Illinois Institute of Technology

Overview

The Illinois Institute of Technology is the only tech university in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the few tech-focused institutions in the country to offer law programs. The institute, which is also referred to as Illinois Tech, is the outcome of the merger between the Armour Institute and the Lewis Institute in 1940. The university subsequently absorbed the Institute of Design, the Chicago-Kent College of Law, the Stuart School of Management and Finance, and the Midwest College of Engineering.

The mergers subsequently created Illinois Tech, which had seven colleges. These are the Armour College of Engineering, the College of Architecture, the College of Computing, the Lewis College of Science and Letters, the Chicago-Kent College of Law, and the Stuart School of Business. Under these colleges are 109 undergraduate degree programs, 71 minors, and over 100 graduate degree programs, minors, and certificates.

Among its programs, the Illinois Institute of Technology is best known for its aerospace engineering, materials engineering, chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and law courses. The institute has been recognized as well in the field of Cyber Defence Education, with the Department of Homeland and the National Security Agency electing it as a National Center of Academic Excellence in the course.

Research in Illinois Tech is as vigorous as its academic programs. Indeed, the university is recognized as an institution with high research activity. Many of its projects are focused on its core initiatives: health and wellness, computation and data, and urban futures. The educational institution has institutes that cover those areas. These are the Institute for Food Safety and Health, the Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering, and the Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research, respectively. There is another institute under Illinois Tech called the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship, which is concerned with transforming ideas into products.

Apart from those institutes, the Illinois Institute of Technology has a research arm. That is the IIT Research Institute where scientists as well as students conduct advanced scientific studies. Among the ongoing projects are forays into understanding the novel coronavirus, figuring how biodefense and infectious diseases work, and discerning toxicology.

The scientific work of the university and its researchers have been recognized both nationally and internationally. They received a $2.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health for the clinical trial of a wireless visual prosthesis system that will provide artificial sight to people who became blind due to disease or trauma. IIT alumni are also well-regarded in their fields, including Leo M. Lederma who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988 and Herbert A. Simon, who gained the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1978.