Spring 2022

Cause for Celebration

For the first time since 2019, Illinois Tech feted its graduates with an in-person Commencement ceremony on May 14, 2022, providing a chance for 1,899 students to mark the occasion with peers, friends and family, and university faculty and leadership.
A Gamble Worth Taking

With a desire to help solve problems, Marilyn Barrios (ITM, M.A.S. ITM ’18) decide to leave a career in information technology sales to go back to school to study cybersecurity—and she is now helping Motorola Solutions design more secure systems.

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...

Letters

Letter from the President

With my first academic year at Illinois Tech drawing to a close, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on where we as a university are and where we are going. I am incredibly excited about the future of our university, fully recognizing that there will be some alterations in how we move forward as we begin to emerge out of a once-in-a-century pandemic that has left an indelible mark on every aspect of our lives, including higher education.

On Campus

Letters

What a Quality Education Can Do After reading the “ Lift While You Climb ” article in the fall 2021 edition of Illinois Tech Magazine, Ronald A. Dickman (BE ’67) reached out to share how his experiences as a student mirror the vision that President Raj Echambadi has for the...

On Campus

A Ceremony Worth the Cheers

There was more than one reason to celebrate on Saturday, May 14, on Illinois Institute of Technology’s Ed Glancy Field: Not only was it a culmination of one of life’s great milestones, graduating from college, for 1,899 Illinois Tech students, but it was also a chance to gather together with peers, friends and family, and faculty and leadership to mark the occasion.

On Campus

Elevate-ing Education

Elevate-ing Education By Andrew Wyder I t wasn’t all that long ago that an education at a top-tier university like Illinois Institute of Technology alone would help its graduates stand out in the job market. Increasingly employers across all industries are looking for more: according to the National Association of...

On Campus

Innovation in Action

If the work that was presented during the Grainger Computing Innovation Prize competition and at Innovation Day was any indication, the next generation of Illinois Tech graduates already has a strong handle on creating community-focused, sustainable solutions to some of the most pressing issues facing our communities. Student teams offered creative technology solutions, including the winning team’s sustainable digital currency, during the Grainger competition, while students worked in multidisciplinary teams to solve real-world problems facing businesses in Bronzeville and beyond during the fall 2021 semester Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program and then highlighted the results during its end-of-semester showcase.

On Campus

Implanting Innovation

The potential to restore partial vision to people who have lost their sight took a giant step forward in February, when a first-of-its-kind artificial vision system was successfully implanted into a brain at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The Intracortical Visual Prosthesis (ICVP), an implant that bypasses the retina and optic nerves to connect directly to the brain’s visual cortex, was surgically implanted in the ICVP study’s first participant. This surgery is part of a Phase I Feasibility Study of an Intracortical Visual Prosthesis for People With Blindness.

On Campus

Put the Money Where the Eye Isn’t

Have you ever watched a movie and saw a car that made you think, “That’s a car I’d like to buy?” That was likely the point, the prominent placement in the movie a ploy to make you remember that product after you’re done watching. Priming, or publicizing, the placement through advertisements is another way that marketers highlight those prominent placements.

On Campus

Illinois Tech Headliners

“There are a few states, Illinois being one of them, that have laws governing biometric data, but, again, there is no comprehensive federal law. So what governs what this company does with your data? It's going to be their contract, their terms of service….You read your contract with them, it says there’s a disclaimer of warranties. It says we are providing our services as is. That’s worse than most products that you buy, where you have a 30-day warranty.”

Research Briefs

Waste Not, Want Not

In the United States, it’s estimated that up to 40 percent of food produced is never eaten. Illinois Tech Associate Professor Weslynne Ashton is part of a national network of researchers aiming to transform what is known about food waste and how solutions can be created to solve it, supported by $15 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. The project—the Multiscale Resilient, Equitable, and Circular Innovations with Partnership and Education Synergies (RECIPES) for Sustainable Food Systems—includes more than 40 researchers at 14 universities and institutions across the country, led by American University.

Research Briefs

Diet, Deconstructed

Technology has been utilized to create solutions across all industries and sectors, so why not use it to make diets more effective?

Research Briefs

An Unlikely Ally in the Fight Against Bacteria

Healing a wound is a battle, with bacteria congregating and multiplying on the wound surface, preventing healing and causing infections. Gathering bacteria can secrete a sticky material that keeps them glued to each other and the wound while also providing defense by making it harder for antibiotics to get inside, creating what is known as a biofilm. These biofilms are bacterial aggregates that are formed on any solid surface in an aqueous environment like those in the human body. About 80 percent of infectious diseases come from the biofilm state, according to Illinois Tech Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Seok Hoon Hong.

Research Briefs

Engine Ingenuity

Despite accounting for more than a quarter of the on-road vehicle energy consumption in the United States, heavy-duty trucks and other long-haul transportation account for just 1 percent of on-road vehicles. That’s a significant sustainability concern, one that Illinois Tech Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Carrie Hall is tackling—with software.

Athletics

Making a Splash

As if Megan Burrill (MSE/M.Eng. 4th Year) wasn’t busy enough outside of the pool—be it as a standout Accelerated Master’s Program student, leading student clubs like Material Advantage, or making blades and swords using heat, a hammer, and an anvil—she continues to find success in the water, too.

Athletics

Taking the Reins

After spending more than a year helping to guide the Illinois Tech Athletics Department through the pandemic, Usha Gilmore was named the university’s director of athletics in December 2021. She will also serve as an assistant vice president at Illinois Tech, and will continue in her roles as coordinator of compliance, facilities director, and the athletics diversity and inclusion designee.

Features

Ram Ramanujam

An entrepreneur and investor, Ram Ramanujam (Ph.D. ENG ’81) has spent the last 31 years of his career leading a host of technology startups in Silicon Valley. Raised in the South Indian community of Gandhigram—“sort of a utopian village modeled after some of [Mahatma Gandhi’s] teachings and rural education models,” he says—Ramanujam prized education and supporting others from an early age.

Features

Eric Burger

In 2017 the United States was fighting a common enemy—robocalls from overseas operations that scammed people of their hard-earned savings.

Features

Steven Babitch

Solving the Right Problem By Steve Hendershot PHOTO BY ADAM B. AUEL S teven Babitch (DSGN ’07) is a practitioner of human-centered design, which means he specializes in cultural translation: He walks into big, complex organizations that are struggling to understand the people they serve—from United Airlines to the Mayo...

Features

Michael DeAnda

Michael Anthony DeAnda (Ph.D. Technology and Humanities ’19) designs games with the aim of showing the game industry, and society at large, new ways of being.

Features

Marilyn Barrios

Designing security into code is a lot like designing security in a house, Marilyn Barrios (ITM, M.S. ITM ’18) says. Each door, window, and any other point of entry must be secured. But these security measures aren’t considered after the house is built. They are embedded in the initial design of the house.

Philanthropy News

‘Sparking’ Success at Illinois Tech

At a time when talking about the American dream can seem old-fashioned, Olin’s life and point of view make a compelling case that the dream is alive and well. Even better, Olin is committed to making the dream available to everyone, starting with the students at Illinois Institute of Technology.