CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The Faculty Entrepreneurial Leadership Program (FELP) is delighted to welcome its third cohort of distinguished faculty from across the University of Illinois System. Twenty-seven faculty from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois Chicago, and University of Illinois Springfield will participate in the program’s workshops in the fall of 2025. Designed to help faculty innovators enhance the commercial and social impact of their research, FELP is a selective professional development program that imparts entrepreneurial knowledge and self-efficacy without requiring prior startup experience.

FELP was born out of a partnership between the Discovery Partners Institute and Gies College of Business, and it is supported by a generous gift from Gies alumni Don (FIN ’88) and Anne (ACCY ’88) Edwards. Each of the universities within the University of Illinois System provide support for FELP, as do a number of units involved in the university’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. The program is housed in the Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship at Gies Business, which fuels innovation through learner entrepreneurial activities, fosters knowledge creation and dissemination from top faculty in the field, and designs and offers the curriculum needed to bring that knowledge to the classroom.

Built on investment from the State of Illinois and the University of Illinois, the Discovery Partners Institute works with top research universities to enhance regional economic development by empowering people to jumpstart their tech careers and companies. We look forward to serving the following faculty participants in the FELP cohort of 2025, and to helping them transform brilliant ideas into marketable innovations and real-world ventures.

University of Illinois Chicago:

• Adam Cross, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Director of Children's Innovation Laboratory
• Xiaoping Du, Distinguished Professor, Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine, College of Medicine
• Lina He, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Director of Power Energy Innovation (PEI) Laboratory, College of Engineering
• Alicia Hulbert, Assistant Professor, Surgery, College of Medicine
• Myunghee Kim, Associate Professor, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering
• Jeremy Lynch, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Didem Ozevin, Professor, Civil, Materials and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
• Kathleen Sheridan, Associate Professor, Educational Psychology, College of Education
• Meenesh R. Singh, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering
• Mojtaba Soltanalian, Associate Professor and Director, WaveOPT Laboratory, Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
• Duncan Wardrop, Associate Professor, Chemistry, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Kimberlee Wilkens, Associate Professor, Industrial Design, School of Design, College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts

University of Illinois Springfield:

• Liang Kong, Professor, Mathematics and Data Analytics, Interdisciplinary Scientific AI Supercomputing (ISAS) Hub 
  

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 

• Aleksei Aksimentiev, Professor, Theoretical and Computational Biophysics, Grainger College of Engineering
• Marianne Alleyne, Assistant Professor, Entomology, School of Integrative Biology
• Caroline Cao, Professor, Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, Director of Applied Health Technology Initiatives, Grainger College of Engineering
• Elizabeth Hsiao-Wecksler, Grayce Wicall Gauthier Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering, Grainger College of Engineering
• Shelby Hutchens, Associate Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering, Grainger College of Engineering
• Joseph Irudayaraj, Founder Professor, Bioengineering, Grainger College of Engineering
• Susan Leggett, Assistant Professor, Bioengineering, Grainger College of Engineering
• Yongqi Lu, Principal Research Scientist and Section Head, Illinois State Geological Survey, Prairie Research Institute
• Samy O. Meroueh, Professor, Biochemistry, School of Molecular & Cellular Biology, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
• Yanfeng Ouyang, George Krambles Endowed Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Grainger College of Engineering
• Sara Pedron-Haba, Health Innovation Professor, Biomedical and Translational Sciences, Carle Illinois College of Medicine
• Heidi Phillips, Associate Professor and Soft Tissue Surgery Service Head, Small Animal Surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine
• Laura Rice, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kinesiology and Community Health, College of Applied Health Sciences
• Kyle C. Smith, Associate Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering, Grainger College of Engineering

 About Gies College of Business at Illinois
Gies College of Business provides a world-class educational experience for the next generation of business leaders. For more than 100 years, the College has delivered on the promise of innovation in business education, with a commitment to cutting-edge curriculum design and delivery, exceptional experiential learning opportunities, and unparalleled academic excellence. Today Gies faculty prepare more than 11,000 on-campus and online learners to be at the forefront of innovation and leadership in the global economy. GiesBusiness.illinois.edu