News
Don Figer

The National Science Foundation will award Don Figer, director of RIT’s Center for Detectors and the Future Photon Initiative, more than $315,000 over the next year to continue work on a grant to provide the astronomy community with a new family of detectors that have very large formats, very low cost, and state-of-the-art performance.

A recent trip to a cancer center in Boston helped astrophysicists from RIT's Center for Detectors reach a key milestone in their mission to develop advanced CMOS image sensors for future NASA space missions.

RIT student Lazar Buntic received a earned a graduate research fellowship through the Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology program to develop infrared detectors for next generation telescopes.

Worldwide experts will soon gather at RIT to discuss the central role photonics plays in advancing quantum technologies. RIT and SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, are partnering to host the Photonics for Quantum 2022 event June 6-9 at the RIT campus.

ASRAS's March 4, 2022, monthly meeting featuring Don Figer, director of Center for Detectors in the College of Science. During March's meeting, Figer discussed The James Webb Space Telescope and the role of technology in astrophysics.

Future Photon Initiative Director, Don Figer, talks about his contributions to JWST in the areas of developing its infrared detectors and deployment procedure.

When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launches, it will mark the culmination of nearly 30 years of development on the most powerful observational instrument ever made. Numerous members of RIT’s College of Science have been involved in its creation or will work on projects once it becomes operational.

Researchers from RIT’s Center for Detectors are poised to contribute to the top priority outlined in the decadal survey recently released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report outlines the American astronomy community’s scientific priorities, opportunities, and funding recommendations for the next 10 years.

Photonics Media features Don Figer, director of the Center for Detectors, computer engineering BS/MS student Irfan Punekar, and Stefan Preble, professor in the Department of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering.

SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and RIT will present the 2021 Photonics for Quantum Digital Forum July 16-20. Previously an RIT initiative, this year marks a new iteration of this event in the form of a partnership between RIT and SPIE.

An RIT student is on a mission to help build detectors that could identify individual photons from distant, inhabitable planets. Justin Gallagher, a fifth-year student from Rochester, N.Y., pursuing his BS in physics and MS in astrophysical sciences and technology, is serving as project manager for a nearly $1 million grant funded by NASA to create a single photon sensing and number resolving detector for NASA missions.

The unexpected transition to remote learning during the spring semester challenged faculty across RIT to experiment, create, and deploy new methods of instruction to ensure student success. As the university gears up for in-person and online classes—or a combination of both—faculty members are applying a wide range of lessons learned from the spring to keep academic momentum moving forward in the fall.