News
Packaging Science MS

Move over, Silicon Valley. Rochester, N.Y., can be the next great American technology hub.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 46: Anticipating 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. Dan Johnson, professor of packaging science; Ian Mortimer, vice president for Enrollment Management; and Steven Carnovale, assistant professor of supply chain management, discuss the importance of offering majors that ensure successful outcomes while meeting the ever-changing needs of a new, and evolving, economy.

RIT’s packaging science program recently received an equipment donation for its Packaging Dynamics Laboratory that will increase its academic and professional training options in safe-guarding shipped products.

Funding from the long-time corporate partner will support two innovative packaging centers at RIT: the American Packaging Corp. Center for Packaging Innovation, a comprehensive teaching, research and testing laboratory; and the Center for Sustainable Packaging. Both centers are located in RIT’s College of Engineering Technology.

Images of plastic bags and bottles clogging beaches and oceans have some calling for a ban on all such products. But packaging experts say it’s not that easy to eliminate a highly effective material. Instead, researchers at RIT are looking to strike a balance: Find a way to produce plastics that retain their best qualities and yet are more environmentally friendly.

Professors from packaging science, graphic design, and industrial design worked together to provide students with a unique opportunity for collaborative design.

Four of eight student design teams from RIT that were entered in the national Paperboard Packaging Alliance competition were awarded top placements for excellence in design.

Three multidisciplinary teams of undergraduate students from RIT were recognized for their unique designs in the 2016 Paperboard Packaging Alliance Student Design Challenge.

Students in the packaging science program will track where an individual’s eyes go when looking at an array of well-packaged goods as part of their Imagine RIT exhibit May 7.

RIT students create new and sustainable product packaging as part of the 2015 Wegmans Design Challenge.