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iitmagazine ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Jeffrey D. Bierig EDITOR Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson CONTRIBUTORS Marcia Faye Winter 2010 Richard Harth Julie Morley Tanya Pantone ART DIRECTOR Nancy Niequist Schoon DESIGN Scott Benbrook Marty Schalm Nancy Niequist Schoon Jessica Serafin IIT MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED THREE TIMES A YEAR BY THE IIT OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS. IIT Magazine was a 2007 and 2009 recipient of the Publicity Club of Chicago Silver Trumpet 14 Award for Excellence in Newspapers or Magazines. Cover Story © 2010 LOOkIng anew at nucLear Will nuclear energy be the linchpin in an IIT Magazine is printed on FSC certified recycled paper. alternative-power platform of the future? Read it, share it, recycle it. SEND LETTERS TO IIT Magazine Office of Communications 3300 South Federal Street, Suite 503 Chicago, IL 60616-3793 12 OR EMAIL [email protected] Freedom swImmer SEND ALUMNI NEWS TO National Reconnaissance Office division [email protected] head Pedro “Pete” Rustan fled Cuba in Senior Director of Alumni Relations the 1960s and has never looked back. Robbie Deveney [email protected] Founded in 1890, Illinois Institute of Technology is a private Ph.D.- granting university that awards 20 degrees in engineering, the sciences, architecture, law, design, psychology, Always a teacher humanities, and business. 18 After a lifetime of instructing Chicago IIT MISSION STATEMENT Public Schools students in science, To provide distinctive and relevant camera as cOmpass Hortense Brice now teaches teachers. education in an environment of scientific, technological, and Barbara Crane and Robert E. David professional knowledge creation focus their lenses on a subject close and innovation. to their hearts: their hometowns. IIT Armour College of Engineering Departments IIT School of Applied Technology IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law 2 Campus News IIT College of Architecture 8 Faculty News IIT College of Science and Letters IIT Institute of Design IIT MAGAZINE OnLINE-OnLy cOntent! 10 Research Briefs IIT Institute of Psychology 22 Alumni News IIT Stuart School of Business A new Web-only component has been added to 36 Rewind ADA STATEMENT IIT Magazine online. Read extended coverage of Illinois Institute of Technology provides stories featured in the print edition as well as special individuals with disabilities reasonable online-only content. Visit www.iit.edu/magazine accommodations to participate in and find more! university activities, programs, and services. Individuals with disabilities requiring an accommodation should call the activity, program, or service director. For further information about IIT’s resources, contact the IIT Center for Disability Resources at [email protected]. Letters campusnews Article Spurs IIT Memories your article on Lois Graham [“A Lasting Impression for the Millenniums,” fall FollowUP 2009] tweaked my memory bank in many ways! I was one of the returning vets on the GI Bill and recall having Miss (at the time) Graham as a teacher’s Updates on the people and places previously assistant in some of my classes in Machinery Hall. One recollection was covered in IIT Magazine having a metallurgy class on a Saturday morning and observing the structure of the “new” chemistry building sway and twist in a very strong wind, resulting in it being about 30 degrees out of plumb! “the greening of IIt” Fall 2008 Her remembrances of Max Jakob and Professor Energy policy, William Goodman caused me to reflect on my emissions, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and air conditioning transportation, classes with these two icons in the mechanical stormwater/ engineering department. Goodman was to be my landscape issues, mentor and role model years later, as I worked for supply chain him and with him on various construction projects management, in the Chicago area. and green Bill Goodman’s passion for his field of expertise building are rubbed off on me and caused me to add air the subjects of the Campus Sustainability Action Plan conditioning courses to my electives as an added load to my aeronautical Working Groups, a new initiative that will develop plans option courses. Back in 1946–47 (my second year at IIT), the aircraft industry for each of the six campus sustainability policy areas took a nosedive and experienced massive layoffs. Being married just one year aligned with IIT’s strategic plan. Each working group is and looking forward to having a family, I decided to switch fields. Goodman’s composed of faculty, staff, students, and outside experts passion came to the rescue, and I switched fields with no regrets. who meet monthly to share ideas, make decisions, and Today, over 60-some years later, I’m still involved in that field after a provide input and feedback. 1978 move to Florida. After a career combining consulting and contracting, The working groups are coordinated by the Office of I currently “work” as an apprenticeship coordinator for our local air- Campus Energy and Sustainability, which is headed by conditioning contractors’ association, helping to train the next generation of Joseph Clair (M.S. MAE ’95). The groups’ findings and skilled technicians. recommendations will be presented at the Sustainability Thank you for your inspiring article on Lois Graham and the opportunity Forum being planned for Earth Day, to be held this year to reflect on pleasant memories. Much good health and happiness to Graham on April 22. in her “quiet life of simple pleasures.” “FDa acceptance of NCFST Food sterilization —Jerome Greenstein (ME ’49) process” spring 2009 A process developed at the IIT National Center for Food Not That Kind of “Scarlet Fever” Safety and Technology that makes low-acid food safe while at the same time keeping your recent story about Scarlet Fever taking over the campus [“Leave Only its flavor intact has now been Footsteps,” fall 2009] took me back a few years. The year was 1945 when recognized by the food industry. I had the real scarlet fever. I was quarantined for three weeks and had to The pressure-assisted thermal endure having the doctor coming to the house just about every day and sterilization process—also giving me a shot in the rump. known as PATS—won an IFT Let’s hope that this Scarlet Fever is better than the other version. Food Expo Innovation Award at the 2009 Institute of Food —Dave Roth (CE ’71) Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo in Anaheim, Write back! Calif. The awards program honors outstanding innovation in products, equipment, IIT Magazine welcomes all signed letters to the editor and edits letters for instrumentation, technology, and services. A panel of content and clarity. Please send correspondence to: eight jurors from industry, academia, and government IIT Magazine reviewed 49 entries based on degree of innovation, c/o Letters technical advancement, benefit to food manufacturers 3300 South Federal Street, Suite 503 and/or consumers, and scientific merit. Four entries were Chicago, IL 60616 selected for recognition in 2009. Email: [email protected] Center for Professional Development), is send data other than the intended voice and Five Years Strong, located at SAT’s Rice Campus. Equipped in video of the VoIP call through this port as well. VoIP Lab Continues part from gifts supplied by industry partners “Once you can set up a call, you can steal such as Alcatel-Lucent, it features several test data,” says Davids. “The dragon is designed to Evolve beds—IMS, SIPConnect, SIP Peering, and to prevent this by using characteristics of the IP PBX—that students use to conduct real- If it’s inefficient and antiquated to use 150-year- world analysis of VoIP system operation old technology and a system of twisted wires and performance. A goal of the lab is and circuits to make phone calls, then why use to research how to improve VoIP them? So asks Carol Davids, director of IIT’s technology while addressing many VoIP Laboratory, which marked its fifth year of the challenges that plague its in 2009. widespread acceptance. VoIP, or Voice-over Internet Protocol, is a “The biggest problem broadband application that allows phone service with VoIP has been location to operate over the “cloud” of the Internet, as recognition. 911 capability opposed to running over the physical wires of is crucial to mass adoption,” traditional telephone lines. Introduced to mass Davids says. Users of VoIP market in 2004, when IIT’s lab opened, VoIP are identified by their VoIP is expected to be used in 20.4 million homes address. Like a SIP (session by 2010. initiation protocol) ID, which Since IIT launched its VoIP Lab, and can be downloaded for use subsequently, the VoIP Conference and Expo on cell phones with Internet in the following year, early adaptors of the services, the VoIP address doesn’t still-emerging technology have included identify where the caller is located. businesses with the financial flexibility to merge An Internet phone service such as the traditional phone (PBX, or private branch Vonage may have the mailing address exchange) and Internet services. Photo:Bonnie Robinson of a caller for billing purposes, but the very “With VoIP you’re blending together phone nature of VoIP allows users to place phone legitimate data (voice or video) to filter out a and Internet service, and therefore, in the calls from anywhere. The VoIP Lab is planning hacker’s data.” long run, you can save on monthly costs as a work with both Texas A&M University and the Students in the lab also developed a SIP result of not running two separate networks,” National Emergency Number Association to phone for the hearing impaired. The SIP phone says Davids, who ran test labs at Motorola and expand testing of systems to support emergency uses JAVA code that enables a hearing-impaired Tellabs. “Companies that use VoIP have the response services over the Internet.