Photo Spotlights

Fourth-year hospitality major Elizabeth Prater was among the hundreds of employees and volunteers at this year’s PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, N.Y. Serving as a host in the Wannemaker VIP Tent on the grounds of the country club, she had a chance to meet-and-greet some of the 18,000-plus guests attending the final practice day of the tournament on Aug. 7. Prater, a Fairport resident, and several other students in RIT’s School of International Hospitality and Service Innovation worked at the event as interns or co-ops with the PGA, Oak Hill or Levy’s Restaurants, learning firsthand the coordination and details required to successfully manage a major professional golf tournament. The hospitality students were among several groups from RIT, including alumni, students from ITS and others, helping out with the event.

Shivan Shah, standing at center, read online about the weeklong camp, “From Finches to Fish: The Making of the Fittest,” at RIT and wanted to enroll. The 10th-grader at Clarence High School—and her mom—drove to RIT from Buffalo in time for the 9 a.m. class, offered by the Center for Bioscience Education and Technology Aug. 5-9. Here, instructor Gary Buckert, a science teacher at Pittsford-Sutherland High School, shows Shivan and Angela Rubin, left, a 10th-grader from Rush-Henrietta Senior High School, and Myah Sims, a ninth-grader from Ninth Grade Academy, how to separate and analyze proteins from the muscle tissue of different fish and a chicken. The Center for Bioscience Education and Technology is part of the Institute of Health Sciences and Technology.

At RIT/NTID’s TechGirlz summer camp, deaf and hard-of-hearing middle school girls from all over the country enjoyed the opportunity to build their own computers and more. The camp took place July 28-August 2.

RIT/NTID’s Steps to Success summer camp gave deaf and hard-of-hearing middle school students a chance to explore careers, including laboratory science. The camp was held July 26-28.

Massimo Vignelli led a design workshop with RIT professors R. Roger Remington and Bruce Ian Meader the week of July 22. The 20 participants focused on a design and typographic identity for a jazz festival. A highlight of the week was a conversation, moderated by Remington, with Vignelli on July 25. Vignelli is president of Vignelli Associates in New York City. He and his wife, Lella, donated their archive to the Vignelli Center for Design Studies at RIT.

The 5th annual Graduate Research and Creativity Symposium offered a showcase for graduate work featuring more than 50 presentations on a variety of topics including binary black holes, how the Federal Reserve controls the stock market and an analysis of Rochester pawn shops. Here, Valerie Rapson explains a young binary star system. The daylong symposium was sponsored by RIT’s Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies on July 23.

RoboCamp @ RIT is a weeklong day camp that lets students design, build and program robots. This camp is enriched with mini-projects and goals that promote teamwork and creativity. Along with the mini-projects, instructors teach the students some of the fundamental aspects of robotics and programming. Sessions are held through August.

Nearly 200 deaf or hard-of-hearing high school students from across the country attended RIT/NTID’s Explore Your Future Program to sample careers, experience life on a college campus, make new friends and have fun.

Community volunteers assisted 40 bikers during I Can Bike, held at the Gordon Field House and Activities Center July 8-12. The camp helps kids with autism learn how to ride a bike without training wheels, which organizers say builds self-confidence and provides inclusion with peers. Above, 7-year-old Mark Bress gets encouragement from Alison Durocher, a volunteer from Rochester. AutismUp, an organization that supports individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families, hosted the event with help from many sponsors and volunteers.

Everyday Engineering, a summer camp for girls entering grades 5-9, is a weeklong day program sponsored by the Women in Engineering program, part of the Kate Gleason College of Engineering. This year’s theme was “Energy and Environment” and the 40 campers designed, built, decorated and displayed their energy-efficient dog houses, one of the many hands-on activities during the camp designed to spark interest in engineering and technology fields.

From left to right, Casey Jordan, with Venture Creations Director Bill Jones and Jordan’s business partner, Patrick Borsek, celebrate the graduation of Jordan and Borsek’s company, Jorsek, from the RIT business incubator on July 10. Jorsek provides software to aid technical communications. Venture Creations helps young high-tech businesses grow through mentoring and support.

Garry Clarke holds the distinction as the first “unofficial” student enrolled in the new chemical engineering program. The New York City native graduated in May.