The Center for Advanced Study (CAS) is charged with promoting the highest levels of scholarship and discourse at the University of Illinois. The Center also serves as the primary formal venue on our campus for various types of scholarly interaction and creative activity across academic disciplines. It sponsors workshops and seminars, supports new scholarship, and brings to campus more than thirty distinguished scholars, writers, and artists each academic year, in collaboration with other units of the University.

CAS Professors are permanent members of the Center, appointed after a rigorous nomination and election process. Most recently, these distinguished academics have included, among others, a Nobel Laureate; a National Book Award winner; a MacArthur Fellow; a Pulitzer Prize winner; and many members of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

CAS Associates and Fellows are selected by the CAS Professors in an annual competition open to all tenured and tenure-track Illinois faculty. Successful candidates receive one semester of release time in the following academic year in order to pursue their scholarly/creative projects.

As an Associate, Professor Cahill will use his release time to study the physical principles that could lead to practical methods for mapping the three-dimensional temperature distribution within vertically-stacked integrated circuits during operation.