Alumni News

All eyes were on international pharmaceutical giant Pfizer this past year as it raced to produce needed COVID-19 vaccines. Staff across the company—including Christopher Vollaro ’21 MS—played a role in the development and distribution process.

Tisa Zito ’09 (film and animation) is making her directorial debut with her film, ForeverMoore; The Angelo Project. The film is a character study on Los Angeles native Angelo Moore, lead singer of the band Fishbone, and asks questions about the legacy and process of an artist.

Megan Baldwin ’07 (MBA) supported all aspects of New York’s response to COVID-19 as assistant secretary of health. Now, she is special advisor to the chancellor for public health policy for the State University of New York system.

Executive MBA alumna Deborah Stamps ’18 was named president of Rochester Regional Health’s (RRH) new College of Health Careers. Stamps led the charge to establish the college, which welcomed its first cohort of nursing students in March 2021.

The Baileys, an RIT legacy family, have dreamed of opening a restaurant in the Rochester area for more than 11 years. In 2020, when their youngest child graduated from high school, they decided it was finally time.

Saunders College of Business will launch a new sports and entertainment management minor this spring. The minor will focus on the business and management of sports and entertainment organizations and provide students with applied skills in business strategy, analytics, customer service, negotiations, and event and venue management.

RIT alumnus and trustee Frank Sklarsky ’78 and his wife, Ruth, have made a significant gift to the university’s one-of-a-kind maker space and performing arts complex. They have given $2.5 million to RIT’s Student Hall for Exploration and Development (the SHED) to establish the Sklarsky Glass Box Theater.

While processing a box of donated items, Kirsten Feigel ’15 (museum studies), a cataloguer for Strong National Museum of Play, came across a rare piece of video game history—a demo of Super Mario Bros. 3 that was created in 1990 by id Software in an attempt to persuade Nintendo to partner with them to develop a version of the game for PC computers.

The sixth annual event featured presentations on the latest virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies that are driving various fields, from health care to theater to education. 

RIT's Media Arts and Technology MS program partnered with InterVol on a project to support Ecole l’Erudit de Léogâne, a Haitian school providing free, high-quality education for students from low-income families.

AcademicInfluence.com features Jolene Rickard ’78 (art and design) (Tuscarora), curator and historian at Cornell, as one of the top influential American Indian scholars in the nation.

RIT appointed two new members — who are also alumni — to its board of trustees. Kathy Yu ’91 has more than 20 years of experience in the technology and semiconductor manufacturing sectors. Nick Schneider ’10, ’10 MS is a principal at Boston Consulting Group, where he is a lead in the company’s technology, media, and telco sector.