Rotta Loria Honored with 2025 Innovative Research Award
The award recognizes a significant impact on the advancement of research and discovery
Northwestern Engineering’s Alessandro Rotta Loria has received the 2025 Innovative Research Award from the Chicago Council on Science and Technology (C2ST).
Founded in 2007, C2ST has worked to engage the Chicagoland community on vital STEM issues through dynamic, flexible programming. By hosting dozens of free events each year across the region, C2ST creates learning opportunities for novices, enthusiasts, and professionals alike.
Rotta Loria, Louis Berger Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, was honored with the award at the C2ST Science in the City Gala, held May 1 in Chicago. The Innovative Research Award is presented to an organization or individual that has had a significant impact on the advancement of research and discovery over the last two years and will continue to have a great impact on the field.
Rotta Loria directs the Subsurface Opportunities and Innovations Laboratory (SOIL). Centered on the subsurface, his work is dedicated to fostering the renewable energy transition, decarbonizing the construction sector, innovating infrastructure, and conserving the built and natural environments through underground solutions.
In 2023, his landmark study linked underground climate change to the shifting ground beneath urban areas. Rotta Loria is a former TedX speaker and in 2023 was named to Crain’s Chicago Business’s “40 Under 40” list. Rotta Loria has also worked to invent a new process using electricity to form a natural cement between grains of sand that transforms it into immoveable rock suitable to strengthen coastlines, and a new carbon-negative building material that uses seawater, electricity, and carbon dioxide.