Illinois Tech Magazine
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The spring 2024 edition of Illinois Tech Magazine highlights the unique way that Illinois Tech alumni continue to drive innovation for positive change around the world.
Here are just some of the alumni highlights in this issue: Jimmy Akintonde (ARCH ’95) grew his development company from an office barely big enough for a second employee to space enough for 150 employees, and it is now part of a team tackling the Barack Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side. Kaiwei Tang (M.B.A. ’06, M.DES. ’14) had a vision for a new type of smartphone—one stripped of the streaming distractions that have caused so much national debate, particularly relating to kids—and it has placed him far ahead of his time. Nidhal Bouaynaya (M.S. EE, CE ’02) is trying to train artificial intelligence tools that are trustworthy enough to guide soldiers on the battlefield.
Explore all that and much more below.
Face to Face—and Fearless
Martha Razo (AMAT, M.S. ’17) took the reins of her family business when it was teetering in the red, and saved it with a series of fearless face-to-face pitches. And now she’s building her second business off the success of the first.
Read Story
‘Outdoors Is for Everybody’
To develop a “hard” material product good enough to stand out amongst an army of software apps at the prestigious TechRise Chicago pitch competition, longtime friends Qudsia Khan (ARCE ’09, M.A.S. STE ’11) and Sana Jafri had to come up with an idea that wasn’t just promising, but timely.
They found one worth $100,000.
Read Story
From door knocking just out of college to her current position the Illinois Department of Human Services’ senior Emerson immigration fellow, Ruth Lopez-McCarthy has spent her life fighting for immigrant rights.
Ruth Lopez-McCarthy (LAW ’09)
Sydney Hardwick (ITM ’15) has found a way to merger her soft skills with the technical instincts she’s honed her entire life in her role at Visa, where she empowers designers, researchers, and engineers to create global, future-focused products and services.
Sydney Hardwick (ITM ’15)
Lexi Detweiler’s job is critical, to put mildly. At the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, she works on a team whose job it is to fuel the nuclear-powered United States Navy, to help maintain its nuclear stockpile, and to conduct nuclear non-proliferation work.
Lexi Detweiler (PHYS, ASPY, M.S. HP ’21)
With a desire to help solve problems, Marilyn Barrios decided to leave a career in information technology sales to go back to school to study cybersecurity—and now she’s helping Motorola Solutions design more secure systems.
Marilyn Barrios (ITM, M.A.S. ITM ’18)
Y. J. Ahn planned to devote her career to tackling complex challenges with society-altering implications. Her work at autonomous vehicle company Waymo certainly qualifies.
Y. J. Ahn (M.D.M. ’06)
A tinkerer from the time he was a child, John Katsoudas (M.S. PHYS ’03) has created a unique path to where he is now: spearheading the creation of the world’s first rechargeable, safe, liquid electric fuel.
John Katsoudas (M.S. PHYS ’03)
