Research News

RIT behavioral health researchers are providing remote mental health care and addiction therapy to rural communities in New York and New Hampshire and training for therapists to deploy the digital treatments at their clinics.

IoT World Today reports on a team of engineers from RIT that created a robotic system that can teach Tai Chi. 

Zhi Zheng’s robot is skilled at Tai Chi, and her research team hopes it will soon lead a class of older adults at a local community center. Zheng, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in Kate Gleason College of Engineering, developed the humanoid robot as part of her assistive technology research.

RIT’s College of Health Sciences and Technology is preparing for significant growth with a new streamlined organizational structure. The move clarifies direct reporting and aligns the college with the university’s model of grouping programs under departments.

Brenda Abu, assistant professor in RIT’s Wegmans School of Health and Nutrition, seeks to understand the effect pica, iron deficiency anemia, and food insecurity have on maternal health during pregnancy. Pica refers to excessive craving and/or eating of non-food items, such as, clay, soil, paper, ice, and paint chips.

Maria Morcos ’22 BS/MS (physician assistant) will spend the next academic year conducting a clinical asthma trial at the Royal College of Surgeons in Bahrain. It will be the first asthma clinical trial in the area.

Many RIT students' experiences as undergraduates have helped them get into top graduate degree programs.

After going virtual for 2021, thousands of people came to the RIT campus on Saturday for an in-person Imagine RIT: Creativity and Innovation Festival, which featured more than 250 exhibits throughout the campus from more than 1,800 students and faculty.

The National Institutes of Health are funding RIT scientists to explore vesicular stomatitis virus’s (VSV) potential for treating prostate cancer. Associate Professor Maureen Ferran from the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences secured a three-year, $451,718 Research Enhancement Award (R15) grant from the NIH to investigate prostate cancer cells’ susceptibility to the virus.

Students and faculty from the exercise science program are using high-speed cameras, motion capture technology, and other sensors to analyze the motions of RIT baseball players as they swing the bat.

Fox Rochester features Bill Brewer, senior lecturer and director of the exercise science program, about improving heart health with a healthy diet and exercise.

Barbara Lohse, head of RIT’s Wegmans School of Health and Nutrition, hopes to reach 10,000 New Yorkers with free resources promoting healthy nutrition and lifestyle tools that have been tested and shown to be effective.