Achievements and Innovations

Engineering at Illinois Engineering at Illinois

Achievements and Innovations

Air conditioning, integrated circuits, skyscrapers, the LED, flat panel televisions -- these and many other innovations were made possible by technology developed at the College of Engineering. Explore this timeline to learn more about some of these innovations and achievements of our faculty and alumni.

2007 | Electrical and Computer Engineering alumnus Steve Sullivan (MSEE 1991, PhD 1997) received an Academy Award for Science and Engineering for his contribution to the design and development of the Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) Image-based Modeling System. Colin Davidson, Max Chen, and Francesco Callari shared the award. The ILM Image-based Modeling System takes an image of an object or scene and uses a combination of computer algorithms and artist tools to create a 3D model. Sullivan, director of research and development at ILM, shared the Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2001, for the development of the Motion and Structure Recovery System (MARS).
2006 | Ray Ozzie (BS 1979, Computer Science) created and led the development of Lotus Notes, the defining groupware product used by more than 100 million people worldwide. In April 2005, he became a chief technical officer at Microsoft, which acquired Groove Networks, Inc., the company he founded in 1997. Groove Networks offers virtual office software that allows teams of people to work together over the network as if they were in the same room. Ozzie was first exposed to the nature and significance of collaborative systems and computer-supported cooperative work while working on the university's PLATO project as an undergraduate.

2005 | Alumnus Christopher C. Landreth (BS 1984, General Engineering; MS 1986, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics) won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Ryan, an "animated documentary," focused on the strange life of Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. Although incredibly realistic and detailed, Ryan was conceived, developed, and animated entirely in the world of 3D computer-generated imagery (CGI), which Landreth calls "psychological realism."
2005 | Robert H. Liebeck (BS 1961, MS 1962, PhD 1968, Aerospace Engineering) attained world recognition for his novel designs of high-lift airfoils, referred to by the aeronautics community as the "Liebeck airfoils." He is co-developer of the blended-wing-body (BWB), a revolutionary airframe design for subsonic transports which is widely considered a major innovation in subsonic commercial transportation. The BWB is a 600-passenger, "flying wing" aircraft with significantly better economics and efficiency than traditional designs. The aircraft is a top priority at NASA, and it is under serious consideration for development at Boeing, where Liebeck is a Senior Fellow.
2003 | Physics Professor Anthony J. Leggett shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Alexei A. Abrikosov and Vitaly L. Ginzburg for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids.
2003 | Chemistry and Bioengineering Professor Paul C. Lauterbur shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology with England's Sir Peter Mansfield (postdoctoral research associate in Physics at Illinois, 1962-1964) for their seminal discoveries concerning the use of magnetic resonance to visualize different structures. Lauterbur was among the first scientists to use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in the studies of molecules, solutions and solids. He was also the first researcher to produce an image with NMR and apply the technology to medicine. In 2007, Lauterbur and Mansfield were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
2001 | Electrical Engineering alumnus Donald L. Bitzer(BS 1955, MS 1956, PhD 1960, Electrical Engineering), Robert Willson (BS 1959, Engineering Physics; MS 1961, Physics; PhD 1966, Electrical Engineering), and the late H. Gene Slottow (PhD 1964, Electrical Engineering), received a Technical Achievement Emmy for their invention of the plasma display monitor--forerunner of the modern flat panel television screen. (The Donald L. Bitzer and H. Gene Slottow Creativity Award in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering was established in 1989.)
2000 | Electrical Engineering alumnus Jack S. Kilby (BS 1947) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at Texas Instruments. He held more than 60 patents and is credited as co-inventor of the hand-held calculator and the thermal printer used in portable data terminals. Kilby was also the recipient of two of the nation's most prestigious honors in science and engineering--the National Medal of Science and induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
1998 | Computer Science alumnus Max Levchin (BS 1997) co-founded PayPal (with Peter Thiel) and served as its chief technology officer. PayPal began as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company, and now enables anyone with an email address to make and receive online payments quickly and securely. In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal, which had also employed a number of U of I computer science alumni, including YouTube co-founders Jawed Karim and Steve Chen.
1993 | Computer Science students Marc Andreesen and Eric Bina work with an NCSA development team to create Mosaic, the first graphical browser to introduce the general public to the power of the Internet. Mosaic took the Internet out of the hands of physicists and into the hands of the public.
1983 | Dale A. Gardner, Engineering Physics graduate, became the first Illini in space as the commander of the space shuttle Challenger’s September 30-October 5, 1983, mission.
1977 | Electrical Engineering Professor and alumnus Nick Holonyak, Jr. (BS 1950, MS 1951, PhD 1954) developed the quantum well laser, making possible lasers for fiber-optic communications and the Internet, CDs, DVDs, medical diagnosis, surgery, ophthalmology, and many other applications. In 2006, Professor Holonyak was inducted into the Consumer Electronics (CE) Hall of Fame.
1977 | Physics alumna Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (MS 1942, PhD 1945) shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for the discovery and development of radioimmunoassay, a technique that employs radioactive isotopes to detect and measure the levels of insulin and hormones in the blood and in body tissues.
1972 | Physics and Electrical Engineering Professor John Bardeen became the only person to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics twice--the second prize was for solving the 50-year-old mystery of superconductivity (a puzzle that Einstein tried, and failed, to solve). Superconducting magnets have made possible advanced technologies from MRI to cell phones. The achievement was shared with Physics alumni, John Robert Schrieffer (MS 1954, PhD 1957) and postdoctoral fellow Leon Cooper.
1969 | Civil Engineering Professor Ven Te Chow pioneered the field of watershed hydraulics with an innovative experimentation system that produces storms in the laboratory. Today, the Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory at Illinois focuses on four major research areas: rivers, sediment dynamics, environmental hydraulics, and hydraulic modeling.
1969 | Murray Gell-Mann won the Nobel Prize in Physics for "his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions." Gell-Mann was a postdoctoral research associate in 1951 and a visiting research professor at Illinois from 1952-1953.
1961 | Electrical Engineering alumnus Donald L. Bitzer (BS 1955, MS 1956, PhD 1960) and colleagues developed PLATO, the first computer-based interactive educational network and home of the first online community. The flat-panel plasma monitor, a forerunner of today's high-definition flat-panel television monitors, was a spin-off invention made by researchers working on PLATO.
1956 | Physics and Electrical Engineering Professor John Bardeen shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for research on semiconductors and the invention of the transistor with former Bell Labs' colleagues, William Brattain and William Shockley.
1955 | Physics alumnus Polykarp Kusch (MS 1933, PhD 1936) shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work toward the precise measurement of the magnetic moment of the electron.
1952 | Physics Professor Ralph E. Meagher and colleagues developed ILLIAC I, the first digital computer entirely built and owned by an educational institution. The ILLIAC series later continued with ILLIAC II, a transistorized computer, and culminated in the mid-1960s with the ILLIAC IV supercomputer--at the time the fastest and largest in the world. Meagher also went on to become the first head of the Department of Computer Science at Illinois.
1950 | Civil Engineering Professor Nathan Newmark designed the first earthquake-proof skyscraper, the 600-foot Latino-American Tower in Mexico City.
1940 | Physics Professor Donald Kerst invented the first betatron and used it to determine the basic properties of uranium and plutonium for the Manhattan Project.
1937 | Charles Ellis, a University of Illinois professor of engineering did much of the design work and thousands of mathematical calculations necessary to build the Golden Gate Bridge which is generally considered one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century. Unfortunately, he did not receive credit for his accomplishments until 2007, when a book issued to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the bridge was published. Until then, the project's chief engineer, Joseph Strauss, had always been considered as "the father of the Golden Gate Bridge."
1934 | Mechanical Engineering Professor and alumnus Seichi Konzo (MS 1929), designed the first air-conditioned house in the world--at 1108 West Stoughton Street, Urbana--and moved his family in to test it.
1932 | Civil Engineering Professor Hardy Cross proposed his revolutionary Moment Distribution Method, enabling rapid, safe design of skyscrapers.
1927 | Arthur Cutts Willard, a mechanical engineering professor, and later, president of the University of Illinois, designed the ventilating system for New York's Holland Tunnel.
1922 | Electrical Engineering Professor Joseph Tykociner invented the first sound-on-film technology through a double feature motion picture that included ringing a bell and reading the Gettysburg Address. Tykociner's invention is still used for sound-on-film today.
1870 | Stillman Robinson, the University of Illinois' first professor, and later, Dean of Engineering, institutes the nation's first engineering curriculum to include both science-based lectures and experimental laboratory practice.
1867 | The Illinois Industrial University is founded.
1862 | Abraham Lincoln signs the Morrill Act establishing land-grant universities in each state.


Lincoln Photo credit: Photographer Stefan Lorant, from the University Archives
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign