Hidden in Tech’s third floor, Eric Perreault’s office is sparsely decorated. The midday sun shines on a couple books, a stack of papers, a Specialized bicycle and a large computer monitor. But the video playing on the McCormick engineering professor’s computer is anything but ordinary.
“What you see here is a monkey that is temporarily paralyzed using Lidocaine,” Perreault says, pulling up a clip taken in a laboratory at Northwestern University. “The part that’s paralyzed is below the elbow and his task is to pick up this ball and just put it in the tube.”
Perreault’s eyes light up as he describes how he and fellow Northwestern Professor Lee Miller collaborated on a paralysis project. Miller’s Northwestern laboratory used a computer to monitor the primate’s brain and electrodes to control the paralyzed limb the way the brain dictated.
The monkey’s arm struggles before placing the ball where it belongs.
“We haven’t restored full control. He couldn’t play piano or any of that,” Perreault says. “But it’s amazing if you take someone who can’t do anything on their own and give them a little capability. They can do a ton.”
Perreault is one of many McCormick researchers using his expertise outside of Northwestern’s classrooms, from working on the cutting edge of medicine to merging engineering with more artistic endeavors.
‘A PHENOMENAL PLACE TO BE’
The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago has been recognized by US News & World Report as the top rehabilitation hospital in the country since 1991. It’s also home to the Feinberg School of Medicine’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. The RIC receives $12 million in federal grants and donations to help Northwestern scientists find solutions for patients with severe medical conditions, ranging from strokes to amputations to spinal cord traumas.
Richard Weir worked at the RIC for more than 20 years before moving from Northwestern to the University of Colorado at Denver. He says working with these patients to “get back into the real world” is central for researchers at the RIC.
“It’s nice, or fun, to think that you’re helping somebody in some small way,” Weir says. The professor has been interested in prosthetics and restoring limb functionality since his twin sister lost her hand when she was 5.
McCormick graduate student Rosalind Heckman says that while the patients at the RIC face grim challenges, they’re also hopeful.
“The patients there are so inspirational, and they’re so excited about the science that you do,” says Heckman, who works at the RIC. “Even riding the elevator, you meet some of the most phenomenal people. They tell you to have a good day as they’re on their way up to therapy.”
‘ALMOST EERIE, AND ALSO FUN’
Eight years ago, McCormick professors ventured into a field less associated with engineering: art. When the Art Institute of Chicago was about to hire Francesca Casadio, its first full-time conservation scientist with a Ph.D, the museum reached out to Katherine Faber for advice. At the time, Faber was the department chair for McCormick’s Department of Material Sciences and Engineering. After signing on to collaborate with the Art Institute, she began working with Casadio.
Faber believes there’s an intuitive link between art and engineering for many people. As an undergraduate studying ceramic engineering at Alfred University — which houses the New York State College of Ceramics — Faber’s lab was associated with a corresponding art studio.
“There is an intrinsic scientific interest,” she says. “You want to know how colors change through time, what sort of a chemical reaction occurs.”
This curiosity has led Northwestern scientists to work with the Art Institute, responsible for preserving works of art and identifying fraudulent copies of famous artists, including photographer Arthur Stieglitz and painter Georges Seurat.
David Dunand, also a McCormick professor, has tested methods that could aid others in dating and identifying frauds in ancient Chinese bronzes and 20th century castings by European masters like Matisse and Picasso.
When analyzing the pieces, Dunand dissolved small samples of the metals in acid to make solutions, which revealed their elemental compositions. His findings could be used in the future to determine when and where the works of art were produced, down to specific years and factories.
“For me it was almost eerie and also fun to be able to do something to connect my science and engineering background with artistic endeavors,” Dunand says. “I have a very deep interest in art, so when Kathy Faber said she had this connection with the Art Institute, I really jumped on it.”
In fact, art runs in Dunand’s family: The professor’s father was a museum curator in Geneva, and his grandfather was a metallurgist (someone who studies the physical and chemical properties of metals) who tested the types of pieces that now reside in the Art Institute.
‘FROM A VERY EARLY AGE’
Background stories like Dunand’s are common, whether they’re Weir’s early trauma or Faber’s collegiate experience. For many, applying raw engineering talent to more worldly causes has become career-defining.
“From a very early age, I remember from the time I was in high school, wanting to figure out how to help people who are paralyzed move again,” Perreault says. “As I went through and studied electrical engineering, it turned out these were the academic areas I was really interested in. To put the two together was really a dream come true.”