Fall-Winter 2022

From Kyiv to Chicago

Alzira Maldonado Protsishin (M.A.S. ARCH ’14) has won prestigious awards and is making waves in Chicago’s male-dominated architecture scene. But her success hasn’t come easy—she’s worked through and overcome an array of challenges to become an accomplished architect in Chicago and beyond.

Inside this Issue

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The chief alumni publication of Illinois Institute of Technology, Illinois Tech Magazine is published as a print/web edition each spring and fall, and as a web-exclusive edition each summer by the Office of Marketing and Communications in collaboration with the Office of Advancement. It showcases outstanding Illinois Tech alumni who best epitomize the university's drive to discover, create, and solve. Each issue also shares additional stories about faculty and students who best exemplify the outstanding efforts coming out of Chicago's only tech-focused university.

President’s Message

Letter from the President

It is the dawn of a new era in higher education, one that is being driven by a technological transformation that is changing what we do and how we do it. The forthcoming, technology-driven Fourth Industrial Revolution means there is a need to educate the next generation of innovative tech leaders who will shepherd us forward.

On Campus

Letters

Having reconnected with Illinois Institute of Technology via publications such as Illinois Tech Magazine, Virgilio Caballero (M.S. ENVE ’72) expresses his disappointment about having to miss this year’s 50th reunion.

On Campus

An Honor Befitting the Man

Illinois Tech unveiled its renamed downtown campus building, Conviser Law Center, at a formal dedication ceremony in recognition of Richard J. Conviser’s lifelong service to Chicago-Kent College of Law and the legal community. Conviser is also a longtime professor of law at Chicago-Kent and a co-founder of BARBRI, the world’s largest bar-exam preparation course.

On Campus

History, at Your Fingertips

Innovation—in more ways than one—is on display in the east lobby of Michael Paul Galvin Tower, which is now home to a physical-digital interactive experience that honors the impact of the Galvin Family on Illinois Tech and provides a chance for visitors to better understand the university’s founding mission.

On Campus

Soaring to New Heights

The university welcomed its largest class of first-year students in recent history when the fall 2022 semester began in August. Here’s a little more about the newest class of Scarlet Hawks

On Campus

A Squirrelly Story

In February Illinois Tech Public Safety captured an elusive criminal: Squirrel Boss, a ceramic lawn ornament that was detained for trespassing, but would be released “for good behavior” to the owner of the @iit.squirrel Instagram account, a channel that has exploded in popularity on campus and has led to the creation of a popular student organization.

Athletics

Leaving a Lasting Legacy

A dozen former student-athletes, coaches, and administrators who were key in shaping the Illinois Tech athletics program were inducted into the inaugural Athletics Hall of Fame class as part of the 2022 Homecoming celebration on September 16, 2022.

Features

Alzira Maldonado Protsishin

In 2021 Alzira Maldonado Protsishin (M.A.S. ARCH ’14) won the American Institute of Architects Chicago (AIA Chicago) Dubin Family Young Architect Award—a title that, on the surface, might suggest a seamless ascent to notoriety. But Maldonado Protsishin is someone who knows what it is to fight for a dream—to rise as a minority woman in a male-dominated field, and to build a career, and a life, a world away from where she began.

Features

James Flynn

A dozen anxious students and professors huddled around a speaker in a small room in California, waiting for any sign of life. It was 11:21 p.m. on May 18, 2017, when years of hard work and cooperation with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were realized.

Features

Saurabha Bhatnagar

It’s natural to wonder whether people who achieve early, breakaway career success are geniuses, or just in the right place at the right time. In the case of Saurabha Bhatnagar (CS ’02), who built twin areas of expertise in health care and software before those sectors began to merge, it’s a bit of both.

Features

Halcyon Lawrence

Halcyon Lawrence (M.S. TCID ’10, Ph.D. TCOM ’13) was struck by the oddity: As she tried to clear up a banking issue with an institution in her home country, Trinidad and Tobago, while pursuing her studies in Chicago, the digitized voice recording that was directing her to help was not native to her Caribbean island nation.

Features

Llewellyn “Don” Means Jr.

Llewellyn “Don” Means Jr.(EE ’89) saw the rewards of a life of service from an early age. He says that the power that he gained from watching his parents give back to their community has carried him throughout his career.