News

Jonathan Witmer ’91 (computer science) sits at the helm of WestPoint Home, one of the world’s most successful luxury linen and textile companies. But Witmer’s company has shifted its focus and its workforce is now using its textiles to produce reusable facemasks for the nation’s frontline workers.

Peter Cinibulk was praised by staff leadership for his combination of outstanding service to the program and his peers, his strong academic achievements and participation in, and contributions to, extracurricular activities both on and off campus.

WROC-TV talks to Alexa Amoriello, second-year game design and development major, about the digital RIT campus that students are building in the video game Minecraft.

Associate Professor Brian Tomaszewski is working to create interactive coronavirus maps that provide deeper insight into the spread of COVID-19 in the hope that the public can use these mapping tools to help fight the pandemic.

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.

WROC-TV talks to Jonathan Weissman, senior lecturer of computing security, about phishing attempts targeting those awaiting stimulus checks.

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.

Mehdi Mirakhorli, an assistant professor of software engineering, has earned a prestigious National Science Foundation award to develop new technologies that can make software architecture design more intuitive, particularity for novice programmers and new learners.

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.

Situations such as the coronavirus pandemic have heightened interest in the importance of disaster management and mitigation. At RIT, researchers have created two new serious games that could be used as important learning tools for solving these world problems.

Elan Lee ’98 (computer science) decided one day that he no longer wanted to do what he was doing for a living. He quit his job at Microsoft and embarked on a one-year break to figure out what was next. But a few weeks later, he spent a weekend with friends building a card game around the idea of Russian Roulette. Before they knew it, they had created the wildly popular Exploding Kittens.

RIT graduate programs are among the best in the nation, according to the U.S. News annual statistical survey of graduate programs. RIT master’s degree programs in engineering, business and fine arts feature in the U.S. News & World Report 2021 edition of Best Graduate Schools, released in March, including the first specialty ranking of the university’s business analytics master’s program.