ECE Senior Adam Berg Wins Young Innovator's Award

Electrical engineering undergraduate Adam Berg (EE 5th year) was honored with the Young Innovator’s Award at the Chicago Innovation Awards for his work on the IPRO AudioDoc (now called SonicStep–EnPRO 350), an innovative language-learning tool that runs on mobile devices. Berg, who is active in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Academy, worked on the project in spring 2006 and fall 2007, during which time it won a number of IPRO awards. By integrating spoken audio, corresponding text, and a dictionary onto cell phones and MP3 players, the tool creates language learning material out of any audio recording that has a corresponding transcript, using speech recognition technology to align audio to text from a variety of sources beyond the usual textbooks used by foreign language learners.  Full Article

Medical Imaging Research Updates

The Medical Imaging Research Center (MIRC) at Illinois Institute of Technology is one of the most progressive research centers in Chicago. The interdisciplinary faculty members, including four from ECE, are developing new imaging modalities and techniques for acquisition, processing, and analysis of medical images. Housed in the university's new Technology and Business Center, the MIRC researchers have state-of-the-art space to continue their long-term projects that are changing the way we look at human anatomy. Full Article

Grainger Foundation Gives $5 Million to ECE Power Engineering Program

The electrical power engineering programs at Illinois Institute of Technology continue to expand their facilities and enrollment thanks to ongoing support from The Grainger Foundation of Lake Forest, Ill. The ECE department recently received a $5 million gift from the foundation to help inspire students in the United States to become interested in electrical power engineering. The generous donation also will allow the ECE department to continue to attract well-qualified students into power engineering professions.

The Grainger Foundation has supported power initiatives including scholarship funding and facility development at the university for more than two decades. Scholarships funded by past Grainger gifts have resulted in more than double the number of students dedicating their engineering focus to issues of power and sustainability. Full Article