News by Topic: Women

A team of scientists at RIT will expand its work after receiving a large grant from the National Science Foundation to make chemistry more accessible for students who rely on American Sign Language interpreters in class. The team has been awarded nearly $380,000 for its proposal to transform chemistry for deaf and hard-of-hearing students via the design, implementation, and evaluation of a descriptive sign language lexicon.

Distinguished Professor Manuela Campanelli has been honored with the American Physical Society’s (APS) 2024 Richard A. Isaacson Award in Gravitational-Wave Science for her extraordinary contributions to and leadership in the understanding and simulation of merging binaries of compact objects in strong-field gravity.

Two RIT students have won Google Ph.D. Fellowships for their work as some of the most promising young academics in the world. Emily Kuang and Allahsera Auguste Tapo—both in the computing and information sciences Ph.D. program—will receive full tuition, a stipend, and Google research mentorship as part of their fellowships for up to three years.

RIT continues to be a leader in diversity in higher education, as recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. The publication announced RIT as a 2023 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award winner and a 2023 Diversity Champion. This is the 10th consecutive HEED Award and ninth consecutive Diversity Champion designation for RIT.

The second annual Together RIT: A Day of Dialogue is set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, with this year’s programming centered on gender and sexuality. Together RIT gathers the campus community and creates space to ask questions, empathize, build solidarity, and give recognition to the current and future social issues.

RIT’s Changing Hearts and Minds Award, which recognizes success in diversifying the university’s faculty ranks and helping to advance RIT’s overall commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, has been awarded to the College of Science.

RIT reached another record year in sponsored research awards, attaining more than $94 million in fiscal year 2022-2023. Some key areas of research include nanotechnology, optics and imaging science, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, and growth in life sciences and health fields.

For nearly a decade, RIT audiologist Catherine Clark has been volunteering in Ethiopia, providing essential services to the country’s deaf and hard-of-hearing children. As a result of her efforts, Clark was recognized recently with the naming of a new audiology lab in her honor.

Natali Valdez, assistant professor at Purdue University and Presidential Fellow at Yale University, will visit RIT to share her research on social and political factors surrounding maternal medical policy as the featured speaker for the 2023 Eugene H. Fram Signature Lecture in Critical Thinking.

Sherry Perry Tshibangu, Distinguished Professor and experienced small-business owner, has been announced as the next Frederick H. Minett Professor at RIT for the 2023-2024 academic year. The Minett Professorship brings distinguished Rochester-area multicultural professionals to the RIT campus to share professional knowledge and experience.

RIT scientists have once again used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey to change the way we think about the universe and its distant galaxies. Jeyhan Kartaltepe and Rebecca Larson co-authored a paper confirming very bright galaxies in the early universe, while also disproving the identification of what would have been the most distant galaxy ever found.

Researchers are improving non-invasive treatment options for degenerative disc disease, an ailment that impacts 3 million adults yearly in the U.S. Using state-of-the-art gene editing technology in mesenchymal stem cells, the researchers will add to the growing field of regenerative medicine, the process of producing cellular therapies to alleviate pain and lack of mobility.