careers. An estimated 60 CRII proposals are funded by NSF annually.

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March 2022 - Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media

Dr. Roselyne Tchoua, Assistant Professor in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media has secured a fellowship from Sinai Urban Health Institute to pursue health equity research. The Fellowship award will allow Tchoua the opportunity to apply machine learning techniques to health data, including quantifying the impact of social determinants of health in the prediction of patient readmission to the Emergency Department.

Read More

January 2022 - College of Education

Renowned mathematics education scholar, Akihiko Takahashi, Associate Professor in the College of Education, engaging book Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving: A Pedagogical Approach from Japan offers an in-depth introduction to teaching mathematics through problem-solving, providing lessons and techniques that can be used in classrooms for both primary and lower secondary grades. Based on the innovative and successful Japanese approaches of Teaching Through Problem-Solving (TTP) and Collaborative Lesson Research (CLR), Takahashi demonstrates how these teaching methods can be successfully adapted in schools outside of Japan.

January 2022 - College of Science and Health

Jalene LaMontagne, Associate Professor in the College of Science and Health, together with an international team of researchers has released an article, North American tree migration paced by climate in the West, lagging in the East, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read More

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Additional Featured Research

For a greater view of our funded research, please consult the lists of projects from 2022 below. These lists are representative of the scope of the internally and externally funded research currently ongoing at DePaul.  Also detailed below is a link to initiatives previously featured on this page.

Previously Featured Highlights

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