News Stories

An RIT scientist has been tapped by the National Science Foundation to solve a fundamental problem that plagues artificial neural networks. Christopher Kanan, an assistant professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, received $500,000 in funding to create multi-modal brain-inspired algorithms capable of learning immediately without excess forgetting.

RIT will celebrate the Class of 2020 with a virtual conferral of degrees on May 8, with plans for an in-person, traditional event at a future date when it’s considered safe, said President Munson and Provost Granberg in a letter to the graduates and the community.

RIT’s College of Liberal Arts honored student achievement in writing with more than a dozen writing awards for essays varying from wasteful energy, maternal mortality, eyewitness testimony policies and seeking worth in a liberal arts degree. Each department within the college selected student awardees whose work embodies the ideals and standards of excellence, creative endeavor and scholarship.

RIT scientists have developed the first three-dimensional mass estimate to show where microplastic pollution is collecting in Lake Erie. The study examines nine different types of polymers that are believed to account for 75 percent of the world’s plastic waste.

Members of RIT’s Center for Public Safety Initiatives are doing their part to help combat the opioid epidemic by determining the effectiveness of a dependency treatment program offered to inmates at the Monroe County Jail.

The National Science Foundation recently awarded researchers at RIT, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Louisiana State University, Georgia Tech and West Virginia University grants totaling more than $2.3 million to support further development of the Einstein Toolkit, a community-developed code for simulating the collisions of black holes and neutron stars, as well as supernovas and cosmology.

WROC-TV talks to Steven Carnovale, assistant professor of supply chain management, about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agricultural and the consumer goods supply chain.

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.

Callie Donahue ’18 (biotechnology and molecular bioscience) is helping to test thousands of compounds on human cells infected with live samples of coronavirus in search of medicine that can be effective in deterring the virus’s infection and replication cycle.

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.

When the coronavirus pandemic spread to the United States, RIT faculty member Dr. Laurence Sugarman asked his students to apply their knowledge of placebos and the power of suggestion to the unfolding health crisis.