UIC Summer College Lecture Day
Introduction
Summer College Lecture Days are designed to provide students with an opportunity to experience a college lecture from UIC faculty before the start of the semester!
Students participating in Summer College are required to participate.
Lecture Day Information
Monday, July 7, 2025 - Ying S. Hu, PhD

Ying S. Hu, PhD
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering (Affiliate) | Full Member of the University of Illinois Chicago Cancer Center
Monday, July 7, 2025
12:30pm – 1:30pm
Science and Engineering South Room 250 (SES 250)
About Dr. Hu:
Ying Samuel Hu is an assistant professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering (affiliate) at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). His research develops fluorescent labeling and imaging techniques to study communications within and between immune cells at the nanoscale, with the long-term goal of identifying spatial and temporal regulation mechanisms to modulate immune cells for therapeutic purposes. He received his BS in electrical engineering from the University of Houston in 2006 and his PhD in bioengineering from Rice University in 2011. He pursued postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Since joining UIC in 2018, his research group has produced 22 peer-reviewed publications, and the research program has been supported by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, National Institutes of Health (R35 MIRA), and Research Corporation for Science Advancement.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025 - Dez Brown, MFA, PhD

Dez Brown, MA, PhD
Visiting Lecturer, English
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
12:30pm-1:30pm
Academic and Residential Complex Room 241 (ARC 241)
About Dr. Brown:
Dr. Dez Brown (they/he), publishing as dezireé a. brown, is a Black queer nonbinary Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, interdisciplinary scholar, and sjw, born and raised in Flint, MI. Their debut collection of poetry, they/she/he: ritual to forget your (un)becoming, is winner of the Joe W. Bratcher Prize and forthcoming in Fall 2025 from Host Publications. He received his PhD in English with concentrations in Black Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies from the University of Illinois Chicago, and he also has an MFA from Northern Michigan University.
Recently, they were designated a 2025 Black Homeplaces DISCO (CO)LAB Microgrant Awardee from the Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab at the University of Maryland to create a video game that will be housed in an accessible XR project that envisions Black Homeplaces across the diaspora.