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Research, Creative Activities & Innovation > Research Highlights > Featured Research
This page highlights research, creative activities, and innovation at DePaul. To submit an idea for a featured item, use this form.
Margaret Bell, associate professor of biological and health sciences, studies “forever chemicals,” persistent chemical pollutants that can be found in water, food, indoor dust, furniture, and cookware, to understand how early life exposure can alter brain responses in adulthood. Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, Bell... read more
Two nursing graduate students, Aneta Rutkowski and Danielle Pehr-Szeliga, led by Associate Professors Kashica Webber-Ritchey and Kim Amer and Assistant Professor Michelle Neuman, have performed a critical review of 37 research articles on type 1 diabetes management in children. The aim of the project was to identify trends in the transition of type 1 diabetes... read more
The Mellon Foundation has awarded DePaul a $1.5 million grant to continue funding the Social Transformation Research Collaborative (STRC), whose work demonstrates how the humanities deepen our understanding of ourselves and our society, and empower us to act to build a more just and equitable society. The funding supports fellowship cohorts of faculty and students, a... read more
For the third consecutive year, DePaul and Rosalind Franklin University are providing funding for AI-driven biomedical research to tackle evolving healthcare challenges — this time with faculty receiving $180,911 in grants. The primary goal of this program is to foster development of new inter-institutional collaborative research projects between DePaul and Rosalind... read more
Environmental science major Beau Rass has conducted research and built community partnerships all over the world through his work with the Vincentian Service Formation Office, which offers students opportunities to volunteer with marginalized communities through service immersion trips, scholarships and other programs at DePaul. Reflective of the wisdom of... read more
DePaul Art Museum announces the opening of its spring exhibition, “Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures.” This show surveys the work of Fernandez, a Los Angeles-based artist who explores migration, labor, gender, and her Mexican American identity through photography. DPAM’s iteration of the exhibition and accompanying programs is generously supported by the Teiger... read more
DePaul alum Adam Gacka’s documentary, “Teacher,” currently available on WTTW, follows Nkanga Nsa’s journey in the Chicago Teacher Residency, a one-year teacher training program funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The program is run through DePaul’s College of Education, where Nsa earned a Master of Education in Special Education in June 2022. Read more... read more
In December, the Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Educator awarded DePaul a $40,000 grant to begin a process of “refounding” the university’s institutional and educational mission. The grant was awarded as part of NetVUE’s Reframing the Institutional Saga initiative, and the award comes just as DePaul looks ahead to its next 125 years. The initiative will be... read more
DePaul’s 6th annual Innovation Day, featuring keynote speaker Andrea Saenz, CEO and President of the Chicago Community Trust, brought together faculty, staff, students and community partners in celebration of research and creative activities at DePaul. Four panel presentations invited faculty researchers to discuss how to build collaborative teams; strategies for... read more
DePaul’s College of Education is preparing teachers to meet these needs in Chicago Public Schools thanks to a nearly $500,000 Job Training and Economic Development Teacher Apprenticeship Program. The project, led by Amy Feiker Hollenbeck, chair of DePaul’s Department of Counseling and Special Education in the College of Education, for special education teaching... read more
A $60,000 grant from the Michael Reese Health Trust is supporting DePaul faculty Dorothy Kozlowski, a Vincent de Paul Professor of Neuroscience and Chair of DePaul's Department of Neuroscience, and Sonya Crabtree-Nelson, an associate professor of social work. Their work, begun more than seven years ago, highlights an issue that has historically been... read more
DePaul’s Blue Book, an annual anthology featuring the best English and Spanish poetry, stories, essays and journalism from teens across the country, published its latest edition in October. The project, which received a 2024 Academic Growth and Innovation Fund (AGIF) grant, is described in more detail in a recent video featuring editor and English faculty member... read more
Yujong Hwang, professor in the Driehaus College of Business School of Accountancy & MIS, was listed in the Top 5 Prominent Authors in the field of “AI and Digital Financial Inclusion” based on a comprehensive bibliometric review of the research landscape concerning Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) applications in the financial sector,... read more
Megan Alderden, director of DePaul’s criminology program, along with colleagues from the University of Illinois Chicago, are leveraging funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to design a training curriculum to help community members and professionals recognize sources of potential biases and support the implementation of multidisciplinary teams to help... read more
Leonard Jason, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Community Research, marks his 50th year at DePaul University this academic year, cementing a legacy that has shaped both the institution and the fields of community and clinical psychology. Throughout his distinguished career, Jason has secured over $47 million in federal research grants — an... read more
DePaul biology professor Kenshu Shimada received the Joseph T. Gregory Award during the 84th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Minneapolis on Nov. 2, 2024. The award is one of the SVP’s highest honors and recognizes Shimada’s outstanding service to the international organization and his contributions as a member of their Government Affairs... read more
Since 2020, DePaul’s Experiential Humanities Collaborative, also called HumanitiesX, has helped students understand how humanities learning can inform real-world action and change. The Collaborative brings faculty, student fellows and community partners together to design new, community-engaged, project-based humanities courses in an annual fellowship cohort. Now, a... read more
DePaul Mathematical Sciences Professor Bridget Tenner has been elected to the 2025 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. Fellows of the AMS are recognized as having made exceptional contributions to the field of mathematics, and Tenner is one of forty-one mathematicians from around the world to join the Fellows this year. Read more here.
An estimated 47,000 migrants have come through Chicago since 2022, many of whom arrive without adequate resources or support. Bamshad Mobasher, professor in the School of Computing and director of DePaul's new AI Institute, along with collaborators Roselyne Tchoua, Jill Nyhof Rodriguez, Lamont Black and LeAnne Wagner have received a planning grant of $299,022... read more
Joshua Tsui, director of innovation at DePaul's Jarvis Student Center for Innovation and Collaboration, has organized an interactive art exhibit that tells the history of the arcade developer Midway. The exhibit includes 15 playable games that communicate the story of the iconic company and feature interviews with former Midway designers and... read more
The DePaul AI Institute held a symposium exploring the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare and scientific discovery, on Friday, October 25. The Symposium explored AI applications in healthcare and scientific discovery across diverse disciplines, and offered participants a chance to see how colleagues across the university are using AI, network with... read more
Lacy Wright, a senior studying geography with minors in urban planning and sustainability, is one of 15 students selected to be part of DePaul’s Student Urban Research Corps. Under the guidance of DePaul geography professor Euan Hague, this group of undergraduate and graduate researchers support urban planning initiatives through their digital programming, mapping... read more
Short films from faculty members James Choi, Chi Jang Yin, Erika Valenciana and alumnus Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan were featured at the Academy Award-qualifying festival. Choi's “Resonancia" delves into the atmosphere of a small town and its connection to faith, while Eblahan's “Vox Humana" investigates the impact of shared language and the... read more
Since 2003, School of Music faculty member Natasha Bogojevic has shared her experience as a composer with DePaul students. This fall, she will take on a new challenge: Developing music education in Serbia as a Fulbright Scholar. "Since music is an art that profoundly touches human existence and crosses all borders," she explains, "I advocate that... read more
With a new $3.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Helen Lee, MD, MPH a pediatric anesthesiologist at UIC, and Joanna Buscemi, PhD, a clinical psychologist at DePaul University, will test whether these surgeries can be a window of opportunity for improving oral health long-term. The researchers will conduct a trial of a new intervention called... read more
Researchers from DePaul University and Rosalind Franklin University gathered at DePaul to discuss an ongoing collaborative research grant program between the two universities that aims to leverage two fast moving trends -- artificial intelligence, and biomedical discovery and healthcare. Attendees enjoyed lunch, presentations about the current research projects... read more
A multi-year memorandum of understanding between DePaul and the School of Leadership Foundation of Islamabad aims to raise awareness about the effect climate change has on Pakistan. Funded by the U.S. Embassy, the “Green Urban Development" program will also support young Pakistani students working on green initiatives so they can exchange insights with American... read more
Marin R. Sullivan, Adjunct Professor of the History of Art and Architecture, is curating two exhibits this fall at the DePaul Art Museum, “Edgar Miller: Anti-Modern, 1917–1967” and “The Spaces We Call Home.” The exhibitions are made possible through major support from the Terra Foundation for American Art as part of their 2024 Art Design Chicago initiative.... read more
The Chicago Consortium on Longevity, launched earlier this year, is a collaboration among faculty at DePaul University and Northwestern University that aims to help individuals thrive as they grow older. Joe Mikels, a professor of psychology in DePaul’s College of Science and Health, is collaborating with Claudia Haase, an associate professor at Northwestern, on the... read more
DePaul faculty Daniela Stan-Raicu, Roselyne Tchoua, Jacob Furst, and Alexandru Orhean from CDM, along with John Mazzeo from CSH received a $1.5 million grant from NSF for a project in collaboration with Sinai Chicago to partner with community health workers to combine the predictive capabilities of AI with human insights. The SCHOLAR framework pairs community health... read more
Scott Bucking, professor of ancient Mediterranean studies, is seeking comprehensive understanding of the multi-period archaeology landscape near the modern village of Beni Hassan al-Shuruq, just south of Middle Egypt’s provincial capital of Minya. The American Research Center in Egypt funds Bucking’s project, and the project’s seasonal fieldwork relies on strong... read more
Bright Yue Hong, an assistant professor in the School of Accountancy and MIS, clarified five misconceptions about burnout in her work featured in California Management Review Insights. Hong and her coauthors find that a “misfit” between what employees need and what employers provide drives rapid burnout in early career auditors at large firms, in addition to... read more
Rates of violence and aggression against educators are high — and in many cases have risen from pre-COVID-19 levels — leading many to suffer mental health consequences and consider quitting the profession. A new study led by DePaul’s Susan McMahon, chair of the American Psychological Association Task Force on Violence Against Educators and School Personnel, reveals... read more
Two Chinese universities invited Ahmed Zayed to lecture on fractional transformation theory using his new book, "Fractional Integral Transforms: Theory and Applications." During his month-long stay in Linyi and Beijing, Zayed delivered three lectures a week to Chinese graduate students, post doctorates and faculty conducting research adjacent to his... read more
Memory in the human brain is all about connections. According to Okunola Jeyifous, an assistant professor of neuroscience, the cellular process of creating new pathways for long-term memory looks similar to the changes that occur in the brain during nicotine addiction. Long-term memory and alterations due to drug addiction are currently the two main areas of... read more
From classrooms to boardrooms, people are buzzing about how artificial intelligence will upend the field of communications. At DePaul, faculty, students and industry leaders are coming together to shape that future. Tao “Tony" Deng, assistant professor of public relations and advertising, and Nur Uysal, associate professor of public relations and... read more
Many girls who enjoyed trying to hit a home run or jumping into a soccer game might leave sports behind by the time they’re 12 years old. A collaborative research project from Little League, the Center for Healing and Justice through Sport (CHJS) and DePaul University psychologist Jocelyn Carter aims to find ways coaches can keep girls playing sports for... read more
Two projects based in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media recently received Academic Growth and Innovation Fund (AGIF) grants, which support innovative and revenue generating academic projects at DePaul. Associate Professor Janine Spears is leading a new cybersecurity clinic at DePaul that builds on her cybersecurity 390 class, which allows... read more
Environmental Science and Studies Assistant Professor Noé de la Sancha is participating in openVertebrate (oVert), a five-year collaboration among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens, now freely available online. As part of his contribution to the project, de la Sancha and Cody Thompson at the University of Michigan earned a... read more
Researchers from DePaul's Institute for Housing Studies (IHS) , Sarah Duda, Geoff Smith, and Yiwen Jiao, recently published a comprehensive study in Cityscape, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's policy and research journal. Their work dissects the multifaceted influences of gentrification and disinvestment driving the notable decrease of... read more
Assistant Professor James Bort and Coleman Chair of Entrepreneurship Maija Renko published “Legitimacy spillovers and hybrid rhetoric in crowdfunded microloans" in the International Small Business Journal. Their research focused on assessing whether factors such as country stability and the financial performance of Microfinance Institutions influence the... read more
Driehaus College of Business Assistant Professor Bright Hong's research on burnout in the field of financial auditing was featured in the California Management Review. Hong's work discusses the importance of considering employees' needs in addition to their abilities and proposes a “Person-Environment Fit" approach.
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... read more
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... read more
Illinois Humanities' “Notes from the Road" shared the reflections of SCPS Associate Professor Caroline Kisiel on her 2023 visit to the Ohio River Visitor Center in Equality, IL, to deliver her Illinois Humanities Road Scholar presentation, “Did Black Lives Matter in Early Illinois? Voices from the Brink of Slavery and Freedom."
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... read more
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... read more
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... read more
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... read more
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... read more
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... read more
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... read more
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,... read more
Dr. Tom 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... read more
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.
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.
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,... read more
The National Institutes of Health has awarded Researcher Leonard A. 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... read more
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... read more