Photo Spotlights

“He was an entrepreneur, a risk taker and always did it his way,” John Del Monte, president of E.J. Del Monte Corp., said about his father, the late Ernest J. Del Monte Sr., during a luncheon on May 3 at Oak Hill Country Club. John Del Monte accepted the 2012 Herbert W. Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award in honor of his father, who founded his company in 1953, established Delcrete Building Systems and owned several Marriott franchise properties. The Vanden Brul award was established in 1984 and the annual event is sponsored by RIT’s E. Philip Saunders College of Business.

Sculptor and MacArthur-award winner Elizabeth Turk engaged an audience of more than 150 people during her May 2 presentation, “Emptiness of Matter,” wrapping up the 2011-2012 season of the Caroline Werner Gannett Project’s “Visionaries in Motion V” series. Turk discussed her tools, methods, drawings and preparations, and she revealed her sources of inspiration, as well as some of her creations. Go to www.cwgp.org and click on “Celebrating Six Visionary Years” to read comments about the series from past speakers.

The RIT community gathered May 2 for a reception in appreciation of Georgia Gosnell, left. Her $5 million commitment to the university creates the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences in the College of Science. The naming comes in recognition of her late husband, who served as chairman of RIT’s Board of Trustees from 1987 to 1992. RIT President Bill Destler, right, joined the celebration.

RIT Hillel sponsored a free falafel pita tasting on April 30 in front of the Student Alumni Union. The event was a celebration of Israel’s 64th Independence Day on April 26.

Tracey O’Dowd and Mike Higham share some love with dogs from Scottsville Veterinary Adoptions. The pooches visited April 27 as part of the Spring Festival but had to depart early because of the cold weather.

In partnership with the George Eastman House, RIT and Visual Studies Workshop, photographers from Magnum Photos documented Rochester April 14-29. Students researched, assisted and scouted locations for the photographers—who, on April 28, discussed the project and signed books at the George Eastman House. Here, RIT Professor Willie Osterman, right, project coordinator for RIT students, talks with Jim Goldberg, one of the Magnum photographers, during the book signing. Magnum Photos is an agency owned by its photographer members and founded in 1947 by documentary photographers.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand convened leading experts from industry, government and academia for a summit at RIT’s Center for Student Innovation on April 27. The event focused on strategies to bring about a manufacturing renaissance to upstate New York. Golisano Institute for Sustainability Director Nabil Nasr looks on.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand convened leading experts from industry, government and academia for a summit at RIT’s Center for Student Innovation on April 27. The event focused on strategies to bring about a manufacturing renaissance to upstate New York. Here, U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson provided the keynote address.

RIT President Bill Destler, center, prepares to face off against more than a dozen teams in the inaugural E-Dragster Race, this year’s kickoff event to Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival on May 5. Participants, which include RIT students, faculty and staff, gathered April 26 for a media preview in Simone Plaza. Electric-powered dragsters will take part in time trials, and the winning team claims either $1,000 or a banjo from President Destler’s personal collection.

Sen. Joe Robach, second from right, poses with members of RIT’s team in the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute’s first-annual Greening Your Campus competition. RIT’s Team Powers addressed greenhouse-gas emissions and mercury releases as a direct result of RIT’s electricity purchases. The team, which placed second, consists of students Nikhil Kale, left; Steven Barber, second from left; Ayham Haddad, right; and faculty/staff advisor Chance Glenn (not pictured). Clarkson University took first place and University at Buffalo took third place. Students were presented awards at a ceremony in Albany after exhibiting their projects.

As part of its Research and Development Program, the Pollution Prevention Institute had developed a student competition in which teams must identify a specific activity at their university with a high environmental footprint and define a solution for lowering the impact.

Fifth-year packaging student Zack Loughery worked with the preservation team at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film to protect some of photography’s history using modern packages. He was part of a team that developed a new archival storage and protection covering for daguerreotypes.

The College of Liberal Arts honored students April 20 with a luncheon and awards presentation in University Gallery. Student achievement in writing was recognized with the 2012 Henry and Mary Kearse Student Honors Awards for excellence in liberal arts coursework. Faculty members recommended students based on writing assignments done in individual classes. The awards were created in 1980 thanks to a donation from Henry J. Kearse and his wife, Mary, a longtime member of RIT’s Nathaniel Rochester Society. Pictured are (front row, left to right): Amy Pease, Diana Bonilla, College of Liberal Arts Dean James Winebrake and Danielle DiGaspari. In the back row are Benjamin Liu, Adam Oest, Matthew Steski, Nicholas Giordano, Terese Davies and Kenneth Tyler Wilcox. Missing from the photo are Caitlin Purdy, Michael Rousselle and Nikolas Cairns.