Over the past couple of years, we have seen significant changes to our country’s funding priorities. Government funding is targeting areas that are strategic to our country’s long-term economic well-being and security.
At Illinois Tech we have received a $6 million Accelerating Research Translation grant from the National Science Foundation to grow our capacity to turn fundamental research into societal impact. This issue of Illinois Tech Research also highlights some of our relevance-inspired research including work on radiator control, recycling waste into materials for architecture and design, and extracting valuable minerals and forever chemicals from wastewater. We have also invested in promoting equity and fairness in food systems, in artificial intelligence applications, and in stormwater management.
Let me invite you to explore the latest in Illinois Tech research, which spans all of our disciplines. I also encourage you to return to research.iit.edu throughout the year to discover what is new.
Sincerely,
Fred Hickernell Vice Provost for Research Professor of Applied Mathematics
RESEARCH2024
JOURNEY TO THE JUNGLE
Professor Matthew Spenko’s team, Welcome to the Jungle, is one of six finalists competing in the $10 million global XPRIZE Rainforest Competition.
INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE FOR EQUITABLE EATING
Professor Weslynne Ashton is leading a research project to harness the power of food procurement by large, public institutions.
16 18
GETTING TO THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM
Research Assistant Professor Weikang Ma has published a pair of papers and received a $2 million grant to further his research in inherited cardiac conditions.
AN ABUNDANT BLUE RESOURCE
Through new grants and regional partnerships, Illinois Tech researchers are increasingly focused on one of the the Great Lakes region’s most abundant resources: water.
20 22
DESIGNING GOOD HEALTH CARE
One of the first projects funded by the federal Accelerating Research Translation award is a startup seeking to safely speed up drug research. 10 14 2 24
A new study by Kim Erwin, director of the Institute of Design’s Equitable Healthcare Action Lab, explores the impact of designers in the health care industry.
ACCELERATING A BREAKTHROUGH
IN BRIEF
Concrete Solutions
Correcting AI Bias
When Disaster Strikes, Social Media and AI to the Rescue
Discussing Math at the Highest Level
Researching and Refining Justice
Fulton Labs Open for Research
Research Video Highlights
SPOTLIGHTS
Turning Water Into Gas?
Tackling Health Care Disparities
Reaching the Margins
Accolades for Innovation
That Curtain Is Made of What?
Radiating Innovation
Illinois Tech students conduct research in the Amazon as part of the 2024 XPrize Rainforest competition. The Illinois Tech-led team, Welcome to the Jungle, have emerged as finalists.
Illinois Tech Research is published annually by the Office of Marketing and Communications and the Office of Research.
ADA Statement
Illinois Institute of Technology provides qualified individuals with disabilities reasonable accommodations to participate in university activities, programs, and services. Such individuals with disabilities requiring an accommodation should call the activity, program, or service director. For further information about Illinois Tech’s resources, contact the Illinois Tech Center for Disability Resources at disabilities@iit.edu.
Concrete Solutions
The Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology recently celebrated upgrades to modernize its Concrete Materials and Structures Lab.
Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Matthew Gombeda has replaced most of the lab’s concrete mixing and batching equipment and has added new compression testing machines for hardened concrete samples, which helps him prepare specimens for testing.
The lab was first established at Illinois Tech in the 1970s, and one of the major upgrades Gombeda made was rebuilding the structural testing bay with a reaction wall and floor, allowing him to do larger tests.
“We have a unique ability in our lab now where we can batch a pretty large amount of concrete on one side and then test beams and larger structural components about 60 feet away, so it’s an all-in-one unit,” says Gombeda.
Civil engineering students spend time in the lab as part of required concrete materials and structures courses, during which they mix and test their own concrete and are able to watch concrete beams being tested.
On the research side, Gombeda and his students now have greater capabilities to do more experiments in-house, and he has been using the new equipment for an ongoing project, funded by
COMPUTATION AND DATA
Correcting AI Bias
Machine learning models have demonstrated powerful predictability capabilities, but also have demonstrated bias against certain demographic groups. Graduate student Canyu Chen (Ph.D. CS 3rd Year) is part of a research group that is working to limit that bias and build public trust in machine learning models.
“Fairness and privacy are two important aspects in trustworthy artificial intelligence,” Canyu says. “When reading papers, I noticed that it is a critical but underexplored problem to study fair AI algorithms considering realworld privacy constraints.”
the United States Department of Energy, exploring the benefits of using fly ash in concrete.
The new setup allowed Gombeda and his team to mix many different batches of concrete, evaluate a range of the concrete’s properties just after mixing, and then do long-term monitoring of the properties over multiple weeks.
—Simon Morrow
Machine learning models are increasingly used in health care to diagnose disease, develop treatment plans, and model the spread of viruses. Attacking bias
against specific ethnic groups, genders, or age will help mitigate existing health care disparities among minority groups.
“The goal of this work is to explore how to make fair predictions under privacy constraints,” Chen says. “More specifically, conventional bias mitigation algorithms are not applicable to real-world scenarios where privacy mechanisms such as local differential privacy are enforced.”
The team studied a new and practical solution for fair classification in a semi-private setting, where most of the sensitive attributes are private and only a small number of clean ones are available. It developed a novel framework, FairSP, that can achieve fair prediction under this semi-private setting.
In March 2024 Chen received a Sigma Xi/IIT Award for Excellence in University Research. Sigma Xi, a scientific research society, is a nonprofit group of nearly 75,000 scientists and engineers who have been elected to the society because of their research achievements or potential.
—Tad Vezner
Canyu Chen
Kurt Ordillas (CE/M.Eng. TE ’20, Ph.D. CE Candidate), right, and two consultants from Thornton Tomasetti in the Concrete Materials and Structures Lab.
50% Increase in New Awards for Sponsored Projects
COMPUTATION AND DATA
Breaking the Neural Network Barrier
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Ankit Srivastava has developed a groundbreaking technique for solving equations describing systems that change with time, and NVIDIA has used the method to improve Modulus, its program for building artificial intelligence models.
His breakthrough comes from combining neural networks with computer-aided design (CAD) software, clearing roadblocks that had previously stopped researchers from using neural networks to solve these types of problems.
The result is a “very generalizable” solution, allowing him to use a neural network to solve much more complex geometries than ever before.
“They are very, very powerful,” says Srivastava.
With its implementation into NVIDIA’s Modulus software, Srivastava says the method has already been applied to problems in a range of areas including fluid mechanics, structural dynamics, and finance.
It will take some work to get to the level of simulating a whole engine, but Srivastava says he thinks it’s only a matter of years. Current computational methods for solving these types of problems spend millions of dollars and major computational resources on one step—creating the mesh—and neural networks don’t require a mesh, so using neural networks could mean major cost savings.
—Simon Morrow
In fiscal year 2024, Illinois Tech received more than $50 million in new awards for sponsored programs, a roughly 50 percent increase over the previous year’s awards total of $33 million. Additionally, Illinois Tech increased the amount spent on sponsored projects to $40 million, an 18 percent increase from the previous year’s total of $34 million.
The domain of a partial differential equation (PDE), an image created by DallE representing the neural network.
When Disaster Strikes, It’s Social Media and AI to the Rescue
In the midst of a natural disaster or crisis, social media becomes a lifeline. But can the torrent of social media posts be harnessed to effectively guide relief efforts in real time as the crisis is happening?
Yes it can, says Harold L. Stuart Endowed Chair in Business
Siva K. Balasubramanian, co-author of “Mitigating Healthcare Supply Chain Challenges Under Disaster Conditions: A Holistic AI-Based Analysis of Social Media Data,” which is forthcoming in the International Journal of Production Research
Balasubramanian and his co-researchers ran simulations using datasets from 2020 and 2021 that contain more than 1.7 million social media messages posted when disruptions in health care supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic were causing severe shortages of essential, life-saving medical equipment. The framework they created demonstrates how to apply AI techniques to analyze social media data, extract actionable information, and direct response efforts as the disaster unfolds. The methods developed in this project can be applied in other contexts and types of disaster situations, according to Balasubramanian. “The remarkable thing is that AI offers a variety
of tools in the toolbox, so the most appropriate tool to solve a specific problem may be deployed” he says. “If the problem changes, then you use another tool.”
—Scott Lewis
Law Professor Wins Best Book Award
Chicago-Kent College of Law Professor Sungjoon Cho’s latest book—co-written with Jürgen Kurtz, professor of international economic law at the University of Melbourne, Australia—titled Investing the ASEAN Way: Theories and Practices of Economic Integration in South East Asia (Cambridge University Press 2022) was awarded the 2024 Best Book Award from the International Law Section of the International Studies Association
The award annually recognizes a book that “excels in originality, significance, and rigor in the broadly defined field of international law.”
The book explores law and governance in the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through the lens of foreign investment.
“In the United States, a lot of books about these laws and institutions are mostly focused on Western-led international organizations, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, or even the United Nations. But this is pretty regional, focused on Southeast Asia,” says Cho. “The culture is pretty different there, so the way the law operates is different there.”
Cho is fascinated by comparative law, or the study of comparisons between different legal systems.
—Kayla Molander
URBAN FUTURES
Siva K. Balasubramanian
‘‘Mies struggled to master the English language for years. His accent is noticeable in the audio from period recordings. He would gradually discover the power of the spoken word and the power of silence—especially important for teaching his students.”
—Michelangelo Sabatino
College of Architecture Professor Michelangelo Sabatino has recently published two books—The Edith Farnsworth House: Architecture, Preservation, Culture, and Mies in His Own Words—about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the architect of Illinois Institute of Technology’s modern campus.
COMPUTATION AND DATA
The Bolivia Connection
Gurram Gopal, chair of the Department of Information Technology and Management at Illinois Institute of Technology, recently visited campuses of Universidad Privada Boliviana (UPB) across the Bolivian countryside making academic and business connections between the university and Illinois Tech as a Fulbright Specialist
Gopal traveled to campuses in Cochabamba, La Paz, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, giving lectures on the digital trends in
the global economy and about how Bolivian enterprises can take advantage of this shift in his third award from the Fulbright program, which is sponsored by the United States Department of State.
“There are great business opportunities in Bolivia,” Gopal says. “Europe has been well-studied and established. China has been a big focus over the last 20 to 30 years. Over the next few years there are going to be a lot of opportunities in the developing economies in Central and South America.”
‘‘Over the next few years there are going to be a lot of opportunities in the developing economies in Central and South America.”
—Gurram Gopal
Gopal gave numerous lectures to faculty and students, participated in joint seminars, and joined panel discussions about applying the digital transformation into a developing economy using tools such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and other maturing technologies.
Gopal’s travel led to a book collaboration with Sergio GarciaAgreda, a UPB professor, and Mariana Pérez Escobar, a researcher at the Basel Institute on Governance, which will explore the digital transformation in Latin America.
—Casey Moffitt
Notable Research Awards
Several Illinois Tech faculty have recently received significant awards for their research, including:
Assistant Professor Ren Wang received a Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award for his research using insights from the human adaptive immune system to make artificial intelligence systems more resilient.
Associate Professor Abhinav Bhushan received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award to create better intestinal organoids and to investigate how bacteria impact the absorption of drugs.
Associate Professor Heng Wang received an NSF CAREER award to explore ways to improve infrared sensor technology by examining how to potentially take advantage of a
COMPUTATION AND DATA
phenomenon known as the “photo-thermoelectric effect.”
He also received an NSF award to use spintronics to develop hardware that encodes a new layer where information can be stored.
Assistant Professor Amir Mostafaei received an NSF CAREER award to continue his research developing new powders for additive manufacturing.
Professor Chun Liu has been elected as a 2024 fellow for the American Mathematical Society for his outstanding contributions to the field.
Assistant Professor Binghui Wang received an NSF CAREER Award to explore ways to make machine learning models more trustworthy.
Discussing Math at the Highest Level
Illinois Institute of Technology’s Tomasz Bielecki and Igor Cialenco, professors of applied mathematics, were among four academics invited to present a series of lectures based on their research at the renowned Banach Center in the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The lectures were part of the Simons Semester’s “Stochastic Modeling and Control,” hosted by the Institute of Mathematics Polish Academy of Sciences along with academics from the University of Leeds and the National University of Kyiv.
The pair spent more than a month in
Poland, each giving a series of five lectures on their research, as well as attending a conference and workshops that all were a part of the Simons Semester. The opportunity to discuss the latest research with fellow academics, industry leaders, and students from around the world can push the boundaries of mathematics research.
“The mere fact that we were able to go as speakers is not trivial to us,” Bielecki and Cialenco say. “Presenting at the Banach Center was a thrilling experience.”
Bielecki’s lecture series was based on his book, Structured Dependence Between Stochastic Processes, co-authored with Jacek Jakubowski and Mariusz Niewęgłowski.
The book explores the relatively young theory of structured dependence between stochastic processes and the real-life applications in areas including finance, insurance, seismology, neuroscience, and genetics.
Cialenco based his series on “Dynamic Risk and Performance Measures and Their Control,” research he has been conducting with several collaborators for the past 15 years.
—Casey Moffitt
Researching and Refining Justice
“You have to be nominated by people who recognize your work and think you have something important to contribute to this organization, so it’s really an honor,” says Carolyn Shapiro, co-director for the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States and professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Shapiro was recently elected as a new member of the American Law Institute (ALI), an independent scholarly organization that was formed nearly a century ago to address uncertainty and complexity in American law. ALI publishes Restatements of the Law, Model Codes, and Principles of Law, publications that influence courts, legislatures, and academic institutions. ALI members contribute to the drafting, discussion, and revision of these publications.
Shapiro, whose scholarship is largely focused on the institutions of our constitutional democracy, in particular
the U.S. Supreme Court, is ready to hit the ground running.
“They’re looking at doing an election law project, a restatement, and that’s one that I’m particularly excited about,” she says. “I’ve already put my name in to be involved in the consulting group.”
ALI, incorporated in 1923, was created
“to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to encourage and carry on scholarly and scientific legal work.”
—Kayla Molander
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Equitable Health Predictions
Illinois Institute of Technology Research Assistant Professor
Mudassir Rashid and Hyosung S. R. Cho Endowed Chair in Engineering Ali Cinar have received funding from the National Science Foundation to train artificial intelligence using electronic health records for the equitable delivery of health care in type 2 diabetes.
‘‘Our aim is to detect if a person is likely to develop type 2 diabetes before they present the symptom.”
—Mudassir Rashid
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 35 million adults in the United States have type 2 diabetes, and 8.7 million more have undiagnosed diabetes.
“Our aim is to detect if a person is likely to develop type 2 diabetes before they present the symptoms that would typically trigger screening,” says Rashid. This would allow doctors to recommend proactive testing and intervention.
Rashid is applying natural language processing and machine learning to electronic health records, which contain a range of information from a variety of sources, from historical laboratory results to free-text notes.
“There may be numerous complex associations among all of these data that would be difficult for a doctor to visually recognize,” says Rashid. “That’s a task where machine learning excels.”
Rashid says he has been particularly interested in addressing the challenges of algorithmic fairness in artificial intelligence for medicine.
“Artificial intelligence and machine learning often perpetuate or exacerbate the biases inherent in the data, but we want the algorithm to perform equally well for everyone,” he says.
Illinois Tech has a history of research in technologies and treatments for diabetes, including integrating artificial intelligence in automated insulin delivery systems.
—Simon Morrow
Carolyn Shapiro
Illinois Institute of Technology has leased approximately 34,295 square feet in Trammell Crow Company’s Fulton Labs innovation hub. University researchers will occupy the entire seventh floor of the cutting-edge wet lab facilities (shown below) at 400 North Aberdeen Street in Chicago. The university aims to fuel scientific breakthroughs and industry-relevant research as the first academic institution to join the thriving and collaborative innovation ecosystem alongside its Fulton Labs neighbors, which includes Portal Innovations and the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub. This location will mark the university’s first off-campus move to a commercial research hub, which it began to occupy in late summer 2024.
RESEARCH TO WATCH: 2024 Video Highlights
Frank Gunsaulus Faculty Fellow in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Boris Pervan discusses the work of CARNATIONS.
Fulbright scholar Narmeen Aamir (M.A.S. CPE ’24) finds a welcoming space at Illinois Tech.
Stanley Nicholson’s (MATH ’23) research involved simulating proteins dysfunctions, which are at the core of many diseases.
Jonte Williams’ (ASPY/PHYS 5th Year) deconstructed a neutrino detector to make it more efficient.
By Kevin Dollear
Journey to
Illinois Tech members of the Welcome to the Jungle team control the drone packages on the second day of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition in the Amazon.
the Jungle
The XPRIZE Rainforest is a global five-year, $10 million competition that challenges teams to innovate rapid and autonomous technology to expedite the monitoring of biodiversity and data collection.
Welcome to the Jungle team member Andrew Steetz (ME, M.Eng. Manufacturing Engineering ’24) checks the status and controlling the reel system of the package.
A team led by Illinois Tech Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Matthew Spenko has returned from the Amazon rainforest after competing in the finals of the prestigious XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
The team, Welcome to the Jungle, also included members from Purdue University, Natural State, the Morton Arboretum, the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden-Chinese Academy of Sciences, and local Indigenous communities, which represents a profound collaboration dedicated to harnessing diverse expertise to advance rainforest conservation.
XPRIZE Rainforest is a global five-year, $10 million competition that challenges teams to innovate rapid and autonomous technology to expedite the monitoring of biodiversity and data collection, enhancing our understanding of tropical rainforest ecosystems around the world. After the semifinals in Singapore ended in spring 2023, six teams advanced to the finals in the Amazon in July 2024. The teams are judged on who surveyed the most biodiversity in 24 hours and produced the most impactful real-time insights within 48 hours.
“This experience has been transformative for all of us involved,” says Spenko. “The interdisciplinary nature of our team has allowed us to leverage expertise from various fields, leading to innovative solutions and a deeper understanding of the rainforest ecosystem. We are incredibly proud of our accomplishments and the collaborative spirit that drove our success.”
To identify key species in the rainforest landscape, Welcome to the Jungle relied on local and Indigenous knowledge experts, remote sensing from automated drone flights and satellite data for tree canopy and landscape assessment, and drone-deployed sensor packages placed in the tree canopy to capture acoustic data, imagery, and environmental DNA (eDNA) sequencing for biodiversity identification and classification. Other partners conducted aerial surveying to measure vegetation, to quantify tree species’ diversity, and to determine potential sensor deployment locations.
In one episode that highlighted Welcome to the Jungle’s interdisciplinary nature, the team relied on Indigenous knowledge of local flora to identify where they might find water, which they could then collect with a drone and analyze for eDNA. Although the quantity of water collected was not sufficient to produce robust eDNA results (the stream was too shallow due to declining water level in the dry season), the episode represents a significant example of how traditional ecological knowledge can contribute to the scientific process to enhance environmental research and preservation.
“The Welcome to the Jungle team exemplifies the power of
‘‘The interdisciplinary nature of our team has allowed us to leverage expertise from various fields, leading to innovative solutions and a deeper understanding of the rainforest ecosystem. ”
—Matthew Spenko
Welcome to the Jungle team leader Matthew Spenko, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, left, and team member Lily Decatorsmith (HUM 4th Year) work on their laptops while in the Amazon for the competition.
Welcome to the Jungle team member Naia Lum (M.E., M.S. ASR 4th Year) holds a fully assembled sensor package with the eDNA fan attached to it.
interdisciplinary partnerships in advancing our understanding of rainforest ecosystems,” says Chai-Shian Kua, senior conservation officer of the Morton Arboretum’s Center for Species Survival: Trees. “By combining expertise from technology, ecology, and local knowledge, we have been able to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the rainforest’s biodiversity and the critical role it plays in our global ecosystem.”
Natural State, a Kenya-based nonprofit dedicated to global nature restoration, assisted the team by developing innovative monitoring and data transmission technologies.
The XPRIZE Rainforest competition provided a unique opportunity for Illinois Tech students to work alongside a global team of experts, gaining experience in one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems.
“Participating in the XPrize Rainforest project is an incredible learning experience and an eye-opening adventure,” says student Khang Pham (AE/M.S. Autonomous Systems and Robotics 4th Year). “We got to participate in a hands-on, meaningful project with the involvement of many different institutions and experts in several disciplines, bringing a more holistic understanding of how scientists and experts can come together to achieve something great. Doing fieldwork is really exhausting but also very rewarding as you get to new perspectives that are hard to see with just a theoretical view.”
Kevin Cassel, Illinois Tech’s vice provost of academic affairs and former interim dean of Illinois Tech’s Armour College of
Engineering, highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in advancing applied research and providing experiential learning opportunities for students.
“Professor Spenko’s team has been an inspiring example of how experts across disciplines can collaborate to push the boundaries of science and technology to advance our understanding of diverse ecosystems, and I’m grateful that the XPRIZE Rainforest competition has given Illinois Tech an opportunity to undertake such an impactful collaboration,” says Cassel. “This project not only advances our scientific knowledge but also offers invaluable practical experience for our students, preparing them to tackle real-world challenges.”
Illinois Tech alumnus Jim Albrecht (FE ’53, M.S. ’55) contributed to Welcome to the Jungle’s travel costs.
The winner of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition will be announced in late 2024.
Matthew Spenko
Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Co-Principal Investigator, CARNATIONS iit.edu/directory/people/matthew-spenko
MORE
Institutional Change for Equitable
By Scott Lewis
Weslynne Ashton
chool districts, hospitals, and other public institutions across Chicago and Cook County spend more than $100 million per year on food,” says Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainability Weslynne Ashton. In the Chicago area and across the United States, she notes, most of the food served in such institutions is procured through large food service management companies, who in turn source from very large suppliers of staple food products.
However, this supply chain does not adequately account for the human and planetary health impacts that it creates, according to Ashton. Moreover, small growers and food producers are typically excluded as suppliers, particularly those who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color.
“In addition to being more expensive,” she says, “healthier and sustainable food options are difficult to get into public meal programs because existing policies and practices—such as a lack of transparency around contracts—act as barriers.”
Are there ways to reduce those barriers?
Ashton is leading a research project, called Community Food Mobilization in Chicago (CF-MOB), that is trying to do that by harnessing the power of food procurement by large, public institutions in order to drive food production and distribution systems toward greater racial equity, sustainability, and resilience.
CF-MOB has received a $1 million grant for a year-long pilot project from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture in collaboration with the National Science Foundation. The award is part of the NSF’s Civic Innovation Challenge program, which supports pilot projects that apply emerging technologies and concepts to address community-identified challenges.
“We’re working with folks throughout the institutional food supply chain to understand what it would take to make transformational change,” Ashton says. “Our overall aim is to reimagine meal services in public settings, so that the food eaten is more nutritious, culturally aligned, and attractive to recipients, while creating economic opportunities for local food producers and being sustainable for the planet.”
Ashton, who holds dual appointments at Stuart School of Business and the Institute of Design, is joined in the project by co-principal investigators M. Zia Hassan Endowed Professor Elizabeth J. Durango-Cohen at Stuart and Associate Professor of Civic and Community Design Maura Shea at ID, as well as a full-time design research fellow and several Illinois Tech students who serve as graduate research assistants. Ashton and Shea co-direct ID’s Food Systems Action Lab.
Other project partners working with the Illinois Tech team include civic partner, the Chicago Food Policy Action Council (CFPAC), and researchers from Chicago State University, DePaul University, and Roosevelt University.
“We have been collaborating with CFPAC for a number of years, using our research to help advance its work to shift our food system to one that is more sustainable and equitable,”
‘‘Our overall aim is to reimagine meal services in public settings so that the food eaten is more nutritious, culturally-aligned, and attractive.”
—Weslynne Ashton
Ashton says. “We’re focused on how institutional supply chains can integrate locally produced food, by examining critical policy, economic, and practical barriers, and by creatively reimagining the pathways for improving food access.”
The CF-MOB research incorporates ethnography and co-design with rigorous technical and economic analyses to model budgetary scenarios and procurement process reforms that could integrate local food suppliers, especially those that are Black, Indigenous, or people of color, into institutional procurement processes. Embedded in the decision-making process for procurement are the values of the Good Food Purchasing Initiative of Metro Chicago—nutrition, valued workforce, local economies, environmental sustainability, and animal welfare.
The pilot project is proceeding with work in several areas:
Enhancing the capacity of coalitions such as CFPAC to build stronger market pathways for regional farmers and producers
Rebuilding the middle of the supply chain by demystifying the procurement process for local food producers and businesses, for example by creating a toolkit listing the steps to take to enter into the supply chain
Collecting input from producers, wholesalers, food chain workers, government entities, and other stakeholders and using that input to develop a set of recommendations to guide local, state, and federal government policies and actions that would facilitate and accelerate local sourcing of food
Creating a digital infrastructure roadmap to inform values based purchasing and celebrate an equitable food ecosystem
“Many people, including farmers, chefs, nutritionists, food distributors, and local government officials, are working to change the current system to bring fresher, healthier choices to eaters,” Ashton says. “By the end of the pilot we will increase transparency in this food system and provide concrete steps for our partner institutions to activate purchasing from local food businesses aligned with GFPI.”
Weslynne Ashton Professor of Environmental Management and Sustainability
iit.edu/directory/people/weslynne-ashton
Getting to the Heart of the Problem
By Tom Linder
When it comes to keeping hearts pumping, Illinois Institute of Technology Research
Associate Professor Weikang Ma continues to show that he is prepared to make a significant impact. Ma has published a pair of papers— one in Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) and another in PNAS Nexus—and received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to further his research that examines inherited cardiac conditions since December 2023.
Both papers were published in February. The first, titled “Myosin in Autoinhibited Off State(s), Stabilized by Mavacamten, Can Be Recruited in Response to Inotropic Interventions,” was published in PNAS by Ma, Illinois Tech Professor of Biology and Physics Thomas Irving, Henry Gong (Ph.D. BIOL ’22), and a team of scientists from Bristol Myers Squibb, Cardiac Consulting, the Institute for Information Technologies, and FilamenTech. The second, titled “The Structural Off and On States of Myosin Can Be Decoupled from the Biochemical Super- and DisorderedRelaxed States,” was published in PNAS Nexus by Ma, Irving, and Gong, along with scientists from Johns Hopkins University, the University of Cincinnati, and Dalian Medical University.
The papers study a new drug called Mavacamten that is being used as a treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart is overworked and becomes enlarged, potentially blocking blood flow from the heart. Ma and Irving’s research operating the Biophysics Collaborative Access Team (BioCAT) at Argonne National Laboratory was important for understanding the mechanism of this drug, which was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2022.
Mavacamten is a cardiac myosin inhibitor, meaning that the motor proteins in the heart (cardiac myosin) that are responsible for muscle contraction are shifted toward an “off” position by the drug, slowing muscle contraction and preventing the heart from overworking. Ma and his team studied the effects of Mavacamten, searching to find out if those same motor proteins being inhibited by the drug could be recalled if more activity is demanded of the heart.
“The question we had was if the heart is being inhibited, can you get the power back if you need it—for exercise, or if you’re facing a tiger?” says Ma.
The answer? A resounding yes, meaning those taking Mavacamten can exercise and live more normal lives knowing that their heart is still able to perform strenuous activity if needed.
‘‘The question we had was if the heart is being inhibited, can you get the power back if you need it—for exercise, or if you’re facing a tiger?”
—Weikang Ma
“Those inhibitors can slow down your heart contraction when needed, but it can be recruited back,” says Ma. “Those myosins are not locked; they’re just hibernating and can be woken up.”
The $2 million grant that Ma received in December from NIH ensures that his research, which aims to better understand muscle contraction in the heart, will continue to be funded for the next five years. The grant’s goal is to find ways to mitigate the root causes of inherited cardiac diseases—such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy—instead of treating symptoms, which most current therapies are limited to.
“We need to know how a healthy heart works to set the baseline,” says Ma. “Then we need to see what happens when you have a mutation; you can then figure out what went wrong, and you can go back to target this problem. Instead of using a blunt instrument, you can be precise. You know the mechanism, so you can go back to design the drug to target the root cause of the problem.”
One of the most significant advances that Ma hopes is on the horizon is a treatment for dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart muscle is too weak and ultimately struggles to pump blood throughout the body. His lab has received another grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, providing another $1.1 million in funding to study inherited cardiac conditions for the next four years.
“We are working with several collaborators to develop a heart activator,” says Ma. “When the heart cannot contract strong enough, you want to add something to make the heart contract stronger. That could be the next frontier of this field.”
For Ma, the ability to contribute to the creation of these meaningful medications early on in his scientific career, has been a gratifying experience.
“My work is already benefiting patients right now,” says Ma. “I feel really, really good that I’m part of this history to develop these drugs.”
Weiking Ma Associate Professor of Biology iit.edu/directory/people/weikang-ma
Researching an Abundant
By Tad Vezner
From a federal grant to address stormwater infrastructure inequities to a Great Lakes partnership that aims to create a job engine from recycling harmful “forever chemicals” out of wastewater, Illinois Institute of Technology researchers are focusing on one of the the Great Lakes region’s most abundant resources: water.
The first project, undertaken by a multidisciplinary team of Illinois Tech researchers led by Professor of Political Science Matthew Shapiro, has been awarded a $750,000 Strengthening American Infrastructure grant by the National Science Foundation to help address the critical issue of stormwater infrastructure inequities in Chicago.
Along with Shapiro, Associate Professor of Social Science Hao Huang, Associate Professor and Director of the Landscape Architecture and Urbanism Program Maria Villalobos Hernandez, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism Ron Henderson, Assistant Professor of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering David Lampert and Arthur W. Hill Endowed Chair in Sustainability Brent Stephens aim to improve public understanding of stormwater infrastructure disparities and develop viable policy solutions.
The urgency of this project was highlighted in July 2023, when Chicago experienced a record nine inches of rainfall in one day, overwhelming the city’s aging stormwater systems. A similar event occurred in July 2024.
“We have old stormwater infrastructure, and it badly needs updates,” says Shapiro. “In the Chicago case, we also have
access-related disparities between areas: the North Side versus the South Side.”
Shapiro continues, “South Side stormwater infrastructure is a little more out of date than other places, so we’re interested in trying to understand the nature of those disparities.…Our research over the past year confirms that socioeconomic factors are strongly related to storm-related flooding.”
Finding a solution requires involving those who are most affected by flooding, informing the public about the nature of water infrastructure, and gauging the public’s willingness to accept the various changes and the costs associated with those changes, since any solutions would likely be funded by taxpayers. Another aspect includes getting citizens to gather the necessary data to determine which areas are in most need of help.
“At the end of this project, if we were to bring greater awareness to the general public about the nature of the problem while mitigating the differences between certain communities in Chicago in terms of water infrastructure problems, that would be a home run,” Shapiro says.
In other research, Great Lakes ReNEW, a multi-state collaborative that includes Illinois Tech and is coordinated by Chicago-based water innovation hub Current, has been awarded up to $160 million over 10 years from the NSF to develop and grow a water-focused innovation engine in the Great Lakes region.
The funding will enable ReNEW to fulfill the NSF’s mission of spurring economic growth in regions that have not fully Illinois Tech has been awarded a $750,000 Strengthening American Infrastructure grant by the NSF to help address the critical issue of stormwater infrastructure.
undant Blue Resource
‘‘This marks a pivotal moment for water innovation, particularly in addressing the critical challenge of ‘forever chemicals.’ ”
—David Lampert
participated in the technology boom of the past few decades.
In its winning proposal, ReNEW plans to explore the removal of dangerous “forever chemicals”, such as PFAS, and valuable minerals, such as lithium, from the region’s wastewater—and then enable American manufacturers to reuse some of these extracted valuable minerals, enabling domestic production of batteries and fertilizers, almost all of which are currently imported.
“This marks a pivotal moment for water innovation, particularly in addressing the critical challenge of ‘forever chemicals.’ Our work at Illinois Tech not only aims to mitigate the spread of harmful substances such as PFAS but also embodies a larger vision,” says Lampert, the university’s lead researcher on the project. “It’s about creating a sustainable future where technology and ecology go hand in hand.”
ReNEW’s efforts won’t be confined to research labs. The organization also will connect partners across workforce development systems, from community-based organizations to credentialing programs, community colleges, and universities to provide training and careers for individuals most affected by joblessness and systemic barriers to participation.
“This is more than just an investment in technology; it's an investment in people, communities, and the future of our region’s economy,” Illinois Tech Provost Kenneth T. Christensen says.
“Waste has no place in this world of increasing water and resource scarcity,” says Alaina Harkness, executive director of Current and principal investigator for ReNEW. “Our engine will find new ways to recover and reuse water, energy, nutrients,
and critical materials from our water. These innovations will create economic opportunities for residents of our region, help strengthen our domestic supply chain for clean energy technologies, and address water quality and security issues around the world.”
ReNEW, which is made up of more than 50 partners that span research institutions, industry, investors, government and nonprofit organizations as well as the six Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, was one of 10 groups from across the United States to be chosen as an NSF Engine. It was selected from 16 finalists, 188 invited proposals, and more than 700 initial submissions. Illinois’ support includes $2 million in state funding for the innovation engine.
“The Great Lakes are a vital natural resource for the health, wealth, and security of our entire nation,” Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker said. “That’s why I’m thrilled that Current was selected to receive this federal award that will help transform our Great Lakes region. Thanks to investments like these, our top-tier workforce, and our industrial resources, we’re leading the clean water and energy revolution.”
By Casey Halas
Designing Good Health Care
Kim Erwin
As someone who has spent the last decade of her academic career focusing on the role of human-centered design in health care systems and delivery, Associate Professor of Healthcare Design and Design Methods
Kim Erwin noticed a glaring problem: there was practically no communication happening among the growing number of designers working in the health care industry today.
“It became clear to me that the number of designers in U.S. health systems was growing, but none of us were talking to one another,” says Erwin. “We had little peripheral awareness of what other designers in health systems were doing.”
After becoming director of the Institute of Design’s Equitable Healthcare Action Lab in 2021, Erwin realized that it had been nearly 20 years since designers had been first hired in health care institutions by industry leaders Kaiser Permanente (2003) and the Mayo Clinic (2004). Yet there was little to no documentation or list of the health systems in the U.S. that were employing designers.
Assistant Director of the Equitable Healthcare Lab Meghna Prakash (MDes 2023), who joined the lab in August 2023, also saw this knowledge gap as an obstacle—and an opportunity.
“There lacks a holistic, industry-wide analysis of these efforts, making it difficult to understand what design brings to health care,” she says.
Erwin and Prakash knew these designers were out there. But where? What kind of work are they doing?
Eager for answers, Erwin, Prakash, and graduate research assistants Arrenius Karunakaran (M.Des. + M.B.A. ’23) and Diana Nguyen (M.Des. ’23) worked to find these designers and health systems and collect their work and impact. Associate Professor of Visual Communication Tomoko Ichikawa and graduate student June Kulwadee Pruksananonda (M.Des. + M.B.A. ’25) supported, converting the data into a cohesive visual format. This became the foundation for the first-of-its-kind report: The Role of Design in U.S. Health Systems
To begin, Erwin activated her professional network, but she found that she needed to widen her sample size. She and her team then scoured LinkedIn and requested referrals in hopes of finding more.
They found that more than 40 health systems across the U.S. employed designers.
After identifying the 40 systems, the team conducted 30-minute interviews with organizational leaders to get an understanding of the design roles, the nature of the design work being done, organizational hierarchies, and how design and its impact is measured. They then translated these interviews into a standardized template to make cross-system comparison easier.
But Erwin and Prakash wanted to make sure that their findings were authentic and accurate. After the templates were created, the team sent them back to the interviewees for review and approval. Each one of them sent back modifications, then the
‘‘It became clear to me that the number of designers in U.S. health systems was growing, but none of us were talking to one another.”
—Kim Erwin
findings were made into visualizations to help readers easily scan and compare the teams and work of participating health systems.
These were then sent back to the health systems for review and approval once more.
“We took extreme pains to be inclusive in the shaping of any individual team’s story,” says Erwin. “We felt an obligation to allow them to shape that in a way that was both accurate, of course, but also comfortable. I think this makes the report feel more like creating a community rather than extracting information from people.”
The interviews helped Erwin, Prakash, and the rest of the team identify nine contributions that designers bring to the U.S. health system, with most of them engaging in four or more of those roles as part of their work.
“This broad application of design in what is typically a highly siloed organization suggests designers may be performing a unique role—acting as connectors and bridges between functional units, between strategy and frontline care, between processes and people,” says Erwin.
This highlights that designers may be the right resource to fill the gaps in care delivery.
In February 2024, when the team had developed a full draft of their findings, it held a meeting with an advisory council made up of 10 clinician leaders and design leaders to review the report and discuss the current state of design in the U.S. Erwin authored a commentary based on the discussion to serve as the forward for the report—reaffirming and solidifying that the team’s findings were valuable to both audiences.
“I hope this report sparks an optimism in designers and health system leaders about the application of design in health care, and how they can work together to bring about process, organization, and system-level impact in the health system. After nine months of interviewing designers, collecting data, analyzing findings, and putting their findings through the intricate approval/review process, Erwin and her team officially published The Role of Design in U.S. Health Systems in June 2024.
“I feel like I finally put a bow on something that I’ve been exploring for 10 years,” Erwin says.
Kim Erwin
Associate Professor of Healthcare Design and Design Methods
id.iit.edu/people/kim-erwin
By Tad Vezner
Accelerating a Breakthrough
When Illinois Institute of Technology recently received federal funding to help researchers move their projects from the lab to the marketplace, the university wanted undergraduates to get involved in a big way. But it didn’t expect one to co-develop patent-pending technology that could safely speed up drug research, co-found and serve as CEO of a company to sell it, and start pitching to dozens of clients across the country.
“To stay globally competitive in the innovation economy, we have a moral imperative to develop a pipeline of future innovators. One way to do that is to embed young people in our program. Given that the Kaplan Institute is the home of the [Interprofessional Projects IPRO Program], an innovation program that is a core requirement for all undergraduates at Illinois Tech, we are well positioned to connect the research enterprise to the undergraduate student body,” says Maryam Saleh, who as executive director of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship is also the principal investigator of the National Science Foundation’s newly formed Accelerating Research Translation (ART) award at Illinois Tech The ART award helps researchers at institutes of higher
education to significantly elevate the level of research translation for economic and society impact, by providing funding for “seed translational research projects.” The term “translation” refers to the process of “translating” research from the lab into the consumer marketplace.
"The Accelerating Research Translation program…identifies, and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice," NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a news release
“We were pleasantly surprised to find that one of our first funded seed translational research projects would result in the formation of a startup that is also led by an undergraduate,” Saleh adds.
Illinois Tech’s participation in the federal Accelerated Research Translation program is quickly moving research from the lab to the marketplace.
The project is led by David Cooper (Medicinal Chemistry ’24) and Robert E. Frey Jr. Endowed Chair in Chemistry David Minh. Their company, Biagon, is one of the first to receive funding under the ART initiative at Illinois Tech.
Biagon uses a machine learning algorithm, whose patent by Cooper and Minh is pending, to potentially help pharmaceutical and biotech companies develop safer drugs faster, with fewer side effects and shorter research runways. In essence, the algorithm can identify safer, effective drug compounds much faster than current drug research processes allow.
Many drugs target proteins called G protein-coupled receptors, which detect molecules outside an organism’s cells and trigger cellular responses.
“To know if a compound will have activity at the cellular level, you have to make the compound and test it in living cells,” says Cooper. “Our technology predicts what the activity at the cellular level will be. That saves researchers time and money. The technology also provides insight into how to design the compounds.”
The algorithm helps to predict which cellular pathways a drug will activate, and how much it will activate them. It addresses
‘‘We were pleasantly surprised to find that one of our first funded seed translational research projects would result in the formation of a startup.”
—Maryam Saleh
two quintessential challenges faced by pharmaceutical researchers—time and potential side effects—by identifying the pathways and drugs that are safer and more effective.
“If you target them without considering cellular pathways, you can get a lot of side effects, but if you design it with this process, you can avoid those side effects and create new classes of drugs to treat many diseases,” says Minh, who is Biagon’s chief scientific officer.
Cooper started working on the research when he took a course in Computational Biochemistry and Drug Design in fall 2022. After the course, he joined Minh’s Computational Chemical Biology Lab as a research assistant, and the breakthrough happened about a half year later.
Initially, the two simply wanted to publish their results. But after attending an American Chemical Society conference in summer 2023, Cooper had a “lightbulb moment” while watching pharmaceutical companies pitch their latest products and research.
They met with Saleh, who urged them to take the institute’s startup accelerator program, Startup Studio, as well as apply for funding through the ART initiative. They did both.
“[Saleh] has been very supportive and helpful with our application and helping us think about [Biagon] as a company, not only as an academic project,” Minh says.
“They’re being very proactive, and to me it’s very impressive how they’re doing so far,” says Steve Ackerman, co-founder of Banta Pharmaceuticals, chief scientific officer of EnteroTrack, and a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at University of Illinois Chicago who the two met at the Chicago Biomedical Consortium.
After they met, Cooper followed up with Ackerman “and asked all kinds of interesting questions about the receptors we work on [at Banta Pharmaceuticals]. He impressed me with his questions, and when I heard he was an undergraduate, my jaw dropped.… it’s kind of amazing, and that speaks to the approach Professor Minh takes and how he runs his laboratory.”
David Minh
Robert E. Frey Jr. Endowed Chair in Chemistry
iit.edu/directory/people/ david-minh
Maryam Saleh
Executive
Director,
Ed Kaplan Family Institute
iit.edu/directory/people/ maryam-saleh
Turning Water Into Gas?
By Tom Linder
Abreakthrough discovery by a team of scientists from Illinois Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology may soon turn the idea of running a car on water from science fiction into reality.
A team led by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sameh Elsaidi and Research Assistant Professor Mona Mohamed published a paper in March 2024 presenting the creation of a new catalyst that could bring fuel cells powered by water to the masses.
If you got access to water, you’ve already got the infrastructure necessary to run the fuel-cell vehicle of the future.
Their device relies on a new catalyst comprised of a combination of earth-abundant nickel, cobalt, and iron to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Typically, these catalysts are made from platinum and iridium, which are costly and unstable.
“Currently, we have a catalyst that can do both jobs better than the existing benchmark commercial catalysts,” says Elsaidi.
When implemented into the device created by the team, this means that fuel cell vehicles can simply be filled with water. The catalyst within the device will convert that water into hydrogen and oxygen, removing the need for prohibitively large, pressurized hydrogen storage tanks.
In short: if you’ve got access to water, you’ve already got the infrastructure necessary to run the fuel-cell vehicle of the future, for less than what it costs to wash dishes in your kitchen sink.
Sameh Elsaidi Assistant Professor of Chemistry
iit.edu/directory/people/ sameh-elsaidi
Mona H. Mohamed
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
iit.edu/directory/people/ mona-mohamed
Assistant Professor Sameh Elsaidi examines a compound relating to to his research into a new earth-abundant catalyst.
TACKLING HEALTH CARE DISPARITIES
By Tom Linder
The idea for the Center for Health Equity, Education, and Research (CHEER) has existed in the minds of Illinois Institute of Technology Distinguished Professor of Psychology Patrick Corrigan and Assistant Professor of Psychology Lindsay Sheehan for years.
The idea finally became a reality in March 2024 when CHEER was officially established as a university research center.
The center is composed of five programs, all focused on different aspects of health care disparities and access and all sharing the common theme of health equity.
“These are all different centers that we already had that had a common theme,” says Corrigan, who serves as CHEER’s director. “We’re interested in stigma. We’re interested in health equity. Our deep roots tend to be in serious mental illness—serious illness being people diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD—but because of that, they’re unable to make their life goals.”
The programs and organizations that make up CHEER are the Chicago Health Disparities Center; the National Consortium of Stigma and Empowerment; the Honest, Open, Proud program; Stigma and Health; and the Certificate for Recovery Support Specialist, which is a nine-credit certificate program offered by Illinois Tech.
The team at CHEER is composed of more than a dozen Illinois Tech faculty members, including Corrigan and Sheehan, who also serves as CHEER’s managing director, as the principal investigators. Joining them as senior researchers are Department of Psychology faculty Jon Larson, Eun-Jeong Lee, and Nicole Ditchman. Vardha Kharbanda, Elliott Morris, Madeline Oppenheim, Virginia Spicknall, Karyn Bolden Stovall, Anastasia Tooley, Miranda Twiss, and Beatrice Wendeln join as research associates.
“I think CHEER will promote some collaboration between us and other areas of the university,” says Sheehan. “That’s exciting to me to be able to collaborate with more folks at Illinois Tech.”
The center is funded by more than a dozen grants and contracts—totaling more than $4 million for 2024—and partners with institutions to better address access to mental health care from a variety of angles. Examples include working with the National Academies of Science to write a paper detailing COVID19’s effect on loneliness in the United States, and partnering with Armour College of Engineering faculty Ali Cinar and Mudassir Rashi on a project discerning why certain communities are less likely to utilize continuous glucose monitors for diabetes.
Above all, the overarching goal is to enhance access to health care, which the team believes starts with increased engagement within communities.
“What’s the pill you’re going to get out there to take care of trauma? I don’t think there is one,” says Corrigan. “What’s the cognitive behavior therapy you’re going to do for PTSD? I don’t know if there is one. But you can engage—for example, the Black community—to tackle their health care needs. I think it’s important to realize where the spirit of medicine is going. A lot of health care is done ‘out there’ in the community.”
Patrick Corrigan
Distinguished Professor of Psychology
iit.edu/directory/people/ patrick-corrigan
Lindsay Sheehan
Assistant Professor of Psychology
iit.edu/directory/people/ lindsay-sheehan
Lindsay Sheehan Patrick Corrigan
For Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Psychology
Eun-Jeong Lee, creating better, more effective support systems for individuals from marginalized communities is just another day’s work.
Lee’s latest project, conducted with fellow Illinois Tech professors Nicole Ditchman and Lindsay Sheehan, is part of the Illinois Pathways to Partnerships Project. It aims to maximize support for youth with disabilities and their families as they work to make seamless transitions from high school to college and then continuing into the labor force.
The project is funded by the United States Department of Education through the Illinois Department of Human Services. It is part of a five-year, $10 million grant.
While schools generally do have some sort of a support system in place for these students preparing to make this transition, it’s often underutilized by those who need it most. The Illinois Pathways to Partnerships Project aims to not just supplement what those schools are already doing, but also fill in gaps where services are needed but not provided by anyone.
Reaching the Margins
By Tom Linder
“If you take a look at the service structure, a lot of times schools have their own role—supported by the Department of Education at the federal level—but then it’s all cut off once they graduate from high school,” says Lee. “College education and vocational places are not well-embedded into the high school education, so that’s where we see the gap and disparity. We want to create a wider net.”
So far, Illinois Tech has teamed up with the Illinois State Board of Education, Centers for Independent Living, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to create a wide-ranging support network for youth with disabilities and their families.
Getting all of the groups on the same page can sometimes be a challenge, but Lee hopes that difficult conversations will ultimately lead to a better support network.
“There’s a lot of different voices trying to land onto the same page, that’s probably the biggest struggle,” says Lee. “Every time we have a monthly meeting, something pops up, maybe a question we never thought of before.”
In a related project, Lee has been awarded nearly $600,000 from the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research Field to develop Tech-Jobs, a 10-week career development, goal persistence, and job placement program meant to help Black college students with disabilities complete degrees and find employment in tech fields.
“It’s basically a tool for them to make some better adjustments in their academic programs,” says Lee. “Not getting A’s, but how they can locate proper resources, get accommodations, how to navigate and communicate with the course instructors and potential employers. Those skills are critical for them to develop academic and career success.”
Lee continues, “That 10-week program is built on how to improve their social skills, communication skills, and advocacy skills. Especially related to their disability component, students need to know that they have a right to ask for proper accommodation.”
Throughout all her projects, Lee’s highest priority always remains the same: to build support systems for individuals from marginalized communities.
“All linked together, those marginalized groups experience a lot of barriers and challenges in order to access services and support,” says Lee. “A lot of times, they don’t feel connected with support systems. Hopefully, my programs help them not only to be able to navigate the health care or vocational services properly, but at the same time motivate them to know they can do this.”
Eun-Jeong Lee Professor of Psychology
iit.edu/directory/people/ eun-jeong-lee
Nicole Ditchman
Associate Professor of Psychology iit.edu/directory/people/nicoleditchman
Lindsay Sheehan
Assistant Professor of Psychology iit.edu/directory/people/ lindsay-sheehan
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Eun-Jeong Lee
Accolades for Innovation
By Simon Morrow
Robert A. Pritzker Endowed Chair in Engineering Philip R. Troyk has been awarded the Chicago Council on Science and Technology’s (C2ST) inaugural Innovative Research Award for his work with Sigenics, Inc., a company that specializes in customized electronic design, which Troyk founded in 2000.
The award is presented to an organization or individual that has had a significant impact on the advancement of research and discovery over the last two years and will continue to have a great impact on the field.
“Phil Troyk and Sigenics were nominated for the Innovative Research Award by one of our board members. Given their far-reaching developments in Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and partnerships with the aircraft, commercial, and medical sectors, their winning the award was well deserved. Meeting Phil and the members on his team and in his lab was a fantastic insight into why Singenics is so successful—they were all passionate about and dedicated to what they do,” says C2ST Executive Director Sasha Prokuda.
Sigenics was founded with the aim of developing silicon devices to aid in biomedical research and has grown to become a designer and supplier of customized electronic design for multiple markets, including aerospace, industrial, and military, with an emphasis on sole-source ASICs. As a unique Chicagoarea MedTech resource, Sigenics can satisfy a need for providing innovative electronics for new MedTech devices.
“It is inspiring to work with Sigenics’ talented engineers, most of whom are Illinois Tech graduates. Our location in the Illinois
Tech University Technology Park is a mutual benefit to Sigenics and the university. Being part of the emerging Chicago-area MedTech ecosystem is exciting, and we are enthused about enabling innovative MedTech developments,” says Troyk.
Sigenics supplies ASICs to a range of medical projects, including Troyk’s work in which Illinois Tech leads an eightinstitution team in developing a fully wireless brain-based visual prosthesis intended to provide artificial vision for people with profound blindness, which is currently undergoing a National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial.
Sigenics’s specialty is “designing, testing and delivering custom integrated circuits for sensor, analog, and mixed-signal applications.”
It aims to take customer ideas and figure out how to make them reality. This includes offering enhancements to the specification, design, simulation, layout, and testing existing products, optimizing to the desired specifications.
Troyk has received many prestigious awards for his research, including his recent receipt of the World Congress of Visual Prostheses’s Bartimaeus Award
Philip
R. Troyk
Robert A. Pritzker Endowed Chair in Engineering iit.edu/directory/people/philip-troyk
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Philip R. Troyk
That CurTain is Made of What?
By Thaddeus Mast
When College of Architecture Assistant Professor Ryan Roark stepped into the realm of architecture, she didn’t think that her doctorate degree in biology would bring her to a workshop mixing crushed shellfish and bodybuilding supplements in search of a perfect mix to make materials for retrofitting older glass—her first steps in researching biomaterials that might be appropriate for interior architecture.
Roark, along with her assistant Gemma Brizzolara (B.ARCH. 5th Year), had a broad goal for the summer research project: to find how biomaterials from waste products, such as fish scales and cellulose, can be used in architecture and design. The first plan—based on early successes tweaking recipes mined from open-source information banks curated primarily by product designers—was to create a concrete or brick material. As the research evolved, the idea shifted to fast-setting bioplastics with a simple goal to use the aesthetically pleasing material to stop migrating birds from striking transparent glass windows. “Chicago is a city of glass, from the 1890s to late Modernism to today. Nationwide, a billion birds die colliding into glass every year,” Roark says.
Eggshells, agar (derived from seaweed), mussel shells, and other biological waste materials were tried in mixtures in Roark’s temporary lab. Her current best recipe includes material derived from fish skin that produces a strong, tensile material similar to the plastic-based, corrosion resistant ETFE material found on the exterior of the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship on Illinois Tech’s Mies Campus.
Bio-curtains can replace current window dressing, offering protection for birds while bringing a unique element to a building. The space where Roark and Brizzolara made the curtains is akin to a biology lab—dozens of sample mixes were neatly
labeled along the walls of a summer workshop. The small test sheets ranged from leathery, jerky-like material to film that was so thin that a needle would pierce them like a balloon. Add eco-friendly dyes to bring color, and an aesthetic material could bring a new dynamic to interior spaces.
With a viable mix decided, the College of Architecture’s home, S. R. Crown Hall, hosted a one-day exhibition where sheets lined the south-facing windows. It extended through the fall 2023 semester after great feedback from architecture faculty. To make the sheets, eight wooden forms held the material as it dried with the help of industrial fans. Roark and Brizzolara painstakingly perfected each sheet, using a needle to pop any bubbles or impurities. A heat-seaming device, which could easily be mistaken for an industrial pizza cutter with a heat gun, “melted” sheets together, though a needle and thread could work just as well, to make sure the curtains covered the entire window.
The material isn’t permanent, but it will last for months indoors. It’s water-resistant, though if placed outdoors, rain and humidity can slowly eat away at the material. But that all feeds into keeping the environment safe. Bird safety is the first step, but Roark plans to test UV protection, which could turn the curtains into a viable replacement for traditional cloth curtains or other window treatments.
Ryan Roark Assistant Professor of Architecture arch.iit.edu/people/ryan-roark
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Assistant Professor Ryan Roark experiments with new materials.
RADIATING INNOVATION
By Simon Morrow
Associate Professor of Architectural Engineering
Mohammad Heidarinejad and Arthur W. Hill Endowed Chair in Sustainability Brent Stephens have been working on a low-cost retrofit to bring the advantages of smart building sensing and controlling systems to manually operated radiator heating systems. In 2022 Peoples Gas awarded their Battery-Operated Radiator Control (BORC) system its Innovation Strategies and Technologies Award
“Legacy steam radiators are not easy to replace, and there are no commercially available options for controlling them. They often operate when they aren’t needed, and they can be difficult to control for comfort,” says Heidarinejad. “We have developed a way to automate the control of manual legacy steam radiator valves to manage radiator output in a way that is more similar to modern buildings and can be connected to building automation systems.”
According to the United States Department of Energy, more than 70 percent of buildings in the U.S. constructed before 1945 use radiators, and building space heating is the largest building energy end use in the U.S.
In a paper published in Energy and Buildings, the team showed that automating the system consistently saved energy in a campus building.
BORC uses a remotely controlled motor to operate a radiator’s manual valve. BORC contains sensors that monitor room temperature and occupancy, and this information is used as part of the feedback system that determines if the radiator should be turned up or down.
The team found that the highest radiator use savings, of 63 percent, was achieved when they combined two strategies: they used the occupancy sensor to turn the radiator down when the room was unoccupied and, when the room was occupied, they used the temperature sensor like a thermostat to dynamically adjust the radiator level to keep the room at a set temperature.
“In existing buildings where replacing older space heating
systems with modern ones is financially and practically unfeasible, retrofitting them with custom automatic controls has the potential to considerably reduce energy consumption while maintaining or even improving thermal comfort,” says Stephens.
Since 2017 many students have contributed to the project through the sponsor Franklin Energy’s support, as well as through both the Armour R&D and Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) Program.
The team set up the BORC system on radiators at Illinois Tech’s Alumni Memorial Hall and is currently working to test in another case study building in Chicago. The goal is for BORC to be cheap and easy to install.
“We are working with the Illinois Tech technology office and the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship for a potential research to market translation,” says Heidarinejad. “We have a great transition team that we are confident can take us to the next level.”
The team participated in the Kaplan Institute’s startup accelerator in spring 2024 and won first place in the 2024 Kaplan Pitch Tank, which included a $30,000 prize to support turning BORC into a viable business product.
iit.edu/directory/people/ brent-stephens
Professor of Architectural Engineering
iit.edu/directory/people/ mohammad-heidarinejad
Brent Stephens
Arthur W. Hill Endowed Chair in Sustainability
Mohammad Heidarinejad
Brent Stephens (above) and Mohammad Heidarinejad
OFFICE OF RESEARCH FISCAL YEAR 2024 HIGHLIGHTS (June 1, 2023–May 31, 2024)
Illinois Institute of Technology’s Office of Research includes the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs, the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance, the Office of Technology Management and Licensing, and several other areas that support the research enterprise.
