Online Exclusives | IIT Magazine

Spring 2017

Taking Science and Fiction to Extremes

As a child Joanne Gucwa (CHEM ’68) was interested in how things work. Whether she was listening to her father’s crystal radio set to pick up local broadcasts or exploring her grandparents’ farm in southern Illinois, Gucwa continuously learned from the world around her. Today, as she continues a longstanding...

Fall 2016

Franken Toy Mobile

It's Alive! It's Alive!

The child takes scissors to the neck of the stuffed bear. Head now separated from fluffy body, the deconstructed bedtime buddy lies in pieces on the workshop table. Mental wheels spinning, the child scans myriad containers of googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and long-forgotten toy parts to attach to his reimagined...

Fall 2016

Climbing a Mountain of Challenges

Rob Besecker (BA ’96) had already returned to the town of Lukla after his trek to Mount Everest Base Camp when the earthquake hit. Reaching Everest’s base camp was no small feat for a man with muscular dystrophy and outfitted with not only his trekking gear but also a defibrillator...

Fall 2016

From the Hands of Farmers

It seems propitious that John F. O. Bilson , the new John and Mae Calamos Dean Endowed Chair at Illinois Tech’s Stuart School of Business, would travel nearly 10,000 miles from Melbourne, (Victoria) Australia, to Chicago to begin what would be a lifetime career in finance—considering that it wasn’t his...

Fall 2016

Christopher White

For the Faculty, By the Faculty

When it comes to his own research interests—neutrinos—Christopher White, professor of physics, admits that he is drawn to the esoteric. But as vice provost for research and academic affairs, White conveys his thoughts on his new administrative role in easily understood language. “I see my job as expanding scholarly output...

Summer 2016

Rocco Buttliere

Chicago, Chunk By Chunk

Rocco Buttliere (ARCH 4th year) is on his way to becoming an architect, but what he is right now is a creative and masterful bricklayer who started his training at age 6. Buttliere’s bricks are not made of clay and shale but rather, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or polycarbonate—the two plastic...

Summer 2016

Madeline Murphy Rabb

Creating a Life’s Work in African-American Art

Madeline Murphy Rabb’s career in the art world has been anything but a still life. Rabb (DSGN ’75) is founder and president of Murphy Rabb, Inc. , a fine arts advisory firm in Chicago. She has created a career landscape spanning more than 40 years as an artist, arts administrator,...

Summer 2016

Amy Zasadzinkski

Harry Potter Fans Optional

Amy Zasadzinski (BIOL 4th year) wants to make a few things as clear as Harry Potter’s crystal Orb: “Girls can do some serious damage on the field,” she says, with a tone of wicked delight in her voice. “Guys can full-on tackle a girl to the ground, but what they don’t realize is that the girls will get them right back.”

Spring 2016

Mohammad Shahidehpour

Energy Expert Is Illinois Tech’s Newest NAE Member

The number of National Academy of Engineering members among faculty at Illinois Institute of Technology has increased to four with the recent announcement that Mohammad Shahidehpour , Carl and Paul Bodine Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was elected to its ranks. Shahidehpour is one of 80 new domestic...

Spring 2016

Wheelchair of the Future

How It Works

This companion piece to the article “Citizen Scientists” in the current print edition of IIT Magazine provides greater detail about the futuristic wheelchair Mahesh Krishnamurthy, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Eun-Jeong Lee, associate professor of psychology, are designing. Conventional manual wheelchair Electric power boost Classic motor control...

Spring 2016

Gayle Pennel Examining Leaking Sprinkler

A Life Devoted to Fire Protection

Since his graduation from Illinois Tech, Thomas Gayle Pennel (FPE ’67) has devoted his professional life to designing and evaluating fire protection systems. For nearly five decades he has designed fire protection plans for structures such as Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, Chicago’s Willis Tower, and the Miami International Airport.

Spring 2016

Team Rally

Some of the young men were high school stars while others cobbled together a pick-up game on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan. What they all had in common was the drive to obtain a high-quality education paired with the desire to play their sport of choice—volleyball—at the collegiate level...