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Computer Science BS

A team of RIT students from different computing disciplines came together last semester to place third in the 2019 MITRE Collegiate eCTF (embedded capture-the-flag) cybersecurity competition.

The National Science Foundation received more than 800 idea submissions for the NSF 2026 Idea Machine competition. Entries were judged and 33 are still in the running for the grand prize, including a submission from an RIT team on Integrated Human Machine Intelligence.

Kyle Diller, a fifth-year computer science student from East Windsor, N.J., developed a plug-in application for the molecular visualization program UCSF ChimeraX. The application is currently under development at the University of California at San Francisco. Diller’s plug-in allows users to display an atomic structure as if it were a movie so they can see how the structure changes.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 15: Esports are surging in popularity, and RIT’s collegiate esports teams are making an impact in the growing field. With multiple championships and national rankings under their belt, the Esports program is looking to take things to the next level. Evan Hirsh, president of RIT Esports, talks with the team’s adviser, Chad Weeden, about the rise of competitive video gaming and the university’s teams.

A team of Hearthstone players represented RIT and joined 20 other top colleges at the first-ever ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship. RIT became one of the top four teams in the country and the three RIT student players received $7,500 in tuition scholarships.

A team of RIT students has become one of the best collegiate Hearthstone teams in the nation, making it to the ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship May 10-12 in Houston. RIT beat out nearly 500 other collegiate Hearthstone teams to get to the first-ever ESPN esports event.

RIT is silencing the doubters, winning its second Collegiate Starleague Dota 2 Grand Finals Championship April 28. The student team bested a bracket of North America’s 32 top universities to take home the $10,000 grand prize.

Abraham Glasser, a fourth-year computer science major from Pittsford, N.Y, wasn’t certain where he would land after graduation. But he credits his co-op experiences at Microsoft and NASA for helping him determine that he didn’t want a typical 9-to-5 job. Instead, he realized that a career developing accessible technologies for deaf and hard-of-hearing people would fulfill a passion for research.

Recognizing that the internet is not always secure, millions of people are turning to the Tor anonymity system as a way to browse the World Wide Web more privately. However, Tor has been found to have its own vulnerabilities. This has a team of faculty and students from RIT’s Center for Cybersecurity researching the extent of the problem and ways to address it.

Launched in 2012, the RIT Venture Fund invests in early-stage, high-growth companies founded by students, faculty, staff, alumni and RIT Venture Creations client companies in fields that complement RIT’s core academic competencies. From block chain and clean-energy technology to telecommunications, manufacturing and game development, the Venture Fund looks to create industry diversity and a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.

College students from across the continent are saving some brain power for the weekend of Feb. 16-17, where they will have 24 hours to create projects at RIT’s annual BrickHack event.

The Daily Messenger features Alex Livings, a fourth-year computer science major.