Illinois Institute of Technology: Shaping Innovators and Leaders

Introduction

The Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech), a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, has a rich history dating back to 1890. Formed by the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940, Illinois Tech has grown into a prominent institution known for its programs in architecture, business, communications, design, engineering, industrial technology, information technology, law, psychology, and science. This article highlights some of the notable alumni who have made significant contributions in various fields, shaping industries and impacting society.

A Legacy of Innovation and Achievement

Illinois Tech's alumni have consistently demonstrated excellence and innovation, leaving their mark on diverse sectors. Here are some of the notable alumni who have made significant contributions:

Architecture and Design

Virgil Abloh: A trained architect, Abloh founded the luxury streetwear clothing line Off-White and served as the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection.
Hans Hollein: An Austrian architect and designer, Hollein was a key figure in postmodern architecture, with notable works including the Haas House and the Albertina extension in Vienna.
Kevin Roche: An Irish-born American architect and Pritzker Prize winner, Roche was known for his modernist designs and systematic approach to architecture.
Florence K. Bassett: A prolific architect, design consultant, and furniture designer, Bassett created the Knoll Associates Planning Unit and helped set the standards for modern interior design.
Alfred Caldwell: An influential Prairie School landscape architect and faculty member at Illinois Tech, Caldwell was a protégé of Jens Jensen and influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Helmut Jahn: A world-famous architect and former Illinois Institute of Technology architecture student. Jahn immigrated to Chicago from Germany in 1966 to study at Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, where he studied under notable faculty and was influenced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the Modernist architecture curriculum. Jahn designed the Jeanne and John Rowe Village (2003) on Illinois Tech's Mies Campus, which is situated among works from Mies van der Rohe, Rem Koolhaas, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Myron Goldsmith: A star student of famed architect and university leader Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, “Goldy” left his mark on campus by designing three landmark buildings on the campus he walked for years: Arthur Keating Hall, Robert A. Pritzker Science Center, and John T. Rettaliata Engineering Center.

Engineering and Technology

Martin Cooper: An American engineer and pioneer in the wireless communications industry, Cooper is best known as the inventor of the mobile phone while working at Motorola.
Otis Boykin: An American inventor and engineer, Boykin's inventions include electrical resistors used in computing, missile guidance, and pacemakers.
Jack Dongarra: An American computer scientist and mathematician, Dongarra is a University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Tennessee and a recipient of the Turing Award.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar: An Indian entrepreneur and politician, Chandrasekhar is a former junior minister in the Indian government and a member of parliament. He is also one of the designers of Intel's Pentium chip; founder of one of India's prominent cellular franchises, BPL Mobile; chairman and CEO of Jupiter Capital, focusing on infrastructure, media and technology ventures;
Jamshyd Godrej: An Indian industrialist and chairman of Godrej & Boyce, a diversified business with a presence across 10 industry sectors.
Gloria Ray Karlmark: A member of the Little Rock Nine, Karlmark is also a technical writer and computer scientist.
Susan Solomon: An American atmospheric chemist, Solomon was the first to propose the chlorofluorocarbon free radical reaction mechanism that is the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole.
Edward Kaplan: Co-founder of Zebra Technologies and served as chairman and CEO of the company for 37 years.
Victor Tsao: The co-founder of Linksys and senior vice president of Cisco Systems. Led by Tsao, Linksys became the leading provider of networking hardware.
Marvin Camras: Chicago native Marvin Camras created an innovative magnetic recording head during his undergraduate years that improved sound quality by impressing a recording symmetrically on a wire by the gap of air between the wire and the head. His research led to developments that underlie many modern recording and communication techniques.
Grant L. Hansen: An aerospace innovator and Pearl Harbor survivor, Grant L. Hansen was instrumental in achieving both technical excellence and rapid progress for the United States space exploration program.
John L. Anderson: John Anderson pioneered the movement of particles and fluids in electric fields in conducting or partially conducting liquids. He is also a gifted academic administrator: He served as department head of chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, dean of engineering at the same school, provost at Case Western University, and president of the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 2019, Anderson was named to a six year term as president of the National Academy of Engineering.
William (Bill) Banholzer: After obtaining his PhD, William Banholzer had a 22-year career with GE, where he rose through the ranks to eventually become vice president of Global Technology at GE Advanced Materials, responsible for worldwide technology and engineering.
Thomas Baron: After obtaining his PhD, Thomas Baron stayed on at Illinois as an instructor and then assistant professor. In 1951, Baron joined the Shell Development Company, and in 1981, retired as president of the company.
Arnold O. Beckman: Upon completion of his PhD degree at the California Institute of Technology in 1928, Arnold Beckman joined the faculty at that institution. In 1934, Beckman invented a portable meter for measuring the acidity of California lemons. The “Beckman acidometer” or pH meter as it came to be called, was the first of a series of successful inventions that made possible a revolution in scientific instrumentation.
R. Byron Bird: R. Byron Bird is a towering figure in modern chemical engineering. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin, where he has been since 1950, Bird outlined and unified the fundamental theories that govern transport phenomena in all chemical engineering processes. His book, Transport Phenomena, written with Stewart and Lightfoot, is the classic text of 20th-century chemical engineering.
Joan F. Brennecke: Joan Brennecke is Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering #16 at the University of Texas. Her research has focused on solvents, such as supercritical fluids and ionic liquids, which are less environmentally harmful than other solvents.
David V. Boger: David Boger is a Professor of Engineering at Monash University and Laureate Professor and Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Robert W. Dudley: After receiving his chemical engineering degree from the University of Illinois, Robert W. Dudley obtained an MIM degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
H. Scott Fogler: H. Scott Fogler was one of our most accomplished alumni in academia. Fogler was the Ame and Catherine Vennema Distinguished Professor and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan.
Curtis W. Frank: After completing his BS degree from the University of Minnesota, Curtis W. Frank moved to Illinois where he obtained his MS and PhD degrees with Harry Drickamer. Frank pursued a career in academia and joined Stanford University, where he is the William M. Keck Sr. Professor of Chemical Engineering.
Sheldon K. Friedlander: After obtaining an MS degree from MIT and a PhD from the University of Illinois, Sheldon Friedlander pursued a career in higher education that carried him to Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Caltech and finally UCLA, where he was a professor of chemical engineering for nearly three decades, until just before his death in 2007.
Shun Chong Fung: He then spent his entire 34-year career working in ExxonMobil’s Corporate Research organization. He retired from ExxonMobil Research and Engineering in 2003 as a senior research associate. Shun Fung is best known for his fundamental work in elucidating the mechanistic chemistry involved in the redispersion of noble metal catalysts. He effectively used these insights to develop commercially important methods for regenerating deactivated platinum, palladium, and other supported metal catalysts.
John A. Georges: John A. Georges held several important positions at DuPont and later at International Paper Company where he was CEO and Chairman. As the world’s largest paper and forest products company, International Paper owes much of its growth and success

Politics and Public Service

Valdas Adamkus: A Lithuanian politician, diplomat, and civil engineer, Adamkus served as the president of Lithuania for two terms.
Kwame Raoul: An American lawyer and politician, Raoul is the 42nd Attorney General of Illinois.
Richard B. Ogilvie: An American attorney and law enforcement officer, Ogilvie served as the 35th governor of Illinois.
William Levi Dawson: An American politician and lawyer, Dawson represented a Chicago, Illinois district in the United States House of Representatives for over 27 years.
William Emmett Dever: An American politician, Dever was the mayor of Chicago from 1923 to 1927.
Anita Alvarez: The former State's Attorney for Cook County, Illinois, United States. Alvarez was the first Hispanic woman elected to this position, after being the first Latina to win the Democratic nomination for state's attorney of Cook County.
John H. Cox: An American businessman, housing developer, and political activist. A Republican, he was the party's nominee for Governor of California in 2018, as well as one of the party's replacement candidates in the state's 2021 recall election.
Peter Roskam: served as a U.S. representative for Illinois's 6th congressional district, serving six terms from 2007 to 2019. He is a member of the Republican Party and served as the chief deputy majority whip from 2011 to 2014, ranking fourth among House Republican leaders.
Ameya Pawar: An American politician who previously served on the Chicago City Council as the alderman for the 47th ward of the City of Chicago. He was first elected in the 2011 municipal elections, and was elected to a second term on February 24, 2015. Pawar is the first Indian American and Asian American in Chicago City Council history.
Vice Admiral Diego E. Hernandez, Retired: A naval aviator, he piloted fighter jets from several aircraft carriers and went on to lead 147 combat missions in Vietnam. In 1980 Hernandez became commanding officer of the USS John F. Kennedy and was the first Hispanic to serve as commanding officer of a United States Navy aircraft carrier.

Science and Academia

Jack Steinberger: A German-born American physicist, Steinberger was a recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the muon neutrino.
Sidney Coleman: An American theoretical physicist noted for his research in high-energy physics.
Rajinder Singh: The head of the international, non-profit organization Science of Spirituality (SOS), also known in India as the Sawan Kirpal Ruhani Mission.
Grote Reber: An American pioneer of radio astronomy, Reber conducted the first sky survey in the radio frequencies.
Ethel Percy Andrus: A long-time educator and the first female high school principal in California. She was also an elder rights activist and the founder of AARP in 1958.
Ida M. Fossum: American computer scientist, textbook author, and professor.
Martin C. Jischke: President of Purdue University; President of Iowa State University; and Chancellor of Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Samuel I. Hayakawa: Samuel I. Hayakawa was an Illinois Tech English faculty member from 1939-1948 and an internationally recognized semanticist. During his Illinois Tech tenure, he published his first book on the meaning of language, the best-selling Language in Thought and Action.
Lloyd H. Donnell: A mechanical engineering faculty member from 1939-1962 and an internationally renowned expert in engineering mechanics, Lloyd H. Donnell is best known for formulating the Donnell equations, which simplify the equations for the design of thin-walled shells such as storage tanks, rockets, and submarine hulls.
Max Frocht: A Polish émigré, Max Frocht served on Illinois Tech’s mechanical engineering faculty from 1946-1960 and then directed the university’s Laboratory for Experimental Stress Analysis.

Business and Entrepreneurship

John P. Calamos: Listed on Forbes' 400 Richest Americans list as #281. Founder and CEO of Calamos Asset Management.
Ajay Kirloskar: Chairman and Managing Director of the Kirloskar Brothers Limited, one of the world's largest pump manufacturers.
Sam Pitroda: An Indian telecommunication engineer and entrepreneur. He was born in Titlagarh in the eastern Indian state of Odisha to a Gujarati family. He has served as an advisor to two Prime Ministers of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Rajiv Gandhi, during their tenures, and also to the United Nations.
Bhakta B. Rath: Associate Director of Research for Materials Science and Component Technology.
Charles M. Geschke: Co-founder of Adobe Systems.
Robert W. Galvin: Robert W. Galvin transformed Motorola into a global leader in the manufacture and distribution of cellular phones and other telecommunications devices.

Arts and Entertainment

Nandamuri Kalyan Ram: An Indian actor and film producer who works in Telugu cinema. He is the son of actor-politician Nandamuri Harikrishna.
James Young: An American musician who is best known as one of the guitarists in the American rock band Styx.
Tamar Simon Hoffs: An American filmmaker, best known for directing the indie films Red Roses and Petrol (2003) and Pound of Flesh (2009), both starring Malcolm McDowell.
Rex Beach: An American novelist, playwright, and Olympic water polo player.
Benny Goodman: Known as the “King of Swing,” Benny Goodman attended Lewis Institute in 1923 as a high school sophomore while also playing the clarinet in a dance hall band.
Joel Daly: An American news anchor, most known for serving as an anchor for WLS-TV (an ABC-affiliate) in Chicago, Illinois, for 38 years from 1967 to 2005.

Other Fields

Roger Bruce Chaffee: An American naval officer, aviator and aeronautical engineer who was a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program.
Mohsen Sazegara: An Iranian journalist and pro-democracy political activist. He was the founder of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
David V. Hayes: Political fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer who helped Rod Blagojevich become Governor of Illinois and set up the state's first Democratic administration in twenty years.
Rowine H. Brown Truitt: A humanitarian in medicine and the law, Rowine H. Brown Truitt significantly advanced a humanitarian approach to medical treatment in hospitals and to the rule of law in society. As medical director and chief of staff at a major United States hospital (Cook County Hospital, now John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital), she was a pioneer in improving medical care for low-income patients.

Illinois Tech: A Hub of Innovation

Illinois Tech has a long-standing commitment to innovation and research. The university's five colleges, the Institute of Design, and various research centers provide a platform for students and faculty to explore new ideas and develop groundbreaking technologies. The campus itself is a testament to this commitment, with iconic buildings designed by renowned architects like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Rem Koolhaas.

Read also: Guide to Illinois Educator Pay

Read also: Illinois Transfer Application

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