Starting on Saturday Jan. 25, two University of Iowa academic programs will be featured during nationally telecast sporting events on BTN.

The Operator Performance Laboratory, a research center in the UI College of Engineering, and the UI REACH Program, a certificate program in the UI College of Education, are featured on the new Iowa edition of "BTN LiveBIG," a series highlighting stories of impact from around the Big Ten.

The program premieres this Saturday at 3 p.m. CST, immediately following Minnesota at Iowa wrestling. It will also air Saturday, Feb. 22, at noon CST, and Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. CST.

UI REACH stands for Realizing Education and Career Hopes and is a two-year, transition certificate program for students with cognitive learning disabilities. The BTN story depicts how UI REACH provides a true college experience to empower these young adults to become independent, engaged members of the community. See a related story on one of its graduates here.

The feature on UI's Operator Performance Lab focuses on the innovative ground-based and airborne flight simulation systems the group develops and uses for leading research aimed to improve the safety of commercial and military pilots.

BTN crews visited the Iowa campus in December to film both stories, which will be presented this season with one more UI feature produced in 2012 on the National Advanced Driving Simulator.

Visit the BTN website for more information about the new season of BTN LiveBIG.