30 minute read
Taking a Quantum Leap
SCIENCE
Research Poised to Take a Quantum Leap
Illinois Institute of Technology is ies surrounding the origins of the universe. With Khatiwada’s project, an array of charging into the quantum informa- “If we disrupt the pendulum, say, with a novel qubits and devices will be controlled tion sciences with funding from the puff of air, we destroy the simple harmonic and readout with minimal electronics and United States Department of Energy’s motion, it becomes decoherent, and the heat load, which will be applicable not five-year, $575 million commitment to the qubit becomes useless,” Zasadzinski says. only to quantum computing, but also National Quantum Initiative. It includes “The sources of decoherence in current in developing highly sensitive dark funding for five new Quantum Information superconducting-based qubits is the most matter detectors. Science Research Centers nationwide, of important question in the field.” The Department of Physics at Illinois which two include Illinois Tech faculty. Rakshya Khatiwada, assistant professor Tech is expanding its research and involve-
John Zasadzinski, Paul and Suzi Schutt of physics and associate scientist at ment in quantum science with its faculty Endowed Chair in Science and professor Fermilab, focuses on developing quantum and graduate students working in various of physics, performs superconducting sensors for ultra-light dark matter subfields, including quantum materials tunneling spectroscopy on sample pieces detection. She and two of her colleagues and systems, sensing and computing, and from particle accelerator superconducting at Fermilab were awarded $4.1 million collaborating with different academic, radio-frequency cavities. His proposal for for their project through the Quantum national labs, and industry partners. The the Superconducting Quantum Materials Science Center at Oak Ridge National NQI awards will fund the project from and Systems Center at Fermi National Laboratory. Khatiwada’s project aims to 2020–25 and will open many opportunities Accelerator Laboratory incorporates using develop a high throughput cryogenic for students as well as for postdocs. this form of spectroscopy to help identify testing facility for novel quantum sensors —Casey Moffitt the sources of decoherence in quantum and devices that will be controlled through bits (qubits) and potential ways to mitigate highly multiplexed readout electronics, an the problem. Such research should help increase the length of time a qubit can essential area of research in scaling up the qubit infrastructure for quantum comput Social Media › effectively process information. ing and sensing.
While “bits” in conventional computers “We are charting a new territoryin the are transistors that are either off or on quantum science field by investigating and to create a binary logic system, qubits fabricating novel sensors and their readout oscillate between two states, much like techniques and are paving the way a pendulum, while conducting useful forward for science in this relatively new calculations during the motion. This ability area,” Khatiwada says.“One of the current makes a quantum computer much more challenges in quantum computing is efficient in terms of the resources of time efficiently scaling up control and readout and space that are needed to process of a large array of qubits without adding complex computations with applications significant heat load and bulky electronics in a wide variety of fields from defense and in the dilution refrigerator, where quantum financial trading to unraveling the myster- computers are built.”
Patent Advances a Next-Generation Artificial Pancreas System By Mary Ceron-Reyes
Artificial pancreas technology has tremendous potential to improve the daily lives of people with Type 1 diabetes beyond what is achievable using traditional methods. New research led by Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Chemical Engineering Ali Cinar provides the fundamental algorithms necessary for the next-generation technology to further advance artificial pancreas systems, while introducing a new approach for monitoring and regulating the glucose levels of people with diabetes.
His research team obtained a patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office in May for its invention titled “Multivariable Artificial Pancreas Method and System.”
Modules of the Multivariable AP System
Control System Insulin Pump
Hypoglycemia prediction and rescue snack suggestion
Hypoglycemia prediction and insulin blousing
Exercise detection, type, and intensity classification
Plasma, insulin, and glucose estimation
AP fault detection and diagnosis, data reconciliation
Acute psychological stress detection and classification
Additional new modules Body Glucose Sensor (CGM)
Wearable Device (biometric)
Since 2004, Cinar—director of the Engineering Center for Diabetes Research and Education, and Hyosung S. R. Cho Endowed Chair in Engineering—alongside co-inventors Kamuran Turksoy (Ph.D. BME ’15) and Iman Hajizadeh (Ph.D. CHBE ’19), have been developing fully automated, multivariable artificial pancreas systems to automatically monitor and infuse insulin according to metabolic changes that occur in response to food consumption and physical activities. The team’s design consists of a glucose sensor, a wristband, a dedicated smart phone, and an insulin pump that is fully automated and does not require manual inputs from the user.
Cinar explains that the regulation of glucose levels requires people with diabetes to conduct an extensive amount of daily maintenance, including testing theirblood glucose regularlywith a fingerstick or use a continuous glucose monitor. By making management of Type 1 diabetes easier and more precise, this technology could reduce the daily burden of this disease, while also potentially reducing diabetes complications.
While today’s hybrid AP systems still require frequent input and decisions from the user about when and how much insulin to administer, in comparison, a fully automated artificial pancreas alleviates that responsibility from people with diabetes, especially from those who are unable to take care of themselves.
Individuals with Type 1 diabetes must receive insulin from external sources to regulate the concentration of glucose— the main source of fuel for the body—in the blood. However, too much insulin or other diabetes medications may cause blood-sugar levels to drop too low, causing hypoglycemia.
The Illinois Tech team is further developing the multivariable artificial pancreas to interpret the signals from the glucose sensor and the wristband for determining the presence, type, intensity, and duration of physical activities; the presence of acute psychological stress; and the characteristics of sleep. All of these factors affect blood-glucose concentration and an AP system can automatically mitigate their effects.
With current grants from the JDRF, Cinar and his researchers have been refining the algorithms that control their AP system by factoring in additional physiological signals, or bodily reactions, from wearable devices that indicate future variations in blood-glucose concentration. By capturing the information in physiological variables reported by the wristband, Cinar says that his team can interpret the presence of physical activities, sudden physiological stress, and sleep characterAli Cinar
Multivariable Artificial Pancreas (mAP): Closed-Loop Automated Insulin Delivery System
Glucose Measurements (CGM)
Biosignals
Feedforward
Feedback Controller mAP
Insulin Pump
System identification in real time: Recursively updated model to predict future glucose concentrations
Multivariable controller that mitigates effects of meals, exercise
Machine learning to discover the habits of the patients over time from historical data (previous days) and adjust the controller parameters and proactively manages the potential a rapid glucose-level increase without help them develop algorithms to use for interpretations, resulting in better decisions on how much insulin to provide to patients using the artificial pancreas.”
Illinois Tech’s Office of Technology Development manages faculty intellectual property at the university and is in the process of identifying potential startup partners to commercialize this new technology for public use and benefit.
In addition, Cinar and his research team received a patent in 2014 for “Automatic Insulin Pumps Using Recursive Multivariable Models and Adaptive Control Algorithms.” This patent relates to developing adaptive models to describe and predict the glucose concentrations of the user and to automating insulin pumps to reduce or
These research efforts utilized resources supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under grants 1DP3DK101075-01 and 1DP3DK101077-01, and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (JDRF) under grants 17-2013-472 and 3-PDF-2016-175-A-N. Current funding from JDRF (2-SRA-2017-506M-B and 1-SRA-2019-819-S-B) enable further progress in treatment of diabetes and artificial pancreas research.
of exercise.” —Ali Cinar
istics, and adjust insulin dosing even before these factors affect the glucose levels of individuals with diabetes. This helps to enable the glucose levels of people to remain within the desired range in spite of factors that would cause significant perturbations.
“This is important because to date, there have been very few studies that considered how an artificial pancreas functions in an environment of exercise effects of exercise,” says Cinar.
As stated in the patent description, this invention will “automatically predict and alarm the patient of a predicted future, low blood-glucose concentration,” determining and suggesting responsive measures including carbohydrate consumption. This new method incorporates the automated detection of food consumption and/or eliminate the need for patient inputs. ●
manual entries from the patient.
These new modules will also assist in detecting errors in the components and operation of the artificial pancreas to achieve a system that can function in the presence of various equipment errors and limitations in control algorithms.
“Our patented work will assist in making researchers and companies in the United States become aware of this integrative process,” says Cinar. “It will Video ›
Artificial Pancreas: Developing Devices for the Future of Diabetes Care
Mask-Free Solution Better Than a Lullaby
By Casey Moffitt
David McCormick, IIT Research Institute professor of biology and IITRI president and director, says research on a family of new chemical compounds convinces him that he is on the path to finding an unusually safe and effective drug to treat sleep apnea.
“The idea is that you take a pill, it becomes active in 15 minutes or so, it maintains its activity for seven or eight hours, and then you get up and go to work,” McCormick says. “[People with sleep apnea] will get more sleep. They will have many fewer apneas, and they’re going to wake up much less often during the night. Importantly, they are also very likely to have reduced risks of stroke, heart disease,
Type 2 diabetes, and other diseases that are linked to sleep apnea.”
McCormick says he is encouraged not only by the efficacy of these compounds, but also by their safety.
United States Food and Drug Administration-mandated testing in preclinical models has shown very little toxicity, and none is detected until compounds are administered at doses that are 500 to 1,000 times greater than effective doses.
“That number is astronomical,” says McCormick, who is a diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology. “I’ve been doing preclinical toxicology for a long time, and I’ve never seen a drug like that.”
McCormick and his research collaborator, Nanduri
Prabhakar, the Harold Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, have spent the last five years developing and testing the family of amino-acid-based compounds, which maintain the tonal structure of the airways during sleep and modulate signal transmission in the carotid body. These factors underlie obstructive and central sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the airways are restricted. Central sleep apnea occurs when signals from the brain to the breathing muscles fail. In either case, patients stop breathing during the night, sometimes hundreds of times.
The FDA has not approved a drug to treat sleep apnea.
Treatments approved by the FDA for sleep apnea include oral appliances, but more common is the use of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, which uses mild air pressure to keep airways open.
› IIT Research Institute President and Director David McCormick consults with a member of his technical staff about the sleep apnea drug they are developing.
More than 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association, making it nearly as common as Type 2 diabetes—and a potentially large market for the drug.
Development and testing of the compound were funded with a five-year, $9.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
McCormick and Prabhakar co-founded Anapneo Therapeutics to commercialize the intellectual property aspect and accelerate the translation of the lead compound into clinical trials, which are expected to begin in 2021.
In June 2019 Anapneo was selected to receive a $250,000 investment through the George Schultz Innovation Fund at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
The technology is licensed to ANP Therapeutics, a venture-capital-backed startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which now oversees the work Anapneo conducts. McCormick earned a seat on the ANP Board of Directors, while he and Nanduri co-chair the startup’s Scientific Advisory Board. ●
Video ›
Illinois Tech Researchers Make Strides Toward First-Ever Sleep Apnea Drug
› An artist’s concept of the Intracortical Visual Prosthesis System. The vision regions of the brain are stimulated by electrodes contained within Wireless Floating Microelectrode Arrays (WFMA) electronic modules. WFMA size shown relative to United States penny. Electrode tip shown relative to human hair. A group of WFMAs acts like an implanted cell-phone network for communicating vision information directly to the brain. Stimulation patterns derived from the camera image are communicated to the implant via a transcutaneous link with no wires that cross the scalp to produce the perception of artificial vision.
IMAGE: COURTESY OF PHILIP TROYK
Vision Quest
By Mary Ceron-Reyes
While there is currently no cure for blindness, a first-of-its-kind artificial vision system that Illinois Institute of Technology researchers have developed will advance to clinical trials this year.
IMAGE: COURTESY OF PHILIP TROYK
› Wireless Floating Microelectrode Array (WFMA) device that will be implanted into the visual area of the brain. Eighteen tiny electrodes protrude from the 5mm diameter device.
› A WFMA undergoes electrical testing in the laboratory to assure functionality. The completed WFMA will be packaged for sterilization before being implanted into the recipient’s visual area of the brain located in the lower back of the head.
The National Institutes of Healthhas awarded $2.5 million for the first year of a three-year project that includes implanting a new type of wireless visual prosthesis system in volunteers. Funding will be provided as part of the NIH’s The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative.
The implant system was developed by a multi-institutional team led by Philip R. Troyk—executive director of the Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and affiliated professor in Stuart School of Business—and represents the culmination of nearly three decades of Illinois Tech research dedicated to ultimately providing artificial sight to those with blindness due to eye disease or trauma.
“This is an incredibly exciting moment, not just for the field of biomedical science, but more importantly for people with blindness and their loved ones around the world,” says Troyk.
Since many individuals affected by total blindness do not have intact retinas or optic nerves but retain the visual cortex—the area of the brain that allows people to see—an intracortical visual prosthesis may be the only possible advanced visual prosthesis from which they can benefit.
The Intracortical Visual Prosthesis System is the first intracortical visual implant to use a group of fully implanted miniaturized wireless stimulators to help explore whether individuals with no sight can visualize rendered images in real time through visual perception. The system also allows devices to be implanted for an extended period of time, which is a unique advantage that provides researchers ample time to explore how the device can work effectively, and for the recipient to learn how the device can be useful.
The research team began the clinical trial process this September, with implant surgeries scheduled to take place at Rush University Medical Center in early 2021. Illinois Tech will partner with The Chicago Lighthouse; Johns Hopkins University; the University of Texas at Dallas; Microprobes for Life Science; Sigenics, Inc.; and The University of Chicago on the initiative, with Troyk serving as the principal investigator. In addition, Illinois Tech’s Department of Psychology is also a team participant in the research project. ●
Disclaimer: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number UH3NS095557. This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Philip R.Troyk, “Clinical Testing of an Intracortical Visual Prosthesis System,” National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke ($2,522,750); Grant number 4UH3NS095557-03.
Video ›
First-of-Its-Kind Artificial Vision System Moves to Clinical Trials
Exploring the Impact of Indoor Air Quality on Veterans with COPD Exploring the Impact of Indoor Air Quality on Veterans with COPD
Exploring the Impact of Indoor Air Quality on Veterans with COPD By Mary Ceron-Reyes Exploring the Impact of Indoor Air Quality By Mary Ceron-Reyes
Many United States armed forces veterans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—a progressive lung disease that can cause coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other complications—may soon have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, thanks to Illinois Institute of Technology faculty researchers. Last fall theU.S.Department of Housing and Urban Developmentawarded the university a $1 million research grant so that Brent Stephens and his team could Many United States armed forces veterans with chronic obstructive investigate the impact of home air quality on veterans’ health. pulmonary disease—a progressive lung disease that can cause coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other complications— may soon have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, thanks to Illinois Institute of Technology faculty researchers. Last fall theU.S.Department of Housing and Urban Developmentawarded the university a $1 million
research grant so that Brent Stephens and his team could investigate the Professor Brent Stephens [at right] and Marina Beke, a master’s student in › impact of home air quality on veterans’ health.architectural engineering, set up a portable air purifier for testing in a newly constructed large chamber test facility designed by Assistant Professor Mohammad Heidarinejad.
An artist’s rendering of human lungs, with a close-up view of a bronchiole leading to an alveolus. The alveolus is the site of gaseous exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between inhaled air and the bloodstream.
Stephens, professor and chair ofArmour College of Engineering’s civil, architectural, and environmental engineering department, is leading the study, which focuses on Chicago-area veterans being treated at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. In collaboration withMohammad Heidarinejad, assistant professor of architectural engineering, the team is exploring the effectiveness of stand-alone air filtration for improving indoor air quality, specifically assessing individuals with COPD. The team is also exploring the utility of using low-cost indoor air quality sensors for informing both doctors and patients.
The duo is partnering withIsrael “Rudi” Rubinstein, M.D.—a professor of medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and associate chief of staff for research and development at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center—andElevate Energyto investigate potential housing-related factors that may contribute to increased COPD exacerbations, particularly within underserved, socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods of Chicago.
Veterans will use high-efficiency air cleaners in their homes for two years, aiding researchers in gathering air-quality results and assessing COPD health outcomes as compared with results of individuals who live in homes without air cleaners.
“We are working with veterans, but the research results could help everyone with COPD and give doctors new tools for helping their patients,” says Stephens. “And the team uniquely integrates engineering, medicine, and public health to address the issue.”
The Jesse Brown VA Medical Center experienced nearly 11,000 clinic visits and 700 emergency room visits from patients with COPD in FY18, costing more than $2.3 million for treatment, as noted in the HUD grant application. If the air cleaners show benefits, they could become standard measures that could be prescribed by doctors. And if the low-cost air quality sensors prove to be useful, they could become an easy tool for doctors to help assess whether home air quality may be impacting the COPD of their patients. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that COPD is the third leading cause of chronic morbidity and mortality in the U.S. and, in addition, the World Health Organization projects it will rank third in 2030 in burden of disease caused worldwide.
This past summer Stephens and Heidarinejad were awarded Illinois Tech’s Summer 2020 Faculty Innovation Grant, sponsored by the university’s offices of Career Services and Student Success and Strategic Initiatives, recognizing educational activities that provide meaningful career and professional development for
students. The grant helped to directly support the purchase of low-cost air quality monitors delivered to students’ homes, thus providing them with the opportunity to evaluate the monitors’ overall effectiveness. The students published their findings and results in blog posts throughout the semester. The information will help to inform which low-cost sensors will be employed for the COPD research study.
Stephens and Heidarinejad run the Built Environment Research Group at Illinois Tech, which is dedicated to investigating problems and solutions related to energy and air quality within the built environment. Stephens’s major research areas include indoor pollutant dynamics, building science measurements and methods, air cleaning and filtration, human exposure assessment, and building energy efficiency and energy simulation.
Heidarinejad is co-director of BERG, with expertise in building science, multiscale modeling of the built environment, building energy and environmental systems, building energy simulations, computational fluid dynamics, building control, and sustainable and smart cities. ●
Brent Stephens and Mohammad Heidarinejad, “Air Filtration to Improve Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Outcomes in a High-Risk Urban Population of U.S. Military Veterans,” U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ($1 Million)
Dan Zhao (Ph.D ENVE ’20) samples building materials for microbial growth in Brent Stephens’s lab.
PHOTO: DAVID ETTINGER
Social Media ›
› The project team is testing the utility of low-cost consumer-grade sensors for monitoring indoor air quality in the homes of military veterans with COPD and reporting results to their physicians.
Rewriting Unfair
TicketingPractices
By Andrew Connor
In early 2018 an investigation by the ProPublica Illinois investigative journalism team revealed that thousands of Chicagoans, most from low-income and minority neighborhoods, were forced into bankruptcy after they incurred debts through parking tickets and other non-moving traffic offenses. A joint report with WBEZ, Chicago’s National Public
Radio station, further revealed a pattern of fee accrual and, in many instances, repeat tickets for the same offenses, leading to a debt spiral.
In light of the revelations, the City of Chicago created the Fines, Fees &
Access Collaborative—a group of city departments, community organizations, elected officials, and academic institutions including Illinois Institute of Technology’s
Institute of Design (ID)—to address the inequities of Chicago’s ticketing practices.
“Having academic partners pushes us to think outside of the box. That’s especially from the user end, which I think is really important for the government to look at more,” says Chicago City Clerk
Anna Valencia.
Led by ID ProfessorMark Jones (M.Des. ’95), a class of 18 students conducted secondary research—analyzing how other cities handled similar problems—and interviewed roughly 60 Chicago residents to learn about their interactions with the city in regard to parking tickets. Students found vocal residents bemoaning a lack of clear and easy-to-access information from the city.
“As we did the research, we saw the communications weren’t working well. People weren’t understanding, they’re confused, not getting the messages,” says Jones. “One thing that came through is how much people rely on word of mouth, and that the official channels where people are supposed to learn things aren’t effective; word of mouth isn’t always accurate. I think residents, particularly in low-income neighborhoods, feel as though they’re not being taken care of well. They feel as though the city is not trying to prevent them from getting into trouble.”
The students then honed in on a suite of solutions to improve communication between the city and citizens, to help avoid tickets and build trust. One example is a Tailored Ticket Roadmap, an online portal that graphically breaks down how much money an individual may owe and important dates—when to contest or when a fine doubles—to offer residents a clearer understanding of how to approach their debt.
Similarly, a mobile lawyer program could provide unfairly ticketed individuals, especially lower-income individuals who may not otherwise have the resources to challenge a ticket, with guidance on how to contest.
Though these specific interventions have not been adopted by the city, the root findings from the ID team have been invaluable and have informed the development of new-and-improved communications and programs, according to city officials. In addition, the project was recognized as a Fast Company Innovation by Design finalist in the Students category.
“The research and proposals presented to us by Illinois Institute of Technology have been at the center of the Fines, Fees, & Access Collaborative’s policy-crafting strategy moving forward,” says Treshonna Nolan, a representative from the Office of the City Clerk. “Unfortunately, our office won’t have the opportunity to go out into the community with our previously developed programs due to [COVID-19] safety concerns, but we’re continuing to improve our e-commerce platform, creating a more user-friendly experience. Our office is also working with members of the Fines, Fees, & Access Collaborative and City [of Chicago] departments to continue building a better system for our residents.” ● Step 1 Beginning the contesting conversation with your personal lawyer
Step 2 Contesting overview
PHOTO: SCOTT BENBROOK
Peer Navigators Lend Support to African Americans with Serious Mental Illness
By Linsey Maughan
New research from Illinois Institute of Technology’s ChicagoHealthDisparitiesCenter explores the benefits of providing “peer navigators” to members of marginalized populations struggling with health issues. The latest study, wrapping up in 2020, examines the impact of peer navigator support on the diet and exercise habits of African
Americans with serious mental illness.
Patrick Corrigan, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and director of the center, is spearheading the research alongside
Senior Research Associate Lindsay Sheehan. The study is funded by theNational Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.
“People with serious mental illness get sick and die 20 years before everyone else, and if they’re of color, it’s even worse,” Corrigan says. “Another problem is obesity, which is one of the biggest concerns for people getting sick, and even bigger for people with serious mental illness and people in the Black community. We wanted to focus on diet and exercise [in this study]—the innovative part is the peer navigator.”
Peer navigators involved in the program are members of the same demographic as the study participants who themselves have
› Patrick Corrigan [left] and Sonya Ballentine, of the Chicago Health
Disparities Center
—Patrick Corrigan
adopted successful diet and exercise habits and are able to share what they’ve learned with others.
“The navigator works in the world helping the person actually get to the places they need to go to achievetheir goals,” Corrigan says. “The very real task of walking someone around supportively is essential to navigating.”
All study participants live on the South Side of Chicago, which presents its own challenges to diet and exercise success. Many of the participants live within food and activity deserts, meaning there is a lack of access to grocery stores selling healthy foods in addition to a lack of access to safe and suitable outdoor spaces for exercise.
“[Factoring in those barriers] takes these health issues and puts them in the social justice perspective,” Corrigan says. “You live in parts of the city where you can’t get good food or where you can’t go out and walk. [Within our study] we have this peer navigator that goes in and helps you deal wherever you live. The essence of the peer navigator is, ‘I see you in your space, I come to your community and see you in your neighborhood, park, grocery store.’”
The study was developed through a 15-month communitybased participatory research program, wherein the target population weighed in on the planning. One-third of participants make individual efforts toward improving diet and exercise habits, one-third are assigned randomized diet and exercise programs, and one-third are assigned peer navigators to help support their diet and exercise efforts. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the study’s 2020 participants have been connecting with peer navigators by phone rather than in person.
Corrigan and Sheehan will spend 2021 analyzing their research findings and sharing that information. They also plan to pursue more studies involving peer navigators and other
Research reported in this article is supported by two grants from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, of the National Institutes of Health, under award numbers U101MD01054101 ($2,392,826) and 1R24MD007925-01 ($1,214,548). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
underserved groups. ● Video ›
Chicago Health Disparities Center
Rewriting the History of Gender and Technology
By Linsey Maughan
Mar Hicks has a lot going on.
Since receiving the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize from the American Historical Association in 2019 for their debut book, Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing(MIT Press), the associate professor of history has been working on a number of book projects and is a go-to expert for major media outlets seeking commentary on issues related to the history of gender and technology.
The Massachusetts native, who has been a faculty member in the Illinois Institute of Technology Department of Humanities since fall 2011, says they were originally motivated to write Programmed Inequalitybecause of the high number of women of older generations they’d known who had worked in computing, including their own mother, who was a programmer.
“I knew there were a lot of women who had done this work, and then somehow the gender of the field had flipped,” Hicks says. “Nobody really talked about how and why that happened.”
Hicks focused their research on the United Kingdom’s rise and fall in the field of computing, and discovered along the way how gendered labor played a role in the decline of computing in the U.K. The lessons learned “can be appliedfar beyond the U.K. context,” Hicks says.
Hicks spent the 2018–19 academic year in North Carolina as the recipient of a Founders’ Fellowship through the National Humanities Center, during which they worked on several projects including a new book they are writing, Digital Resistance: Hidden Histories of the Electronic Age.
“Digital Resistanceinvestigates the history of users’ resistance to hegemonic technological systems,” Hicks says, “including the early history of work-from-home computer programmers, of women-designed computer dating systems, and of transphobic algorithmic bias in the mainframe era—and trans people’s attempts to push back against it.”
In spring 2021 Your Computer Is on Fire, a book Hicks co-edited, will be published by MIT Press. It looks at problems around large techno-social infrastructures that are a part of our daily life. Halcyon Lawrence (M.S. TCOM ’10, Ph.D. ’13), who is now an assistant professor at Towson University, also contributed an essay to the collection.
Hicks has also begun working on two other books. From the Ashes: How Disasters Highlight Flaws inthe Social Contract and Advance Technological Progress looks at technological disasters throughout history that in the end helped shape national and global infrastructures.
Women in Mathematics(MIT Press), on which Hicks is a co-writer of this updated, rewritten, and expanded version of Lynn M. Osen’s earlier volume, will “help diversify, contextualize, and reorient the history of the field.”
When difficulties arise, Hicks says, it is important to continue teaching and learning about the humanities.
“At times like these, it might seem like nothing we do matters. In the U.S. right now we are seeing unapologetic cruelty at scale, we are seeing destruction of lives, and we are seeing viciousness directed at people who have had to struggle the most historically to be heard, be free, and exercise their rights,” says Hicks.
“This is when the work of humanists and historians matters the most. When we’re up against a power structure that doesn’t care about our humanity, that’s when we have to redouble our efforts to show how important these subjects are, and how they keep us moving forward.” ●
Ushering in a New Internet Era
By Casey Moffitt
Anita Nikolich, Illinois Institute of Technology computer science research professor, was named a co-director of the National Science Foundation FABRIC (Adaptive Programmable Research Infrastructure for Computer Science and Science Applications) project, led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with Illinois Institute of Technology, Clemson University, the University of Kentucky, and the Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network as partners. FABRIC’s goal is to enable scientists to explore what a new internet could look like and to determine the internet architecture of the future. The first high-speed node in the $20 million project is going up in Chicago, in preparation for early experimentation by researchers and industry partners seeking to build the future internet.
“The internet was designed to move packets of information and to allow people to talk between a few locations,” Nikolich says. “By the late 1990s it grew to include people using it in their daily lives. These protocols are not scaled for today’s uses.”
The FABRIC project’s 2020 plans also include global smart city experiments in cooperation with the Chicago-based Array of Things and internet of things sensors based in Georgia to imagine how cities can use artificial intelligence and share data in real time to improve urban quality of life.
It will also test new network designs that will allow experimentation with decentralized architectures instead of relying on current service providers’ networks. This could potentially enable faster speeds, allow transfers of larger data sets, provide service to underserved areas, and find new ways to protect transferred information.
These designs will be tested on a nationwide scale using dedicated high-speed optical links between locations. A new $3 million grant, FAB: FABRIC Across Borders, extends FABRIC internationally to Tokyo; the CERN particle accelerator facility in Geneva; Amsterdam; and Bristol, England, with each node testing cuttingedge technologies such as 5G wireless networking, data collection and transmission, cloud computing, and smart city efforts. ●
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. (1935966) and Grant No. (2029260).
Research Professor › Anita Nikolich makes adjustments to a computer system at the Ocient
Computational Center on Illinois Tech’s Mies Campus.
Office of Research 10 West 35th Street IIT Tower, 7th Floor Chicago, IL 60616
