Event Archive
Sawyier Philosophy Lecture in Science, Technology, and Society Featured Jon McGinnis
The Lewis Department of Humanities Spring 2012 Sawyier Philosophy Lecture in Science, Technology, and Society featured Jon McGinnis on April 13, 2012.
McGinnis is an associate professor of philosophy at University of Missouri—St. Louis and is a Greco-Arabist who also has interest in medieval Latin science, philosophy and theology. His lecture "Methodological Misfits: Struggling with Observation and Mathematics in Medieval Science" explored how few people doubt the significance of observation and mathematics for the physical sciences, and yet observation rarely matches exactly what our mathematical formulas predict. Through two case studies from medieval Islamic science, McGinnis illustrated the harmful effects of an exaggerated concern with getting a precise match.
John F. Zasadzinski Investiture
IIT faculty and staff were invited to attend the investiture ceremony to honor distinguished faculty member John F. Zasadzinski, professor of physics, who was invested with the Paul and Suzi Schutt Endowed Chair in Science.
The ceremony took place on Thursday, April 12, 2012 in the McCloska Auditorium in The McCormick Tribune Campus Center.
IIT Social Sciences | Klinenberg Lecture
IIT Social Sciences hosted Eric Klinenberg on March 8 in the MTCC Auditorium on IIT's Main Campus. Klinenberg is a renowned sociologist and author who explored the dramatic rise of solo living and examined the seismic impact it's having on our culture, business, and politics in his lecture "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone." The lecture was a revelatory examination of the most significant demographic shift since the Baby Boom—the sharp increase in the number of people who live alone. More >
CSL Hosted National Nuclear Science Day | January 25
The IIT College of Science and Letters hosted the National Nuclear Science Day, a part of National Nuclear Science Week, on January 25. This one-day signature event showcased ways to "Get to Know Nuclear," with presentations webcast to hundreds of classrooms around the country, an interactive art experience, and a visit by Simona de Silvestro, driver of the Nuclear Clean Energy IZOD IndyCar #78.
"What a rare opportunity to experience nuclear science with leading national experts, through colorful works of art and more," said Jim Walther, director of the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History." It is an honor to work with Illinois Institute of Technology to host such an impressive array of individuals to tell the story of nuclear science."
The National Nuclear Science Day presentations and other activities took place between 9:45 am—3 pm in the MTCC Auditorium and Hermann Hall.
Webinar presentations addressed a wide variety of nuclear topics:
- "Green Power for the Digital World"—10 am
Presented by Marv Fertel, CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, and Natalie Woods, engineer at River Bend Nuclear Power Station in Louisiana. - "What's Cool About Nuclear Science and Why Our Country Needs Nuclear Electricity"—11 am
Presented by Mark Peters, Deputy Director for Programs, Argonne National Laboratory, and Justin Thomas, Principle Nuclear Engineer, Argonne National Laboratory. - "Why Nuclear Medicine is Important to Me"—1 pm
Presented by Nicholas C. Friedman, MD, chair of Nuclear Medicine at the Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital, from Society of Nuclear Medicine. - "Shaping the Nuclear Future"—2 pm
Presented by Jeff Terry, Chair, Advanced Test Reactor Users Organization Director, Health Physics Program and Associate Professor of Physics at Illinois Institute of Technology.
Duchossois Leadership Professors Investiture
IIT faculty and staff were invited to attend the investiture ceremony for the newly endowed Duchossois Leadership Professors Program. The Duchossois Leadership Professors Program is a unique partnership of an elite scholarship program and an innovative faculty leadership and mentoring initiative.
The inaugural chair holders are Department Chair and Professor of Materials Engineering Keith J. Bowman and Professor of Physics Carlo U. Segre [pictured].
The ceremony took place on Thursday, January 19, 2012, in the McCloska Auditorium of The McCormick Tribune Campus Center.
40th Anniversary of the Department of Computer Science
Nearly 200 alumni (1960s-2000s), emeriti, faculty, students, staff, and other friends turned out on October 26 to celebrate the Department of Computer Science's 40th anniversary and 52 years of computer science excellence at IIT.
The daylong event highlighted innovations that have come out of the department and the bright future of computer science as a field. Guests included past chairs Robert "Haas" Tobey, Bob Carlson, Edward Reingold and Bogdan Korel; emeriti Charlie Bauer, Peter Greene, Martha Evens, and Tzilla Elrad; and others. As part of the celebration, Computer Science Chair and Professor Xian-He Sun announced the launch of a new fund named for Evens, the adviser or co-adviser of more than 100 Ph.D. students and a prolific and well-regarded scholar who has published more than 350 articles.
Computer science at IIT goes back to 1959, when computers were a part of a physical chemistry course. The department was founded in 1971, growing out of the Information Science Center. Since then, more than 5,000 students have graduated with degrees in computer science from IIT, and CS has become one of the largest departments in the university. Read More >
2011 Lederman Lecture: A Small Frontier
On October 14, 2011, IBM Fellow Don Eigler delivered the 2011 Lederman Lecture, "A Small Frontier," in which Eigler looked at the transformative effect the Information Revolution is having on nearly every human endeavor and our ability to build ever-smaller structures. Honored with the Kavli Prize for Nanoscience in 2010, Eigler was the first to demonstrate the ability to position individual atoms with atomic-scale precision, using a specialized Scanning Tunneling Microscope in 1989. Watch the lecture on YouTube.
2011 Kilpatrick Lecture: A Chemistry Renaissance featuring George Whitesides
On September 23, 2011, Harvard University Department of Chemistry's Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor George Whitesides delivered the 2011 Kilpatrick Lecture, "A Chemistry Renaissance." Whitesides is a pioneer in fundamental research who pushes the bounds of interdisciplinary collaboration to establish new fields in science and develop them towards practical applications with the potential to change the everyday world in which we live. Watch the lecture on YouTube.
Fukushima and Nuclear Power: Beyond the Headlines
Thursday, March 24, 12:50 pm, Wishnick Hall, Room 113
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As engineers continue to work around the clock to stabilize the situation at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, which suffered a string of failures, explosions, and radiation leaks following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, around the world people are discussing the safety of nuclear power. In today's fast-paced media world, disasters and other crises unfold in real time, often with incorrect, incomplete, or conflicting information reported in the news.
The IIT Armour College of Engineering and College of Science and Letters forum, "Fukushima and Nuclear Power: Beyond the Headlines," featured Vice President of the National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST) Robert Brackett, Armour Dean Natacha DePaola, CSL Dean Russell Betts, Professors of Physics Christopher White and Carlo Segre and Professor of Materials & Aerospace Engineering Aleksandar Ostrogorsky. A presentation and discussion provided much-needed information and context on the situation at Japan's nuclear plants, and nuclear power in general. Topics discussed included fission, radio-activity, radiation, health effects of radiation, and some basic nuclear engineering.
SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH EXPERT CRABTREE SPEAKS AT IIT
Sustainability expert George Crabtree, University of Illinois at Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, spoke on "The Sustainable Energy Challenge" on Feb. 16, 2011. His talk was co-sponsored by the chemistry division and the Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research.
The dependence on oil and other fossil fuels for over 80 percent of our energy and the continued emission of carbon dioxide threatening stable climate are captured in a single term: sustainability. Although we generally agree that sustainability is valuable, there is less agreement on how much sustainability is necessary or desirable. In this talk, Crabtree presented three criteria describing increasingly strict features of sustainability and apply them to evaluate the alternatives to oil and carbon dioxide emission, such as tapping unused energy flows in sunlight and wind, producing electricity without carbon emissions from clean coal and high efficiency nuclear power plants, and replacing oil with biofuel or electricity. Implementing these more sustainable alternatives requires new materials of increasing complexity and functionality that control the transformation of energy between light, electrons and chemical bonds at the nanoscale. Challenges and opportunities for developing the complex materials and controlling the chemical changes that enable greater sustainability will be presented.
Crabtree is Distinguished Professor of Physics, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering at University of Illinois at Chicago and Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow in the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He has won numerous awards for his research, most recently the Kammerlingh Onnes Prize in 2003 for his work on the physics of vortices in high temperature superconductors. More information about him is available here.
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Fall 2010 Sawyier Philosophy Lecture in Science, Technology, and Society
Sarah Pfatteicher
Research Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Friday, September 24
2:30 p.m.
111 Life Sciences
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL
The aftermath of September 11, 2001, seems an unlikely place to search for fundamental lessons about engineering, but the profession has a long tradition of building a positive future out of disasters.
Professor Pfatteicher uses the collapse of the Twin Towers to explore how engineering is and should be done.
NSF/CBMS Regional Conference in the Mathematical Sciences (Supported by NSF)
August 9-13
Chicago, IL
The numerical solution of stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) is at a stage of development similar to that of stochastic ordinary differential equations (SODEs) in the 1970s. Past developments have been ad hoc and fragmentary and it was not known how to derive higher order schemes. The breakthrough for SODEs came via stochastic Taylor expansions which are based on iterated applications of the Ito formula, the stochastic chain rule. This theory was expounded in the influential monograph of Kloeden & Platen which first appeared in 1992. Unfortunately there is no general Ito formula for SPDEs. Moreover, many additional difficulties arise with SPDEs, in particular the infinite dimensionality of the driving noise processes. Very recently, Jentzen & Kloeden have shown how stochastic Taylor expansions for the solution for SPDEs have been established on the basis of the integral representation of mild solutions of SPDEs and new higher order numerical schemes for SPDEs are now being derived.
Organizers: Jinqiao Duan, Igor Cialenco, and Fred J. Hickernell
Department of Applied Mathematics
Illinois Institute of Technology
10 W 32nd Street, Room 208
Chicago, IL, 60616, USA
http://www.iit.edu/csl/am/
IIT Computer Discovery Camp
July 19-28
Illinois Institute of Technology
Stuart Building
Chicago, IL 60616
Professors Cynthia Hood and Vida Winans with the help of IIT students hosted a computer camp for middle school girls during summer 2010. The camp was funded by an NSF grant to Broaden Participation in Computing (BPC) and will be held on the IIT campus. Students engaged in hands-on learning activities to stimulate interest in careers in computers and related technology.
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