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The Innovation Upcycle

Growing up, Dane Christianson (ME ’15) discovered a pair of passions—inventing and environmentalism—that put him on the path to entrepreneurship. “I always wanted to be an inventor,” he says. He...

Keeping to the Creative Path

Right after graduating from Illinois Tech, Evan Duda (Game and Interactive Media Design ’21) met up with a friend of his brother’s from church—someone he’d heard was “crazy about board games.” Duda...

Community Builder

After working for years as an architect, Araceli Garza (ARCH ’98) found herself wanting more: more involvement in the design process, in the community outreach, even in financing, so that she could...

The STEM Storyteller

When Anita Debarlaben (CS ’90) mentioned to her high school guidance counselor that she wanted to be a scientist or engineer, she was told she had zero chance of making it. Students from her inner...

Hard Labor

When he was growing up, Bob Reiter (LAW ’03) got some early exposure to unions—and the need for them. His father was a heavy equipment operator who dug sewer lines and worked on deep tunnel projects...

The Solitary Search for a Cure

When her son was a toddler, Swapna Sasidharan (M.A.S. ITM ’10) grew increasingly concerned with his development. He did not crawl until he was three and a half years old, and was delayed in many other...

“I never see it that I’m the one defending the bad guys,” says Heather Widell ’12. “I’m defending people, and I’m defending the [United States] Constitution.” Widell has run her own firm, the Law...

“Everybody loves a good redemption story,” says Ginger Leigh Odom ’03. “Every sports movie is about coming from behind and having success, and I think that the expungement-and-sealing statute is an...

Eileen O’Neill Burke ’90 was in the sixth grade when former justice Mary Ann G. McMorrow spoke to Burke’s class about her career as a judge. McMorrow went on to be the first woman to serve on the...

“Mr. Ammoura, is that you?” It was summer 2011, and Ali Ammoura ’12 was a law student at �鶹APP-Kent College of Law when he heard a meek voice cut through the hustle and bustle of the lockup at the...