Improving lung cancer screening with AI, empowering teachers to deliver effective literacy education and monitoring wildfire risk using drones — these are just a few of the initiatives that brought the University of Illinois Chicago to $498 million in research funding during fiscal year 2026.  

Awards from federal, state, industry and private sources sponsored 3,444 research projects on topics spanning Alzheimer’s disease, transportation security, community-engaged disability research and the impact of healthy eating on hypertension. 

Funding from the National Institutes of Health reached an all-time high of $207.9 million. Awards from the State of Illinois reached $85.8 million, also a record for UIC, and funding from industry and private sources hit $79.5 million in fiscal year 2026, which ran from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. 

“As Chicago’s only public research university, UIC is making critical contributions to the innovation economy of Chicago, our state, our nation and indeed the world,” said UIC Chancellor Marie Lynn Miranda. “The creativity and innovation that our researchers bring to their scholarship continues to impress and inspire me. At UIC, we are addressing society’s most complex challenges while elevating the quality of life for the many communities we are proud to serve.” 

The College of Medicine led all UIC colleges and schools with $259.4 million in total funding. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences came next ($42.6 million), followed by the School of Public Health ($37.8 million), the College of Engineering ($27.8 million) and the Retzky College of Pharmacy ($22.2 million). The College of Education nearly doubled its research awards in fiscal year 2026 in comparison to fiscal year 2025. 

Federal sponsors accounted for 66% of UIC’s research funding in fiscal year 2026, with the National Institutes of Health in the lead. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded UIC $54.3 million, U.S. Department of Energy funding came to $13.2 million, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded $8.3 million, and the National Science Foundation awarded UIC $19.6 million. 

“Our steady numbers in sponsored research funding reflect the breadth and depth of research at UIC, as well as the resilience of our research community. In the face of many challenges, UIC researchers continue to make the discoveries that change people’s lives,” said Vice Chancellor for Research Joanna Groden.

From left to right: Mary Pasquinelli, Frank Weinberg and Kevin Kovitz.
Ezinne Achinivu, left, and Zac Adesanya. Paul Carlier, left, and Bo Zhou. Photos: Jenny Fontaine/UIC

UIC projects that earned large awards in fiscal year 2026 included:   

• A $10 million award from the U.S. Department of Education for WORDS Illinois, an initiative to improve early literacy by providing teachers in 80 Illinois schools with evidence-based reading instruction training, individualized coaching and support for data-driven classroom practices. The program will also offer tutoring for students struggling with reading and create sustainable literacy support systems. 
• A project to develop a new class of drugs to block the toxic effects of misfolded tau, a protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease, supported by $3.3 million from the National Institutes of Health National Institute on Aging. Researchers will optimize and test these compounds to determine whether they can prevent tau-related brain damage, preserve cognitive and motor function and ultimately serve as effective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. 
• A trial evaluating if a diet-focused Food is Medicine program can help Black women with hypertension better manage their high blood pressure through access to healthy foods, nutrition education and lifestyle support. The study is funded by a $2.98 million grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities in the National Institutes of Health. 
• A $1.25 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support an AI-powered drone system to monitor and forecast the movement of wildfire embers. The project’s goal is to give firefighters and communities better tools to predict fire spread and reduce wildfire risk. 
• An effort to advance precision-based lung cancer screening, supported by $1 million from Eli Lilly and Co. The project will evaluate how an AI tool can improve lung cancer screening by more accurately identifying people at risk of developing lung cancer and by expanding screening to include individuals who may be missed under current guidelines.   

The following UIC faculty members received the most research funding in 2026: Lisa Powell (health policy and administration), Rachel Schachter (educational psychology), Niranjan Karnik (psychiatry), Robin Mermelstein (psychology), Russell Hemley (physics), Heather Prendergast (emergency medicine), Jerry Krishnan (medicine and public health), Dolly Mehta (pharmacology and regenerative medicine), Michael Naylor (psychiatry) and Jun Ma (internal medicine and geriatrics). 

Seven UIC researchers received National Science Foundation CAREER awards, a prestigious grant for early-career development. They are Ryan Corey (electrical and computer engineering), John Finan (mechanical and industrial engineering), Jida Huang (mechanical and industrial engineering), Sara Kadkhodaei (materials engineering), Wenhao Luo (computer science), Khairi Reda (computer science) and Saeid Tizpaz-Niari (computer science). 

The UIC Office of Technology Management reported $5.45 million in proceeds from 357 active licenses, which allow companies and organizations to use UIC-developed technologies, inventions, software and other intellectual property in commercial products and services.