Online Exclusives | Illinois Tech Magazine

Summer 2017

Satyanarayan “Sam” Pitroda

Sam’s New World Design

Telecommunications visionary Satyanarayan “Sam” Pitroda (M.S. EE ’66) believes that the world was last designed by the United States some 70 years ago, after World War II, and included the creation of prominent organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade...

Summer 2017

Designing STEM Leaders

Global Leaders Program participants engage in a team-building activity. With its young upbeat staff and office decorated much like the dorm room of a socially conscious, world-traveling, leadership-savvy student, it’s a wonder that the high schoolers who visit the home of the Illinois Tech Global Leaders Program (GLP) can tear...

Spring 2017

Open Mind, Broad Horizons

Collecting rocks and bugs, pooling money together with her three brothers for a microscope kit, and tearing through her neighborhood on a bicycle to reach the New York Hall of Science museum as quickly as possible all served as more than endearing childhood memories for Emily Miao (LAW ’97). Rather,...

Spring 2017

Maimuna Binta Antoinette Venzant

It All Begins with a Pencil

Whether a graphite nub or a sleek mechanical model, the style of sketching instrument matters little to Maimuna Binta Antoinette Venzant (TCOM ’16), whose anime-inspired illustrations are often as poetic as her name. A pencil and the passion to power it—with direction provided by both a childhood friend and an...

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.”