Chicago Council on Science and Technology

Courtesy: iBIO Institute

The iCON Award was developed to recognize the important role of education, research, and training in fostering growth and in building the next generation of Midwest biotechnology and life sciences innovators and leaders. This award celebrates the achievements of leaders who nurture education, training, and scholarship in the life sciences in Illinois.

Dr. Elizabeth Babcock, Vice President, Education and Library Collections at The Field Museum in Chicago

Elizabeth C. Babcock, Ph.D. is Vice President, Education and Library Collections. Dr. Babcock is responsible for the development and implementation of education programs, outreach initiatives and digital programming to over 800,000 adults, families, teachers and students each year. The focus of her work is to improve the public’s understanding of natural history and to serve diverse audiences by leveraging the Museum’s exhibitions, collections and scientific research.Dr. Babcock’s work in the Library focuses on increasing the public’s access to and utilization of the Museum’s rare book collection, photo and institutional archives, and general collection of over 300,000 items.

Prior to assuming her current role, Dr. Babcock served as Director of Education and Library Collections, Teacher and Student Programs Director, and Manager of Teacher and Student Programs at The Field Museum. Before joining the Museum in 2002, Dr. Babcock worked in the environmental field as a consultant and program developer, designing community outreach strategies. She worked for several years in the corporate sector, managing user experience research and design projects in the financial, consumer products and technology industries. She has also worked as a program evaluator and visitor studies researcher for museums, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

Elizabeth has taught K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and adult students in a range of content areas, including music for special needs students, environmental anthropology, sustainable development, introductory anthropology, and adult literacy.

iCON Innovator Award (University Level):

Dr. Brenda Russell, Professor, Professor of Physiology, Biophysics, Bioengineering and Medicine, and Executive Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, University of Illinois at Chicago

Brenda Russell, Ph.D., Professor of Physiology, Biophysics, Bioengineering and Medicine, and Executive Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Russell’s scientific training, background, experience and productivity encompass a range of disciplines and forge linkages in the continuum between quantitative biology, bioengineering and physiology. Her current NIH support funds two collaborative projects, one on heart failure for regulation of protein synthesis and remodeling of cell shape, and the other for tissue engineering with development of a novel cell culture system using bioengineering and surface chemistry modification. Many of her studies have been done in close collaboration with clinicians (heart failure, muscular dystrophies, urinary incontinence).

Dr. Russell is former editor of The American Journal of Physiology: CellSection; Cell & Tissue Research and editorial board member of many journals, including Circulation Research and The Journal of Applied Physiology. She has written reviews, book chapters and well over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Some of her material is now incorporated into textbooks – including the widely used Gray’s Anatomy and Berne and Levy’s Physiology.

Major research often requires collaboration and interdisciplinary resources. Dr. Russell has chaired several cross-disciplinary task forces at UIC including regenerative medicine with stem cells (clinical, basic biomedical and bioengineering), environmental science and policy (public health, political science, pollution and geology), tobacco-related research (prevention psychology, basic biomedical, cancer, clinical treatment), bioinformatics (computer science, genomics, health informatics, biotech entrepreneurs), and structural biology (proteomics, crystallography, molecular biology). She is the UIC Leader for the Chicago Biomedical Consortium fostering interactions with the University of Chicago, Northwestern University to enable and encourage interdisciplinary research that is beyond the range of a single institution and thereby to promote educational, health and commercial developments that will benefit the Chicago community at large.

- iBIO Institute