“They may describe these decisions as temporary. But for many people, and in some instances for everybody, this is it,” said Carolyn Shapiro, the founder and co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States. “There is no more.”
“Alexa, will you marry me?” When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reported in 2016 that over 250,000 people had proposed to their Alexa devices, commentators laughed it off. But by 2026, people have said, “I do,” to avatars, chatbots and robots in ceremonies around the world.
“It's especially useful for anyone serious about peak performance and endurance sports,” says Tyler McQuality, associate director of the Center for Sports Innovation at Illinois Tech. “There are certain intervals you can run based on VO2 max pacing and effort.”
“Quantum bits can be coupled to each other, just like atoms can form molecules. You can make 100 of these quantum bits work cooperatively as one giant type of computing element, and that gives you an axis to solving problems that you cannot do with conventional processors,” says John F. Zasadzinski, professor of physics at Illinois Institute of Technology. “It can’t solve every problem, but there are certain types of problems that it is really good at solving in an amount of time that’s reasonable.”
Extreme heat in Japan and Australia. Flash floods in Texas and across Europe. Billion-dollar-damaging storms in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. These are no longer rare events but signs of mounting ecological stress that threaten long-term business continuity. The way companies manage natural resources—how they produce, sell, and dispose of products—is not sustainable. Yet within this challenge lies a strategic opportunity: the circular economy.
Power grids are undergoing a massive transformation—from coal- and gas-fired plants to millions of solar panels and wind turbines scattered across vast distances. It’s not just a technology swap. It’s a complete reimagining of how electricity is generated, transmitted, and used. And if we get it wrong, we’re setting ourselves up for more catastrophic blackouts like the one that hit all of Spain and Portugal. The good news is that a solution developed by our group at Illinois Institute of Technology over the last two decades and commercialized by our company, Syndem, has achieved global standardization and is moving into large-scale deployment. It’s called Virtual Synchronous Machines, and it might be the key to keeping the lights on as we transition to a renewable future.
“We’re all touching the same elephant, and every person’s perspective has merit and value in reconstructing the elephant,” said Tony Bynum, director of Institute of Design’s Executive Academy.
When learner mobility becomes regional and employers hire globally; the next era of American higher education will be built on a connected network – no longer limited to a ZIP code.
"We see more and more people’s homes flooding every year. This is a severe problem, and it’s only going to get worse. And it’s only going to be felt disproportionately more in those areas that are non-white and lower income," said Matthew Shapiro, political science professor, who heads Illinois Tech's Storm Water Infrastructure Project.
“(Attorneys are) thinking, ‘What’s the likelihood they’re going to affirm the decision or they’re going to reverse the decision?'” said Richard Kling, clinical professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. “Obviously they thought it was in their advantage to dismiss it.”
