Alumni News

George Kamper '77 and wife Sherryl are putting smiles on faces during a difficult time with their whimsical photos of them engaging in everyday activities with George inside a large, protective bubble.

Adam Richlin '09 is helping to distribute fresh groceries to freelancers during the pandemic — a selfless act that is mirrored in the business model of Brooklyn lighting equipment rental house.

Callie Donahue ’18 (biotechnology and molecular bioscience) is helping to test thousands of compounds on human cells infected with live samples of coronavirus in search of medicine that can be effective in deterring the virus’s infection and replication cycle.

One brick at a time — that’s how members of RIT’s Electronic Gaming Society are building a digital version of the RIT campus in the video game Minecraft. As universities across the country closed their campuses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students went to Minecraft as a way to stay connected with their schools. The game allows multiple players to collaborate on building structures and designing landscapes, including recreating physical places.

Maria Romero-Creel ’17 (biomedical engineering) and Wendy Salamone ’10 (biotechnology) are just two of the people responsible for the analyzer database update launched by Ortho Clinical Diagnostics on April 14. The team is responsible for ensuring that calibrations, precision fluid information and analyzer settings for new assays like COVID-19 are properly entered and working for analyzers in the field.

Registration is open for RIT's first set of summer sessions that will be offered in an online format. The goals are for students to continue making progress toward their degrees, earn additional credit hours to catch up or get ahead, or explore interests outside of their majors.

Alumnus Christian Rahl ’13 (applied networking and systems administration) knows a little bit about social distancing. He’s stationed at a National Science Foundation site at the South Pole, working as a senior network engineer.

Nick Giordano, who graduated from RIT in 2016 with a degree in management information systems, has created a website template that helps communities track and manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Daniel Pfohl ’18 (Ceramics), ’19 MST (Visual Arts-All Grades) is creating art under the guidance of Simon Levin. 

In early March, RIT alumnus Corey Mack ’11 (mechanical engineering technology) received an email from the U.S. Department of Defense asking start-ups and entrepreneurs to build emergency ventilators for under $300. Within a few days, his idea became a design that complied closely with the required pieces of emergency ventilators.

Dr. Christopher Tanski, who graduated from RIT in 2000, is overseeing every medical professional treating coronavirus patients on the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort and at the Javits Convention Center field hospital in New York City. Tanski, who started on April 9, is an attending physician and assistant professor of emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Apply for the Saunders Leadership Fellows Program before April 30 for a guaranteed 50% scholarship!