News Stories

The American Council on Education has named Robin Cass of RIT’s College of Art and Design an ACE Fellow for academic year 2020-21. Following her nomination by RIT President David Munson and a rigorous application process, Cass was among 38 Fellows selected this year.

Ke Du and Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, both faculty-researchers in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, worked with an international team to collaborate on the design of a next-generation miniature lab device that uses magnetic nano-beads to isolate minute bacterial particles that cause diseases. This new technology improves how clinicians isolate drug-resistant strains of bacterial infections and difficult-to-detect micro-particles such as those making up Ebola and coronaviruses.

RIT students are encouraged to make sure they are counted in the 2020 Census, even though they may currently be scattered across the country. Every 10 years, the U.S. counts everyone living in the country, including college students, to help ensure that communities across the nation receive their fair share of federal funding and are appropriately represented for the next decade.

Alumnus Christian Rahl ’13 (applied networking and systems administration) knows a little bit about social distancing. He’s stationed at a National Science Foundation site at the South Pole, working as a senior network engineer.

The Community Grants Program is part of the NYSP2I’s ongoing efforts to continue improving the health and environmental quality of New York state. Eligible applicants are invited to apply for funding to support community-based projects that promote public awareness, understanding and implementation of pollution-prevention practices

Mehdi Mirakhorli, an assistant professor of software engineering, has earned a prestigious National Science Foundation award to develop new technologies that can make software architecture design more intuitive, particularity for novice programmers and new learners.

Nick Giordano, who graduated from RIT in 2016 with a degree in management information systems, has created a website template that helps communities track and manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Emily Mahoney, a third-year chemistry student from Cazenovia, N.Y., is one of 396 students nationwide named 2020-2021 Goldwater Scholars. The award is based on academic merit and research experience, and virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their highest degree.

Michael Murdoch, an assistant professor of color science, received a prestigious National Science Foundation award to research how the human visual system perceives a mix of augmented reality and real-world content.

As the majority of students moved out of residence housing because of CV-19, several remained behind in quarantine. To ease their temporary stay and to provide better access to services needed, most were moved to different campus accommodations by an FMS van refitted by members of the RIT Ambulance group and Facilities Management Services.

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.

Dr. Christopher Tanski, who graduated from RIT in 2000, is overseeing every medical professional treating coronavirus patients on the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort and at the Javits Convention Center field hospital in New York City. Tanski, who started on April 9, is an attending physician and assistant professor of emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University.