Bill Slater makes Illinois Tech a less welcoming place, and we continue to lend legitimacy to his abhorrent views. It’s time to change that.

In the November 13 issue of TechNews, our editor-in-chief wrote an article titled “Let’s stop and assume for a moment” where he mentions that TechNews has a whole team of writers, photographers, and editors responsible for this paper’s success “but that is a point to be covered in another article.” I thought I would take it upon myself to write that article.

Among Illinois Tech’s lineage of innovators and problem solvers, Rohit Prasad (graduated in 1999 with a master of science in electrical engineering) holds a very unique distinction as the Vice President and Head Scientist of the ubiquitous online retailer Amazon’s virtual voice-responding assistant, Alexa.

Professor Edward Kraus of the Illinois Tech Chicago-Kent College of Law is not without fault. He operates the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic as a clinical professor, teaching classes and hosting students as interns or clinicians at his practice. Investigating the situation, I interviewed Professor Kraus twice in the last two weeks to shed some light on both the law and the man behind the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic.

Prior to the Darsh Wasan lecture on November 12, TechNews members David Arnold, Grace Arnold, and Ethan Castro were given the opportunity to interview Rohit Prasad. Prasad is best known for his work on Amazon Alexa and currently works as the Vice President and Head Scientist on Alexa Artificial Intelligence.