At the start of this school year, Mies Campus students were able to see the future literally taking shape before their eyes as they observed the progress being made on the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship. With a large number of rain-free days this past summer, the construction crew made great progress. The skeleton of the building could be seen by mid-August, when many of the girders were in place. Faculty member and Kaplan Institute Design Architect John Ronan received a 2017 R+D Award from ARCHITECT, the journal of the American Institute of Architects, for his unique use of ethylene tetrafluoroethylene on the outside of the building. You can view a livestream of the construction site here.
In August we announced Anijo Punnen Mathew as the Kaplan Institute’s inaugural academic director. A highly regarded associate professor at the Institute of Design, Anijo is also founder and chief experience officer of Vamonde, named by Built in Chicago as one of six Chicago startups shaping the future of virtual reality.
In other faculty news, we welcomed 29 new members to the university this fall. Two faculty, including J. D. Trout, the John & Mae Calamos Endowed Chair in Philosophy, will be joining Illinois Tech in January 2018. Read their expanded bios here.
Also in this issue of the magazine, the cover story is about one of the university’s distinctive academic groups, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, now in its 41st year of existence. A pioneering institute in the study of ethics in science and technology, CSEP also houses the world’s largest database of individual codes of ethics and guidelines in the world. You can learn about historian Marie Hicks, constitutional law expert Carolyn Shapiro, and Armour College of Engineering’s Carrie Hall, whose research focus is on diesel engine technology. Nestor Zaluzec (PHYS ’73), senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, shares information about next-generation electron microscopy, and recent Illinois Tech Young Alumnus Award recipient Alireza Khaligh (Ph.D. EE ’06) discusses his current research at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Our people are indeed Illinois Tech’s greatest asset. Our newest students are joining a strong university community that takes great pride in guiding and supporting them on their way to becoming tomorrow’s leaders. I look forward to following our students’ accomplishments in the academic year ahead.
Sincerely,
Alan W. Cramb