News

IBM is making a more than $3.3 million in-kind donation to RIT to help enhance cybersecurity capabilities in the university’s new Global Cybersecurity Institute, as well as support security training and competitions for students.

An RIT faculty member is creating new artificial intelligence systems that could empower agricultural researchers, breeders, nurseries, and other users to analyze the roots of their crops with the power of their smartphones. Assistant Professor Guoyu Lu is receiving a $450,000 New Investigator grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct the research.

Forbes features Nicholas Conn '11, '13 MS (electrical engineering) and RIT trustee and 2009 alumnus Austin McChord as they team up to create Casana, formerly Heart Health Intelligence, which produces a toilet-seat based cardiovascular monitoring system.

RIT engineering faculty-researcher Panos Markopoulos recently received an Air Force Young Investigator Program award to develop a more robust sensor analysis system to better evaluate data simultaneously from sources such as cameras, oscilloscopes, and other sensors.

Analytical thinking, complex problem solving, creativity, resiliency, and flexibility are among the top skills needed for emerging careers by 2025. Anticipating these rapid changes in the workplace—further accelerated by lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic—RIT is seizing on the opportunity to guide students to “new economy majors” that are multi­disciplinary, transformative, and future-focused.

Faculty-researcher Cory Merkel recently received a grant from the Air Force Research Lab for developing more secure AI functionality including how it defends against system attacks, and, through training the system, how it could learn to anticipate triggers for possible system attacks.

While the scientific community grapples with the loss of the Arecibo radio telescope, astronomers who recently revived a long-dormant radio telescope array in Argentina hope it can help modestly compensate for the work Arecibo did in pulsar timing.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 40: Steve Hoover, the Katherine Johnson Executive Director of GCI, and Justin Pelletier, a computing security lecturer and director of GCI Cyber Range and Training Center, provide a sneak peek of what the Global Cybersecurity Institute's new 52,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility has to offer.

RIT will celebrate graduate research during the 13th annual Graduate Education Week and Showcase: A Vision into the Future. The virtual event—Nov. 16 to 20—creates a platform for sharing and exchanging ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic, with pre-recorded and live presentations, demonstrations, visual exhibitions, and an alumni panel discussion.

David Narváez, a computing and information sciences Ph.D. student, used his expertise in symmetry-breaking to help a cluster of computers solve a 90-year-old math problem called Keller’s conjecture in just 30 minutes. He also brought in techniques that make the proof verifiable, meaning that mathematical computer programs can confirm the answer is correct.

Toilet seats with high-tech sensors might be the non-invasive technology of the future that could help reduce hospital return rates of individuals with heart disease. A joint project by researchers at RIT and the University of Rochester Medical Center will determine if in-home monitoring can successfully record vital signs and reduce risk and costly re-hospitalization rates for people with heart failure. The five-year, $2.9 million venture is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Matt Huenerfauth, professor and expert in computing accessibility research, is part of a team that has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to use artificial intelligence to better understand the role of facial expressions in signed and spoken languages.