Illinois Tech College of Computing Magazine 2021 Issue 1

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Fast Just Got Faster Manufacturing on the Cutting Edge Computing Positive Societal Change 2021

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Letter from the Dean

College of Computing Magazine Dean, College of Computing Lance Fortnow Vice President for External Affairs Jess Goode Director of Content Chelsea Kalberloh Jackson Editor Casey Moffitt Design Joe Goforth Photography Olivia Dimmer David Ettinger Copyeditor Andrew Wyder

WELCOME

to the first issue of Illinois Tech’s College of Computing Magazine.

We started the College of Computing at Illinois Tech in June 2020 with three pillars in mind, building on the university’s strategic plan: ◼ To play a leading role in pushing the tech community further, both locally and globally ◼ To apply computing as a horizontal by infusing computing education, research, tools, and ideas into nearly every discipline, course, and activity across the university ◼ To paraphrase minister Frank Wakeley Gunsaulus’s founding mission for Illinois Tech, to provide students from all backgrounds meaningful roles in a changing technological society

I came to Illinois Tech in 2019 as the dean of the College of Science, having previously served at Georgia Tech, where I was the chair of the School of Computer Science since 2012. Before that I held primarily academic appointments at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. While I grew up in the New York/New Jersey area, I proudly call Chicago my hometown.

When I came to Chicago to interview for the position of dean, I was struck by the vision of Illinois Tech Provost Peter Kilpatrick, and trustee Chris Gladwin to make Illinois Tech the leading provider of diverse talent to strengthen Chicago’s growing tech community. I could not resist the opportunity to come back to the city I love and to build something new: a college whose main purpose is to help Chicago become the tech hub that this great city deserves to be. I have not been disappointed by the support of the provost and the university’s trustees, alumni, faculty, and students in this endeavor, and I am pleased to note that we launched the College of Computing a year ahead of schedule, in the midst of a pandemic.

I hope this magazine gives you a taste of what this college is about.

I’m particularly excited about our new hires, including six new assistant professors in the Department of Computer Science and Calvin Nobles, the new chair of the Department of Information Technology and Management.

We have many exciting new educational and research programs and partnerships in the works, and I look forward to sharing more information about them with you in future issues.

Lance Fortnow Dean College of Computing

College of Computing Magazine is published annually by the Office of Marketing and Communications and the College of Computing.

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Mission Statement Provide the students and faculty of Illinois Tech from all backgrounds and disciplines the best-in-class computational and data science platform to excel in their respective fields.

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.

On the Cover Professor Xian-He Sun, Ron Hochsprung Endowed Chair of Computer Science, developed Hermes, a deep memory and storage hierarchy software system designed to reduce bottlenecks in data movement and improve input/output performance. Hermes is now available on the market for HPC researchers.

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Faculty News

Learn more about innovative research, the latest grant awards, and newest members of the College of Computing’s faculty.

Ready for 'the Great Disruption' Illinois Tech's new College of Computing leads the university into the world of data and computing.

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Fast Just Got Faster

The Hermes deep memory and storage hierarchy software system boosts data flow efficiency in high-performance computing.

Student News

See how College of Computing students have maintained clinical trials during a pandemic, unlocked deep-learning algorithms, and made communication devices more affordable.

Manufacturing on the Cutting Edge A partnership with DMG MORI brings the latest technology in digital manufacturing to campus.

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Computing Positive Societal Change

The SoReMo Initiative empowers students to pursue research projects that impact their community through modeling, computation, and design.

FACULTY NEWS

Cybersecurity Research Earns Hong NSF CAREER Award

Hong’s research involves developing innovative tools that will allow businesses to privately share their data, such as company emails. These tools will allow a MSSP to ensure security against threats such as phishing scams, while protecting the privacy of the content of the business communications. MSSPs will be able to evaluate threats from the data without viewing proprietary information or identifying individuals.

“This project technically bridges security, privacy, and machine learning,” Hong says. “Apart from protecting the sensitive organizational data in security analytics, the project will address personal privacy concerns of employees, such as their web browsing history, emails, and faces in the surveillance videos, while ensuring the compliance of privacy laws and regulations in this big data era.”

By creating a new paradigm of privacypreserving data analysis to confidentially

Yuan Hong, assistant professor of computer science at Illinois Institute of Technology, has received a $499,996 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award for innovative techniques to perform security analytics that detect cybersecurity threats while preserving privacy.

Enterprises and organizations are increasingly outsourcing their security analytics needs to external managed security service providers (MSSPs). Although cost effective and reliable, outsourcing requires these enterprises and organizations to share their large-scale and disparate datasets with MSSPs. Hong’s research tackles the privacy risks while outsourcing these services.

perform real-time threat detection, these analytic tools will work with both structured data such as relational databases and network traffic, and unstructured data such as surveillance videos, emails, and business documents.

The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the researcher(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Breaking the Big Data Bottleneck Researchers at Illinois Institute of Technology are working in stride to develop more efficient computing systems to process increasing sizes of data sets in the era of big data.

Rujia Wang and Kyle Hale, assistant professors of computer science, and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science Xian-He Sun received a grant from the National Science Foundation to build a memory-centric

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architecture that will reduce the energy and time needed to process big data sets.

“In the computer systems we are now using, you have a CPU [central processing unit] and memory to store data,” Wang explains. “When you want to process information, that data must be moved from memory to the CPU, which is OK when you don’t have a lot of data. But if you are working in machine learning, data mining, or something

specific like genome sequencing, that’s a lot of data movement.”

This proposal is to develop a framework to support pre-processing of the data in the memory before moving it to the CPU. This should reduce the amount of data that needs to migrate to the CPU and will make processing more efficient in the CPU. To accomplish this, Wang says, new software and hardware must be

College of Computing

developed and be able to work with their existing counterparts. The Illinois Tech team of Wang, Hale, and Sun bring their collective experience and expertise in hardware, software, and high-performance computing systems together to tackle these challenges.

The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the researcher(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Retail Space Reimagined as Mini Fulfillment Centers

new life into struggling

and e-commerce websites by bringing their inventory closer to their customers, allowing for easier directto-customer deliveries and more convenient curbside pickups. They also could benefit small businesses by

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storefronts, but also would alleviate e-commerce delivery issues, specifically with “not-at-home”

picked up by drivers closer to delivery time; drivers making more, but shorter, trips; and

missed deliveries.

“As inventory is located closer to delivery areas, the route optimization has more options, and thus finds better solutions,” Gopal says. “This could include orders being

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The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the decline of retail traffic, but it also has presented an opportunity to reimagine retail space use and an expansion of the traditional retail supply chain.

Gurram Gopal, industry professor of industrial technology and management at Illinois Institute of Technology, and his former student Laura Bravo Fernandez (M.Eng. ITO ’20) examine how empty retail spaces can be used as mini fulfillment centers in a recent article published in Supply Chain Management Review.

The researchers propose that converting these spaces into mini fulfillment centers would not only breathe

holding their inventory in the neighborhood. The centers could prove environmentally beneficial, reducing the need for fuel and energy by making delivery trips shorter.

allowing customers to pick up closer to their homes.”

Gopal and Fernandez argue that the conversion from retail space to fulfillment center would help smaller and mid-sized retailers compete with larger retailers

Professor, Alumnus, Student Build QMC Software Library Illinois Institute of Technology Professor of Applied Mathematics Fred Hickernell teamed up with an alumnus and a current student to develop a software library to make advanced mathematical methods more available to researchers and industry.

This research group developed an open-source library of Quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) software to make the mathematical method more accessible. Hickernell says QMC simulations can benefit researchers and practitioners who are predicting probability distributions in the fields of financial risk, uncertainty quantification, and machine learning.

“QMC has matured to the point that it is being used in industrial applications,” Hickernell says. “Because

different research groups focus on different areas of QMC research, no one group’s software has all the components needed for all QMC simulation.”

Hickernell met with former student Michael McCourt (AMAT ’07), research engineer for the startup SigOpt, at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Conference on Computational Science and Engineering. They discussed project possibilities and agreed on the QMC library in the Python programming language, which started the QMCPy project.

“QMCPy is intended to be a proving ground for new QMC ideas as well as an easy entry point for those who wonder whether their applications might benefit from QMC,” Hickernell says.

Hickernell identified Aleksei Sorokin (AMAT/M.A.S. DS ’21, Ph.D. AMAT, 1st Year) as the undergraduate researcher.

“Projects like QMCPy are important as they have helped me develop the ability to research, communicate, and

connect with collaborators,” Sorokin says The library is being distributed through GitHub, PyPI, and the trio's own blog.

Fred Hickernell

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FACULTY NEWS

Nobles Named New ITM Chair The Department of Information Technology and Management at Illinois Institute of Technology has a new leader with the appointment of Calvin Nobles as the department’s new chair beginning with the 2021–22 academic year.

Nobles brings more than 25 years of professional cybersecurity experience to the university in the fields of information security and human factors engineering, data privacy, and data security. He is also researching the vulnerability of autonomous vehicles, the Internet of Things, and smart devices, as well as cultural influences on phishing susceptibility.

“Calvin has extensive military and corporate experience in cybersecurity,” says Lance Fortnow, dean of Illinois Tech’s College of Computing. “He will help Illinois Tech become a leader in educating students who can help meet this global challenge.”

Nobles earned a doctorate in business administration from Temple University this

spring; he also holds a Ph.D. in human factors from Capitol Technology University in Laurel, Maryland, and has a Ph.D. in management and engineering technology from Northcentral University in Scottsdale, Arizona.

A retired United States Navy officer, Nobles comes to Illinois Tech after serving as a vice president at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Petrović Helps Launch Algebraic Statistics Journal

Analyzing DNS Privacy Concerns

Domain name system (DNS) research conducted by Illinois Institute of Technology’s Cynthia Hood, associate professor of computer science and engineering, and Vijay K. Gurbani, research associate professor of computer science, examined the protocol against a backdrop of increased privacy concerns.

The research traces the evolution of DNS protocol and determines if the evolutionary trajectory benefits user privacy. “When DNS Goes Dark: Understanding Privacy and Shaping Policy of an Evolving Protocol” was recognized as a top 10 paper

by SSRN, a platform for the distribution of early-stage research.

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“Every internet transaction starts with a DNS query,” Gurbani says. “Consequently, the owner of the DNS server knows where a certain user is going. Over time, a sophisticated user profile can be built up.”

Data stored by DNS providers is regulated by a variety of means. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation places strict restrictions as to how user data can be shared.

Federal regulation governing data privacy does not exist in the United States.

The paper concludes that DNS resolvers deserve careful scrutiny, as users are generally unaware of the privacy policy agreements, nor are users aware that DNS lookups are stored and may be shared for profit.

Protecting your personal data

Sonja Petrović, associate professor of applied mathematics at Illinois Institute of Technology, has helped found a new publication dedicated to algebraic statistics, which launched its first volume last October.

The establishment of Algebraic Statistics provides a community-based forum for researchers in the field to share their findings. The editorial directors say they plan to include contributions that connect statistical theory, methodology, or application to the world of algebra, geometry, and combinatorics in ways that may not be labeled as traditional.

“As an interdisciplinary endeavor, by definition, a concerted effort will be made for Algebraic Statistics to serve various constituents interested in and interacting with algebraic statistics,” Petrović says.

Petrović serves as managing editor along with Thomas Kahle, professor for algebra at Otto Von Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany.

College of Computing

STUDENT NEWS

Opening I/O Bottlenecks

Creating Connections at a Lower Cost Individuals with speech disorders often rely on expensive devices to help them communicate, but an Illinois Institute of Technology student has developed a cheaper, yet equally effective, alternative.

After seeing a friend’s younger brother using a pricey, high-tech augmentative and alternative communications (AAC) device, Travis Smith (ITM/M.A.S. CYS ’21), adjunct professor of information technology and management, thought he could devise an alternative that would cost less and could be placed in the hands of more people.

“Medical-grade AAC devices can cost thousands of dollars, even though they are essentially Android tablets running AAC software,” Smith says.

Smith’s device uses an open-source application, a Raspberry Pi computer, and a 7-inch touchscreen, which can be purchased

off the shelf, reducing the cost of the device. Users also do not need to rely on a single manufacturer for maintenance and repairs.

Vasilios “Billy” Pappademetriou, adjunct industry associate professor of information technology and management, provided Smith with mentoring and financial backing to develop the device.

Smith and Pappademetriou’s work, “Voice for the Voiceless: Developing a Low-Cost Open-Source Communication Device for the Speech Impaired,” was published as part of the 18th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations.

Communication disorder app

n (Ph.D. CS ’21) Hariharan Devaraja ard at the aw earned a best paper Electronics and l Institute of Electrica Computing for n tio Engineers/Associa posium on Sym al on Machinery Internati mputing Co et ern Int Cluster, Cloud, and e, urn lbo Me in conference hosted in ns tio ova Australia, for his inn necks that hinder identifying data bottle formance in per input/output (I/O) s. thm ori deep-learning alg racterized cha and d Devarajan studie ific ent sci ht eig the I/O behavior of ning on run ns tio lica deep-learning app er at the put om erc sup n Theta, a productio puting Facility.

Argonne Leadership Com terization, “Based on the charac resentative rep vel we developed a no IO: A DL led cal benchmark suite Scientific for rk ma nch Data-Centric Be cations,” he says.

Deep Learning Appli d that Devarajan discovere ions use scientific cat pli deep-learning ap not well supported data formats that are meworks. However, by deep-learning fra ciency by six times DLIO can increase effi ions by allowing on existing applicat e their I/O access. tun e scientists to fin bottlenecks, By identifying these e to abl be l scientists wil entific sci ke ma y efficientl her hig a at es discoveri m fro n tio resolu supercomputers.

Using AI and Data Visualization to Keep Clinical Trials Running Although COVID-19 has disrupted clinical trials for new treatments of life-threatening diseases, two teams of students from Illinois Institute of Technology’s Master of Data Science and Bachelor of Computer Science programs have developed ways to continue this work during the pandemic.

The students spent summer 2020

working with Accenture, a global consulting and innovation firm whose clients’ clinical trials for treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and hepatitis C were halted due to the pandemic. The shutdown not only negatively impacted the research and potentially the health of the participants, but it also amounted to a daily financial loss of $8 million per trial

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for the clients.

Using artificial intelligence and data visualization the students helped determine which areas were most impacted by the pandemic; to identify safe areas to continue the clinical trials; and to diagnose which trials should continue, stop, or be redesigned.

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FEATURE

Ready for

'THE GREAT DISRUPTION' As cash transactions become increasingly rare, work shifts from the office to the home, and online educational opportunities expand, it is clear that the digital transformation is here and quickly maturing. To become an educational leader in complex and ever-shifting technology, and to prepare new generations of ethical digital stewards, Illinois Institute of Technology established a new college: the College of Computing.

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he College of Computing launched in June 2020, combining the departments of computer science, information technology and management, applied mathematics, and industrial technology and management.

Illinois Tech hired Lance Fortnow—a computer scientist with a mathematics background from Georgia Institute of Technology, where he chaired the computer science department—as the new college’s first dean.

“The creation of the college recognizes the growing importance of data and computing in every aspect of our society,” Fortnow says.

“We aim to teach our students about responsible use of data, to understand how to manage the digital transformation, and the skills to become leaders in this area.”

The digital transformation has generated unprecedented amounts of data as our social media, buying, reading, watching, health, and gaming habits are all sitting on the cloud ready to be mined. Industry realizes the importance of collecting and processing this data to optimize business operations, the supply chain, and manufacturing, and to develop products and services for a broad audience or personalized for an individual.

The College of Computing is the realization of a new educational direction developed by Illinois Tech Provost Peter Kilpatrick and Trustee Chris Gladwin, chief executive officer of Ocient and founder of Cleversafe, the world’s largest strategic object storage vendor, which was acquired by IBM. Although Kilpatrick headed the development of the university’s strategic plan, which outlines the path to expand computing across Illinois Tech, he gives credit to Gladwin, saying he conceived the concept of the new college.

“Cleversafe succeeded with many of Illinois Tech’s alumni in key roles,” Fortnow says. “Chris, as one of the founders of P33, realized that a College of Computing could help Illinois Tech become an institution that could help propel the tech industry in Chicago.”

Kilpatrick argues the College of Computing is needed as computing will be a disruptive force in the economy. He points to the work of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum and the author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, who predicts automation, computing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other computing-enabled innovations will displace many workers, but also create many new roles and jobs.

“ We want very much to empower our students to be ready for ‘the great disruption.’”

—Provost Peter Kilpatrick

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College of Computing

“We want very much to empower our students to be ready for ‘the great disruption,’” Kilpatrick says. “One significant element of that is to make computing thinking and computing skills part of every degree program at Illinois Tech. We thought the only good way to signal all of these and facilitate all this was to create a new College of Computing that informs and empowers and educates every student at Illinois Tech.”

Illinois Tech is especially poised to be a leader in computing education. As Chicago’s only tech-focused university, Illinois Tech has made inroads to the city’s emerging tech sector, establishing partnerships with P33, a facilitator of business, tech, nonprofit, and government, and the Discovery Partners Institute, which is dedicated to developing tech talent. It also has long-standing relationships with nearby Argonne and Fermilab national laboratories.

Illinois Tech also is home to an established Department of Computer Science, which is celebrating 50 years of education and innovation this year.

Through that time it has developed excellence in AI, deep learning, cybersecurity, and high performance

computing, which can be incorporated across Illinois Tech’s degree programs.

“I am excited by some of the truly innovative new approaches to crafting and delivering our education that the members of the new college are helping us achieve,” Kilpatrick says.

The use of data across disciplines, and the growing capability to collect and analyze information, has made data the centerpiece of computing in the future. This focus is driving the first two major areas of research at the College of Computing: intelligence and cybersecurity.

Fortnow describes intelligence as a conglomerate of areas that helps make responsible decisions from data, which includes machine learning, data science, AI, statistics, and data analytics. The flip side of collecting and processing this data is keeping that data secure, making cybersecurity an important element of computing’s future.

These computing fields, as well as every other area within the discipline, are rapidly changing and shifting. Fortnow says it is important for the College of Computing to ensure its programs can transform just as quickly.

“We need to be agile in all our programs,

keeping them up to date and revising them to prepare our students for the technological world now and in the near future,” he says. “We also realize that education can no longer stop at graduation, and [we need to] provide certificates and other programs to help our graduates remain successful throughout their careers.”

Gladwin says the tools are in place to ensure that goal can be accomplished.

“The culture and team at Illinois Tech are great at prompt decision making, which is essential for navigating a rapidly changing field like computing to a leadership position,” Gladwin says.

College of Computing Launch

COMPUTING-INFUSED CAMPUS Illinois Institute of Technology has historically embraced the integration of computing across academic disciplines, and the College of Computing will be a driving force to ensure each student understands how computing methods can be applied to their field of study.

Computing is so ubiquitous that active computational skills—such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, and software programming—are practiced in professions across a variety of fields and are becoming increasingly valuable tools. By incorporating computing as a “horizontal” across academic programs, Illinois Tech will ensure today’s students are ready to shape and lead a changing technological society.

The concept of a college of computing isn’t new, but using it as a vehicle to infuse computation and data into all academic disciplines across campus is a rare, if not unique, educational model.

“We aim for a time when every Illinois Tech student, regardless of major, has a strong understanding of the fundamentals of computing and data science,” says Lance Fortnow, dean of the College of Computing. “We aim to teach our students about responsible use of data, and to understand how to manage the digital transformation.”

Matt Mayfield, associate dean of Illinois Tech’s Institute

of Design, says he believes the College of Computing is a valuable resource to students outside of computer science.

“We’re not programmers here at the Institute of Design,” he says. “When we think of computing, we think in terms of what computing enables. Our students need to be exposed to programming and computing-based engineering so we can start solving problems through computing.”

By understanding computing technology, designers can understand how people can interact with it, the limits of computing, and the rewards computing offers to its users.

“Self-driving cars is a great example,” Mayfield says. “It’s more than getting from point A to point B. We ask, ‘What is the role of cars in our lives? Why do people spend time driving, especially when they don’t have to?’ and ‘How do we interpret the range and limitations of automotive autonomy?’”

Provost Peter Kilpatrick says he believes this concept of establishing computing as a horizontal across academic disciplines is the most exciting aspect of the new college.

“I am excited by the tearing down of our silos at Illinois Tech that this college will help us achieve,” Kilpatrick says.

“I am also excited by some of the truly innovative new approaches to crafting and delivering our education that the members of the new college are helping us achieve.”

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FEATURE

Researchers Launch Hermes Supercomputer Software The world of high-performance computing can expect to see a boost in data flow efficiency with the launch of new input/output software developed by researchers at Illinois Institute of Technology, with collaborators from the HDF Group.

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College of Computing

“ Our main objective is to develop an I/O buffering system that will utilize a deep memory and storage hierarchy design that will significantly accelerate I/O performance.”

—Xian-He Sun

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ermes is a new deep memory and storage hierarchy software system designed to reduce the bottlenecks in data movement from storage to memory in high-performance computing, which improves input/ output performance. Improvements in microprocessors, data storage, and memory hardware have drastically increased the amount of data that supercomputers can process, but they also have resulted in traffic jams that

occur when moving data from storage to memory and to the microprocessor.

“Different systems and different technologies all also run different software,” says Anthony Kougkas (Ph.D. CS ’19), Illinois Tech research assistant professor of computer science and lead researcher on the project. “Ideally the presence of those multiple tiers of storage should be transparent to applications without having to sacrifice I/O performance. With this problem in mind, we set out to create a team to address this problem.”

Kougkas led a webinar outlining Hermes’s capabilities as part of the software launch on March 26, with presentations from Hermes team collaborators Christopher Hogan,

Memory (e.g., DRAM)

I/O Performance Gap

Parallel File System (e.g., disks)

HDF Group software engineer; Kimmy Hu, HDF Group HPC lead engineer; Hariharan Devarajan, a former Ph.D. student in Illinois Tech’s Scalable Computing Software Lab; and Gerd Heber, HDF Group lead engineer.

Illinois Tech Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Ron Hochsprung Endowed Chair Xian-He Sun is the principal investigator for Hermes, which was funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The team described how Hermes organizes and accesses data from a variety of local and remote storage devices and moves it efficiently

hardware, organize it, and send it to memory using a single software package.

This requires the user to write less code with a universal software package, rather than using different software for each storage device.

This improves the speed of moving data from storage to memory, reducing the input/output performance gap that exists with current systems. Although Hermes is fully functional and ready for researchers in high-performance computing to use, Kougkas says the open-source software is still “in development,” and hopes the community will continue to offer their

into memory, where the data can be processed and, ultimately, can easily help people get increased performance from their data-analyzing applications.

“The problem is all of [the storage devices] are independently designed, deployed, and managed, making it hard for the end user to manage the complexity of hierarchical storage,” Kougkas says. “Hermes holistically manages this storage system and brings the benefit of each [storage component]

feedback to improve the package.

NSF Program Director Seung-Jong Park attended this Webinar, with 75 other interested users.

Software for Big Data Challenges

to the end user.”

The Hermes software allows users to draw data from various storage

Memory (e.g., DRAM)

Memory (e.g., DRAM)

Far Memory (e.g., Intel Xpoint)

Far Memory (e.g., Intel Xpoint)

Local Storage (e.g., NVMe)

Local Storage (e.g., NVMe)

Burst Buffers (e.g., SSD)

Burst Buffers (e.g., SSD)

Parallel File System (e.g., disks)

Parallel File System (e.g., disks)

Hermes software draws data from multiple deep memory and storage sources to increase HPC performance.

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FEATURE

Manufacturing on the

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new partnership between Illinois Institute of Technology and DMG MORI is bringing the latest in digital manufacturing to Illinois Tech’s campus.

DMG MORI is lending a DMU-50 5-axis CNC machine, as well as an additive

manufacturing machine, to Illinois Tech, allowing students to gain new experience in cuttingedge manufacturing and 3D printing.

“We all read about the skills shortage in manufacturing. I think this is just the beginning of creating potential partnerships with a number of companies seeking to employ graduates who have learned what these technologies can create,” says William Maurer, industry professor of industrial technology and management at Illinois Tech. “What is exciting is providing students the opportunity to learn and utilize the most advanced manufacturing technology on the planet.”

Students are using the 5-axis CNC machine to create machined parts with increasing geometric complexities. The cutting tool not only moves in three directions—up and down, side to side, and forward and backward—but also rotates the parts in two directions.

It also can be linked to a computer-integrated manufacturing platform and connected to Internet of Things software for complete transparency and diagnostic status reports.

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College of Computing

“This creates a unique environment for manufacturing where complex parts and operations can be machined with speed, efficiency, and accuracy,” says Nick Villani, an Illinois Tech adjunct industry professor of industrial technology and management. “This is truly the machine of the future and the perfect tool for modern-day manufacturing and production.”

Villani says students can use the 5-axis CNC machine at any point during the prototyping, part making, and production phases of the manufacturing process, as well as for inspection to maintain, tighten, and improve quality control practices. It has the ability to manufacture everything from microscopic medical equipment to complex aerospace components.

Sammy Tin, formerly the Finkl Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Illinois Tech, says the 3D printing additive machine allows faculty in the university’s Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering to conduct research in metal materials science and offers new

“This is an incredible opportunity, as it bridges the gap between theory and application that is oftentimes unavailable to students in technology management and in engineering,” Lopez says. “It has enabled us to learn processes that are only found in top development groups among the largest companies. It allows us to manufacture parts to the highest standards, taking approaches in part design for our project that would otherwise be unthinkable, as it would be impossible to do [this work] with traditional manufacturing methods, or cost prohibitive if sourced outside.”

Lopez says he is using the technology to develop parts for a sports car designed by fellow students in a student group that he founded, Advanced Automotive Development.

“We are very pleased with what we have learned in the class, and look forward to acquiring more experience with the machine and producing even more parts for this very exciting project,” he says.

Amanda Sathiaraj (M.S. MMAE 2nd Year) says she finds herself working

“ This is truly the machine of the future and the perfect tool for modern-day manufacturing and production.”

research opportunities for students.

“Now we’re better equipped to get our students into the industry,” Tin says. “This is cutting-edge equipment in digital manufacturing and gives us the capability to develop new technology related to manufacturing.”

The 3D laser, powder-backed printer has the ability to produce complex geometries that enable the production of metal parts and products. Tin says it has been used on campus to produce aerospace-grade titanium parts.

The machine is being used for graduate-level research and also is being incorporated into the undergraduate curriculum.

Juan Lopez (AE 2nd Year) says the 5-axis CNC machine is an integral part of his coursework. After a seminar class, he takes the information he has learned and sees it come to life when using the machine.

A student programs the DMG MORI 3D printing additive machine through a touchscreen interface.

on the 5-axis CNC machine each week, learning to load and unload tools, call a tool, teach a tool to the machine, call programs, and use programs to mill, drill, and engrave parts.

“I work in a company that manufactures parts, and working on the 5-axis CNC mill machine in school has given me a better understanding of the process and operations involved,” Sathiaraj says. “From learning about measuring tools and quality control to making 3D designs and writing G-code, this class has truly enriched my knowledge on the topics and has helped me perform better at work too. I am able to apply what I learn in class at my workplace every day.”

—Nick Villani

Students utilize the latest manufacturing techniques with the DMG MORI 3D printing additive machine.

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FEATURE

Research with IMPACT

SoReMo promotes ethical, equitable approaches in computation, modeling, and design

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new effort at Illinois Institute of Technology is empowering students to apply their academic research efforts in computation and data science toward positive societal change.

The Socially Responsible Modeling, Computation, and Design (SoReMo) Initiative connects students with a network of academics to bring their research into the real world and to help solve the issues facing society today.

“We are very good at offering technical knowledge here at Illinois Tech,” says Sonja Petrović, associate professor of applied

Barien Gad

mathematics and a SoReMo founder. “When we apply that technical knowledge to problems that face society, that education increases in value.”

Petrović says students can use their academic skills to make a difference in two ways. One is to enroll in a hands-on program like food science and nutrition. Another is to pursue an academic passion and learn how to apply it to create social change.

“Let’s say you just do ‘math,’” Petrović says.

“How do you make a difference? SoReMo will show how to pursue a passion within the discipline and use it to make difference and enact change.”

The initiative held its initial forum in February to introduce four student fellows and faculty researchers, and to host a brief discussion about goals and interests. Almost every college at Illinois

Alisha Khan 12

College of Computing

Tech was represented. Petrović says having forum members from a variety of academic backgrounds is an important aspect of the initiative.

“People from different backgrounds look at the same problem from different angles,” she says.

“The idea is to bring different people together to look at these ideas.”

SoReMo also will include industry and community leaders, with the aim being to develop it into a think tank to tackle issues society is facing.

SoReMo’s first four fellows are unraveling a variety of social ills from a diverse range of academic backgrounds. Ryan Ciminski (AMAT 1st Year) is examining “Community Risk Mitigation Research: A Data Science Study into the Inequities of Preparedness Education in the Chicago

Leilasadat Mirghaderi

Region.” Barien Gad (BCHM 2nd Year) is working on “Facilities, Amenities, and Accommodations for Minorities in STEM and the Impact on Illinois Tech’s Community.” Alisha Khan (CS 2nd Year) is analyzing “Investigating and Developing Strategies to Address Faculty and Student Diversity at Illinois Tech.” Leilasadat Mirghaderi (THUM Ph.D. candidate) is investigating “Social Media Users Free Labor in Iran: Influencers, Ethical Conduct, and Labor Exploitation.”

The fellows will work with faculty and advisers in a multidisciplinary environment to complete and showcase their projects. They will incorporate feedback from community stakeholders and subject matter experts from industry, academia, and government. During the process, fellows will gain communications training, interdisciplinary experience, and contacts across campus and the community.

Ryan Ciminski 2021

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