As we seek to solve society’s next grand challenges, it becomes more and more important to focus on taking our excellence in research and teaching in engineering and computing from Urbana to new places – figuratively and literally.

Our powerful legacy of innovation and leadership, built over these past 150 years in Urbana, promises to enable even greater breakthroughs across our region and globe through transformative academic and industry partnerships.

This month, we celebrate Grainger Engineering’s expansion in Chicago. Our Master of Computer Science program is now underway in downtown Chicago with its first cohort, adding to our successful City Scholar programs. In addition, we continue to pursue the development of an inclusive quantum workforce and advancing quantum information science discovery with our partners at University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermilab. 

And, as you might have heard already, we are proud to announce the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago–yet another new partnership that will focus on solving grand scientific challenges and development of new technology to measure human biology at unprecedented scale, which in turn is expected to have transformative impact on advancing human health.