Two SPH Faculty Win 2025 UIC Research and Scholarship Awards
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The University of Illinois Chicago Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and the Office of Technology Management proudly announce the recipients of the UIC Research and Scholarship Annual Awards for 2024-25. The awards recognize the efforts of faculty researchers, scholars and others who advance knowledge and promote continued excellence at UIC. Five UIC early-career faculty who have shown outstanding promise to become future leaders in their fields receive annual Rising Star Awards. This year, SPH researchers Leslie Williams and Uchechi Mitchell both received Rising Star Awards–the first time in UIC history that two researchers from the same college have won awards in the same year.
Leslie D. Williams, PhD Heading link
Assistant Professor in the Division of Community Health Sciences, Leslie Williams won the Rising Star Award for Clinical Sciences.
Dr. Williams conducts research on relationships between stigma and healthcare access/barriers (which perpetuate disparate health outcomes) among people who have multiple intersectionally stigmatized identity aspects (e.g., people who are racial/ethnic minorities and/or justice system-involved, and who also have a stigmatized health status). To assess changes in racial/ethnic disparities in HIV outcomes over time, Dr. Williams has computed annual estimates of HIV prevalence for Black, white, and Latinx men who have sex with men and for Black, white, and Latinx heterosexuals, for 89 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, over a 22 year period. She is currently studying changes over time in racial/ethnic disparities in fatal opioid overdoses.
Uchechi A. Mitchell, PhD, MSPH Heading link
Associate Professor in the Division of Community Health Sciences, Uchechi A. Mitchell won the Rising Star Award for Social Sciences.
Uchechi Mitchell focuses on racial/ethnic disparities in the health and wellbeing of older adults. She uses data from large, national surveys to identify the pathways leading to disparities in psychosocial outcomes (e.g., hopelessness) and biomarkers of physiological functioning (e.g., allostatic load, inflammation). Her research highlights the role of stress, social support and coping in maintaining health and important health resources, like consumer technology.