Features | Illinois Tech Magazine

Fall 2020

Betting on a Targeted Therapy

Betting on a Targeted Therapy

This past summer, 39-year-old Susan Altschuller (Ph.D. BME ’07) joined Waltham, Massachusetts-based ImmunoGen as its chief financial officer. Altschuller is a member of a leadership team tasked with preparing the company to bring a drug to market for the first time: an ovarian cancer therapy called mirvetuximab soravtansine, or “Mirv” for short. “This company has been through a lot. And now it’s on the precipice of launching a product that makes a difference for cancer patients,” says Altschuller.

Summer 2020

Answering the Call—with Pride

Answering the Call—with Pride

The motto of the National Guard—“Always Ready, Always There”—aptly captured the esprit de corps of the Illinois National Guard members who recently faced an adversary—invisible to the naked eye—unlike any others they had encountered in former missions. This past March, Governor J. B. Pritzker activated the Illinois National Guard in an historic effort: to establish the first State of Illinois drive-thru community-based testing site (CBTS) in Chicago in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lieutenant Colonel Brian C. Gahan (M.A.S. CHE ’02) oversaw the operation.

Summer 2020

Building Healthier Communities Through Opal

Building Healthier Communities Through Opal

“It’s not about changing technology but changing the human mindset. Our goal is designing a device that will help change human behavior so that [people] can solve the problem,” says Irewole Akande (ENGM ’17), co-founder and chief technology officer of City Health Tech, a public-health startup that aims to use technology to build healthier communities and mitigate the spread of infectious diseases. Akande is applying his background in connected devices and analytics to address the lack of knowledge about proper handwashing techniques through design innovation.

Summer 2020

From Engines to Ingenuity, Through Teamwork

From Engines to Ingenuity, Through Teamwork

To say that Michael “Mike” Mikula (METE ’91, M.S. ’93) has had a productive and stimulating career at Ford Motor Company, where he has worked for the past 26 years, almost goes without saying. One year after graduating with his master’s degree from Illinois Institute of Technology, Mikula began at Ford as a tooling and process engineer and in 1997, was placed into the company’s Manufacturing Leadership Program.

Spring 2020

The Sunrise Kid

The Sunrise Kid

At age 24, Brian Gómez (CECD ’18) is taking action on climate change with Sunrise Movement, a national nonprofit that has positioned itself among the strongest advocates for a Green New Deal. What is exceptional—aside from the rapid pace at which the organization has grown in just a couple of years—is that the people who are steering the movement are all under the age of 35, with a majority under age 30.

Spring 2020

Brewing Up Something Big

Brewing Up Something Big

The first taste of craft beer for Ankur Jain (CS ’03) was a swig of Anchor Steam, whose nineteenth-century recipe and California ocean-port pedigree made it a great object lesson in a course he took about the Industrial Revolution at Illinois Institute of Technology.

Spring 2020

Advocate for Good

Proactive Advocate

The genesis of a career that Jennifer Welch (LAW ’94) has spent the last three decades cultivating can be traced to the fax machine in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Chicago. Fresh out of college and working full-time at the organization, Welch vividly recalls that day in 1991 when she went to retrieve a fax—the ruling in Rust v. Sullivan, the case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the government was able to withhold Title X funds from family planning facilities that counseled patients on abortion. A realization suddenly hit her.

Spring 2020

Building Sustainability

Building Sustainability

Much more than an aesthetic flourish, the glass gradient represents both an achievement in building material advancement and a step forward in energy-efficiency, two areas of architecture that Vista Tower’s design principal, Juliane Wolf (ARCH ’01), has been pursuing her entire career.

Spring 2020

From ‘Bots to Biomedicine

From ‘Bots to Biomedicine

Christopher Jones’s road to biomedical startup success did not quite unfold with machine-like precision. Sure, he was an engineering prodigy and is a natural entrepreneur, and the company that he co-founded, HD LifeSciences, makes implants for spinal fusion surgery.

Fall 2019

Cultivating Change

Cultivating Change

Craig Rupp (M.S. EE ’94) recalls walking into a RadioShack in northwest Iowa as a child and discovering the thrill of tinkering with electronic components. His appetite for understanding how things work would allow him to engineer his dream job—reimagining agriculture technology. Today Rupp is co-founder and chief executive officer of Sabanto, an Iowa-based, farming-as-a-service company using autonomous planting equipment.

Fall 2019

In His Own Sweet Time

In His Own Sweet Time

Chocolate holds a special place for Dan Kazmierczak—in his mind, in his stomach, and in his heart. A veteran of this delectable food industry for nearly a decade and a half, Kazmierczak says chocolate doesn’t just make him happy—it’s part of who he is.

Fall 2019

A Fortuitous Bend in the Road

A Fortuitous Bend in the Road

Sanchez has blazed a trail at CPD by creating, and now piloting, a new crisis intervention model designed to reshape how Chicago police interact with people with mental illness by placing community outreach and treatment front and center.

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