Spring 2016 | Illinois Tech Magazine

Professor Polytechnic

Daniel Martin Katz is teaching law students to embrace all things technological in their quest to become the attorneys of tomorrow.
Quantifying Value

Stuart School of Business professor Joel Goldhar heads a new center where big data will soon replace anecdotal evidence as a resource in informed decision-making.
Overthrown by Zeus? Not.

Titan, the fastest computer in the United States, helps scientist Jack Dongarra (M.S. CS ’73) model systems to approximate the real world.

Spring 2016

Inside this Issue

Letters

Letter from the President

This issue of IIT Magazine focuses on the research activities of our faculty, alumni, and students. I remember my early days as a faculty member when my academic life was focused on teaching and research. I look back fondly on that time when I was able to work with very...

News Briefs

Campaign for IIT Surpasses $227 Million

Illinois Institute of Technology celebrated its 125th anniversary last year, and each issue of IIT Magazine focused on the people, places, and things that make Illinois Tech unique. As we reflect on our milestone celebration and continue momentum through the end of Fueling Innovation: The Campaign for IIT , it...

News Briefs

Cleversafe Rising

Cleversafe Rising

From its early days as one of the first startup tenants in University Technology Park on Mies Campus to its recent acquisition by IBM, Cleversafe, now a leading developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances, has had a close relationship with Illinois Tech students, faculty, and alumni. Cleversafe's success was celebrated on the Illinois Tech campus where it all began at the Cleversafe Investors Celebration Dinner on December 1, 2015.

News Briefs

Shack Makeover

Take every image you have of the classic beach shack and throw them out to sea. Four architecture firms and their university collaborators will be bringing their visions of lakefront kiosks to Chicago’s Lake Michigan beaches this year. They were all invited as part of a Chicago Architecture Biennial competition...

News Briefs

Creating a New Power Paradigm

Creating a New Power Paradigm

Outside Sierra Leone’s bustling capital of Freetown is a small village whose inhabitants enjoy the modern convenience of mobile phones—with one hitch. Users can’t charge them there because the village is minus one important basic: electricity. Photo: Mohammad Shahidehpour “A guy picks up the pile of phones each morning and...

Athletics

Preparing to Live the Dream

Preparing to Live the Dream

“Imagine an active volleyball player sitting down and very quietly working with hundreds of tumor microarray samples, each sized at about 1 millimeter in diameter. This is another side of the athletic Irena: calm, patient, and precise,” says Jialing Xiang, professor of biology in the College of Science at Illinois...

Features

A Noble Experiment

A Noble Experiment

In the early 1980s, as entrepreneur Madhavan Nayar (M.S. IE ’68) expanded his software consulting firm Unitech Systems from a staff of one man to many individuals, he adopted a nonconformist management philosophy. Inspired by the quality principles set forth by statistician W. Edwards Deming, Nayar chose collaboration as his company’s cornerstone.

Features

Rebel With a Cause

In some ways Daniel Martin Katz, associate professor of law, is as complex as the law itself. Brash and outspoken yet clever and suave, he fires ideas like bullets aimed at disrupting legal practice, scholarship, and education.

Features

Citizen Scientists

Citizen Scientists

Two Illinois Tech professors—one an engineer and the other a psychologist—are combining efforts in a new area of research known as citizen science, which focuses on the human side of design.

Features

Big Data for Big Decisions

The adage “it starts at the top” could apply to any dynamic—a sports team, classroom, or Fortune 500 company—where leadership is central to a group’s success. But in business, can the value and performance of top-level managers and corporate boards be quantified? Illinois Tech’s new Center for Corporate Performance (CCP)...

Features

Into the Titan-Sized World of Supercomputing

The fastest computer in the United States fills a room the size of a basketball court and generates an electricity bill estimated at $9 million per year. Behind this titan-sized technology is the combined brainpower of a scientific team at the largest U.S. Department of Energy laboratory—Oak Ridge National Laboratory...

Features

Room with a View

Room with a View

When two students representing the Illinois Tech American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics team arrived at 3 a.m. at Fort Sumner in the New Mexico desert, the only thing standing between them and the launch of their team’s payload was Mother Nature. Fortunately, on September 7, 2015, the wind was...

Features

Partners in Prevention

Partners in Prevention

In its quest to cure the causes of foodborne illness outbreaks, the United States is doubling down on prevention. In 2011 the United States passed the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act, a set of regulations and guidance aimed at curtailing the estimated 48 million incidents of individual...

Features

Toward Safer Nuclear Solutions

Toward Safer Nuclear Solutions

As a second-grader, Jeff Terry hoped to one day be a nuclear chemist. But as a young adult he fought against the Bailly Nuclear Power Plant, a failed project (construction began in 1974 and was canceled in 1981) planned for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, because he feared it would kill the fish in Lake Michigan. During graduate school, however, he again had a change of heart.

Online Exclusives

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...

Online Exclusives

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...

Online Exclusives

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.

Online Exclusives

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...

Online Exclusives

Research in Overdrive

Research in Overdrive

Last December when Illinois Tech learned that Jeff Wereszczynski, assistant professor of physics, was the recipient of a Faculty Early Career Development ( CAREER ) Award from the National Science Foundation, the news was exciting enough. His win brought the number of CAREER Awards presented to Illinois Tech faculty to...

Audio Extras

Hit Clubs of the Mid-Century

Hit Clubs of the Mid-Century

Listen to University Archivist Ralph Pugh talk about popular Illinois Tech student clubs of the 1940s and 1950s in this IIT Magazine Audio Extra.

Video Extras

Shaping Future Leaders

In this IIT Magazine Video Extra, chemical engineering alumnus Manu Vora discusses how Google Hangouts is helping him share presentation skills and quality management know-how with students here and abroad.

Video Extras

Cleversafe Kudos

Cleversafe founder Chris Gladwin, whose company was recently acquired by IBM, talks about the connection between Cleversafe and Illinois Tech in this IIT Magazine Video Extra.

Alumni News

Classnotes

1950s Theodore “Ted” Brown (CHEM ’50), Bonita Springs, Fla., is the founding director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Boris Stern (CHEM ’50), Tampa, Fla., is a former WWII infantry squad leader. Stern is now known as “The Cookie Man”...

Alumni News

Alumni Memories

How would you pay homage to an individual who accompanied you along the road of life for more than six decades? A few months ago Winfried Rudloff (Ph.D. EE ’65) contacted IIT Magazine about sharing the story of his beloved “Hedi” with his Illinois Tech classmates and other readers ...

Alumni News

Morton Nemiroff

Engaging with Illinois Tech, Near and Far

Staying connected to your alma mater after graduation can be tough. The “real world” beckons—you begin your career, maybe start a family, and priorities constantly shift. While it may be hard to find the time to come back to campus, there are ways to remain a part of Illinois Institute of Technology long after graduation that don’t even involve leaving your hometown.

Alumni News

Alumni Events

For information about the upcoming alumni events listed here and other alumni activities, please visit alumni.iit.edu/events or contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 312.567.5040 or alumni@iit.edu . Connect Today! Are you connected to the IIT Alumni Association? When you update your mailing address, phone number, and email you ensure...

Alumni News

Alumni News

Phoenix Alumni Gathering President Alan W. Cramb’s third stop on his inauguration tour took him to Arizona, where he mingled and spoke with alumni at the Tempe Center for the Arts last December. Scholars Meet Benefactors Alan and Suzanne Wendorf Endowed Scholarship Fund recipients Adam Lilliebridge (ARCH 4th year) [left]...

Alumni News

Obituaries

Paul F. Schutt PHYS ’55 Amelia Island, Florida Paul Schutt lived his life according to a simple statement: “I believe in God, family, and country.” After graduating with a physics degree from Illinois Tech, Schutt married his wife, Suzi, and then served in the United States Army for three years...

Alumni News

In Memoriam

Gustav Kvapil ARCH ’35 Scottsdale, Ariz. Henry Bittner ME ’42 Littleton, Colo. George Bixby ME ’42 Carefree, Ariz. David Johnson Jr. ME ’43 Oak Ridge, Tenn. Julian Bowers FPE ’44 Sanford, N.C. Jack Eulitt CHE ’44 Charlotte, N.C. Henry Koci ME ’45 Downers Grove, Ill. Robert Thurston ME ’45 Colts...

Rewind

Fun As a Timeless Commodity

Fun As a Timeless Commodity

Student Union Handbook Cover Melanie Standish (PSYC 3rd year), president of the Illinois Tech Union Board, may be a member of Generation Web; but since history is one of her strong interests, she relished the opportunity to spend hours in the IIT Archives digging up facts the old-school way for...

IIT Magazine Spring 2016

Vice President for External Affairs

David Baker

Managing Editor

Marcia Faye

Associate Editor

Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson

Contributors

Amanda Cleary Eastep
Marcia Gehring
Emma Macmillan
Koren Wetmore

Art Director/Design

Scott Benbrook

Illinois Tech Magazine is published two times a year by the Office of Marketing and Communications

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