Illinois Institute of Technology has appointed Patrick F. Whitney and Katharine K. Baker as Distinguished Professors, the highest honor awarded to faculty, for preeminent achievement based on their scholarly work and the excellence of their teaching.

Patrick F. Whitney

Whitney is the dean of the Institute of Design and is the Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor of Design. He has led the Institute of Design since 1987, first as director and then as dean. Whitney has published and lectured throughout the world about ways of making technological innovations more humane, the link between design and business strategy, and methods of designing interactive communications and products. His writing is generally about new frameworks of design that respond to three transformations: linking insights about user experience to business strategy, the shift from mass-production to flexible production, and the shift from national markets to markets that are both global and “markets of one.”

“We are delighted that the university is recognizing Dean Whitney for shaping and guiding the Institute of Design for nearly three decades, and establishing the school as a thought leader in the field of design,” said Hugh Musick, associate dean and director of Executive Education at IIT Institute of Design. “This appointment honors him for helping define what it means to design in the 21st century.”

Katharine K. Baker

Since joining the faculty in 1993, Baker has become a preeminent authority in the field of family law and feminist jurisprudence. She is a highly original scholar, challenging conventional understandings of relationships between men and women, as well as between caregivers and children. Her work on sexual violence in particular has brought needed nuance into the academy. The New York Times labeled her proposal to create a new crime of “reckless sex” one of the top ideas of the year. She has been visiting faculty at Yale, Penn, and Northwestern. Baker is a luminary in her field and brings honor to Illinois Tech.

“We are privileged to have Kathy on our faculty,” said Harold Krent, dean and professor of law at Chicago-Kent College of Law. “Through her creative and insightful research, she has become one of the preeminent family law scholars in the country.”

Whitney and Baker both join a select group of 20 Active and Emeriti Distinguished Professors at Illinois Tech.