Tag: expert
Researchers at Lincoln Park Zoo and Northern Illinois University have discovered a new culprit contributing to amphibian decline and altered mammal distribution throughout the Midwest region – the invasive plant European buckthorn. This non-native shrub, which has invaded two-thirds of the United States, has long been known to negatively impact plant community composition and forest...
After Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010, more than half of U.S. households donated to thousands of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in that country. Yet we continue to hear stories of misery. Why have NGOs failed at their mission? NIU professor Mark Schuller examines that very question in his new book, “Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid,...
It could be the opening scene of a new Indiana Jones blockbuster, complete with a storybook setting that is rich in both mystery and archaeological treasures. After all, more than 2,000 temples and shrines dot the landscape of Bagan, the ancient royal capital of Myanmar. It was here in 1988, amid the country’s political unrest,...
NIU has named Dan Gebo in anthropology, Paul Kelter in literacy education and Zhili Xiao in physics as its 2013 Board of Trustees Professors – a top university honor that recognizes faculty members for international renown in their research and excellence in all facets of teaching. Gebo’s paleontological research is elucidating the origins of primates....
Spring-breakers headed for the beachfront be forewarned: It’s not just polluted water that can harbor illness-causing microbes; digging around in the sand can pose risks, too, especially for children. “Beach sand is definitely a major source of pathogen exposures,” says Northern Illinois University’s Tomoyuki Shibata, a professor of public health and an associate of the...
Brian Guthrie, a senior NIU geology major, says his recent experience in the Antarctic as part of a major research team was, well, out of this world. The icy desert continent “was like nothing I’d ever seen before,” says the 23-year-old St. Charles native, who spent more than a month in Antarctica. At one point,...
NIU’s David Henningsen remembers being intrigued in graduate school by a study that found men often overestimate the romantic interest of women. “That struck me as being really sad, because I really didn’t think women were all that interested in me to begin with,” Henningsen laughs. It also led him to the idea that there...
A team of scientists that includes Northern Illinois University researchers has successfully drilled through the overlying Antarctic ice sheet and sampled directly the waters and sediments of Subglacial Lake Whillans. The effort is making headlines today: It marks the first successful retrieval of clean whole samples from an Antarctic subglacial lake, according to a statement...
The Northern Illinois University Center for Non-Governmental Organization Leadership and Development (NGOLD) and the Department of Anthropology announced that Mark Schuller has accepted a joint appointment as an assistant professor. Schuller grew up in the Chicago area, graduating from Elk Grove High School in Elk Grove Village. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of...
Leila Porter, an NIU professor of anthropology, is up to some serious monkey business. She spent last summer in a Bolivian rain forest, tracking and catching some very peculiar primates known as saddle-back tamarins, before releasing them back into the wild. The squirrel-sized monkeys, from the family Callitrichidae, are closely related to the more well-known...
For someone who isn’t fond of cold weather, Brian Guthrie sure seems excited about the prospect of working in one of the coldest, driest and most remote environments on the planet. A senior geology major at Northern Illinois University, Guthrie definitely has an adventurous side. He sports a Mohawk, zips to classes via skateboard and...
A group of Illinois university professors and administrators has released a plan to reform the retirement system for university employees. An Institute of Government and Public Affairs proposal released Monday recommends letting workers trade a portion of their guaranteed benefits for a lump-sum payment which would go into a self-managed retirement account. “Consideration of a...
