Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech or IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has programs in architecture, business, communications, design, engineering, industrial technology, information technology, law, psychology, and science. Its historic roots are in several 19th-century engineering and professional education institutions in the United States.