News
Mechanical Engineering Technology BS

Despite restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students at RIT are still finding ways to participate in hundreds of clubs and organizations this semester, including dancing, designing games, and even skydiving.

Brian Chontosh ’00 (mechanical engineering technology) has been nominated for the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor, one of the oldest and continuously issued awards given to U.S. Armed Forces personnel for courage, valor, and leadership.

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.

Many RIT faculty, students, staff and alumni are among the collaborations here and across the nation, providing expertise to improve or create much-needed equipment and protective gear for medical personnel fighting the Coronavirus.

Jordan Darling’s career has soared as rapidly as the sleek watercraft he designs. The vice president of Nikola Powersports was named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30, the prestigious designation given annually to top entrepreneurial talent in the United States and Canada.

Undergraduate students from RIT ROC-ed the Project during a local project management competition to increase awareness and volunteer services for Rochester’s M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. Their solution, “The Common Source,” took top honors recently in the annual ROC the Project competition, a regional challenge for college students.

For the last several decades, volunteer groups have played a pivotal role in keeping RIT’s curriculum relevant and current with the latest industry trends. The groups of 10 to 30 leaders from a wide variety of companies come together a few times a year to offer their insights for RIT faculty and staff in nearly every college.

Brian Jaworski ’18 (manufacturing and mechanical systems integration) and Kevin Matthews ’16 (electrical engineering technology) will discuss how “smart” robots are being used in industrial and manufacturing environments as part of Manufacturing Day 2019.

Electronics manufacturing is a trillion-dollar industry. driving the U.S. and local economies. RIT hosted a workshop this summer during which veterans, displaced workers and spouses of veterans gained cutting-edge skills—and career options—in the electronics industry.

When his brother’s horse died suddenly from colic in 2013, Michael Schab ’09 (computer engineering) saw an opportunity to create something that would prevent other equestrians from losing their beloved animals to this preventable affliction.

If the old saying, “couples who play together stay together” is true, Jon Podeszek ’10, ’12 MS and Danielle Furman Podeszek ’11 have it made. The two are ultramarathoners who spend their free time training to run 50-plus-mile races.

As part of a growing trend in enriching engineering education, RIT has approved a new course in soft skills for engineers. The one-credit elective course, originally piloted in the last academic year, has been approved as a credit-bearing option for students in RIT’s College of Engineering Technology and will begin in September.