Winner of the 2018 UIC Engineering Alumni Outstanding Achievement Award Don McLauchlan, a member of the Master of Energy Engineering Advisory Board, recently won the UIC Engineering Alumni Outstanding Achievement Award. This award is presented to alumni who, through their achievement in their field of engineering, have significantly enhanced the industry and who inspire and help to instill a sense of pride among the alumni, students, faculty and staff of UIC. Don has served as one of Elara Engineering Principals since the firm’s founding in 2001. Prior to that he was Technical Solutions Leader and General Manager for Honeywell after Honeywell’s 1999 acquisition of Arrowhead Environmental Control, the company he owned and was President and CEO of from 1978 to…

UIC's Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) hosted “Noche de Ciencias” (Night of Science) on Saturday, Nov. 3rd at Instituto del Progreso Latino to showcase the talent of young students in STEM field. Noche de Ciencias is a national event that occurs to increase interest and promote science, technology, engineering, and math. In Chicago, the event included hands-on activities that showed students in 6th through 12th grades the creativity of engineering while supplying them with information on STEM education and careers. “Our mission is to support our members to successfully achieve in their careers and empower our community to strive for similar success. Noche de Ciencias is an opportunity for SHPE to inspire families to get involved in STEM and…

Brady Middleton doesn’t wait for opportunities. He creates them. The industrial engineering student at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) saw a problem and – in true engineering fashion – he came up with a resolution. His answer was the founding of a company called Think773. “I started Think773 with the idea of exposing electronics literacy to youth, makers, and organizations in underserved communities,” said Middleton, who attended the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences on the far south side. “I’m addressing this issue by offering affordable electronics kits, workshops, and tutorials that are designed to challenge and illuminate the minds of students, teachers, and makers alike. My secondary goal is to inspire the youth and let them know…

Registration is open for UIC’s annual Lunch with an Industrial Engineer open house. Hosted by the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the event is set for Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Engineering Research Facility (ERF), 842 W. Taylor St., Chicago. The free event is for area high school students and their parents/guardians to learn about our department’s Industrial Engineering degree program, and the wide-range of careers open to graduates. The lunch will include an interactive information session, lab tours, and hands-on engineering challenges to learn how industrial engineers work in the real world. At the end of this exciting program, we will serve lunch and invite…

Tesla has the Model S, Nissan offers the Leaf, and Chevy makes the Bolt. Soon, UIC will have an electric car, too. A new student organization in the College of Engineering called Vehicle Electronics and System Engineering (VESE) is engineering’s newest organization offering students an opportunity to be pioneers as they start designing and building a formula one electric race car to compete in an SAE sanctioned competition next semester in Lincoln, Nebraska, in May. “The beauty of our car is that it is based on electrical systems, but there are mechanical components that have to be built like any other race car,” said Amru Qutub, a student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the president…

Sandwiching two-dimensional materials used in nanoelectronic devices between their three-dimensional silicon bases and an ultrathin layer of aluminum oxide can significantly reduce the risk of component failure due to overheating, according to a new study published in the journal of Advanced Materials led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering. Many of today’s silicon-based electronic components contain 2D materials such as graphene. Incorporating 2D materials like graphene — which is composed of a single-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms — into these components allows them to be several orders of magnitude smaller than if they were made with conventional, 3D materials. In addition, 2D materials also enable other unique functionalities. But nanoelectronic components with 2D materials…