Sponsored Research garners $62 million in funding

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Ryne Raffaelle, RIT’s vice president of research and associate provost

Rochester Institute of Technology’s sponsored research portfolio grew by 18 percent in fiscal year 2015, reaching a record $62 million in funding.

RIT received 356 new awards during that time period from a variety of state, federal, corporate and foundation sponsors. Half the funding came from federal sources, including $13 million from the National Science Foundation, an increase of $2 million from the previous year. RIT also received 18 new awards totaling $3 million from the National Institutes of Health.

“What makes this particularly impressive is that RIT’s research portfolio continues to grow despite a decline in funding opportunities,” said Ryne Raffaelle, RIT’s vice president of research and associate provost. “This reflects the university’s continuing strength in sustainable manufacturing, development of access technology and STEM education research, as well as emerging leadership in new areas of research for us, such as medical imaging and cybersecurity.”

Raffaelle also attributed the continued growth to RITs entrepreneurial efforts, as well as partnerships with industry and a growth in graduate programs, which has more students engaging in research and seeking funding.

RIT’s graduate enrollment in Rochester was 3,020 students, up 7.5 percent from the previous year and the university awarded a record 42 Ph.D. degrees in such programs as astrophysics, color science, computing and information sciences, microsystems engineering, imaging science and sustainability.

Among the 2015 award highlights:

• $2.2 million from the Department of the Navy to Nabil Nasr, director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, for “Technical Insertion for Recapitalization of Legacy Systems.”

• $1.4 million from Google to David Borkholder, professor of microsystems engineering in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, for “Inconspicuous Daily Medical Analyses.”

• $1.4 million award from the National Science Foundation to Bo Yuan, associate professor and chairman of the Department of Computing Security, for “Cybersecurity as a Diverse Discipline.”

• $1.4 million award to Mike Thurston, research faculty and technical director of Golisano Institute for Sustainability, for the “New York State Center of Excellence in Sustainable Manufacturing.”

For more information, go to the RIT Research webpage.