News
Dina Newman

RIT faculty members, who led research initiatives as principal investigators, were honored at a reception on March 21 to celebrate the individuals who helped the university reach record awards surpassing $92 million and place among the top private research universities in the country.

The National Science Foundation has awarded RIT $1.2 million for a cohort of four postdoctoral fellows to conduct STEM discipline-based education research. Each fellow will work with two mentors, encouraging cutting-edge research at the interface of traditional disciplines.

Ten College of Science students received funding to work with faculty mentors on summer-long research projects as part of the HHMI Inclusive Excellence Summer Research Experience. The program is for students who just completed their first year at RIT and helps broaden RIT’s research groups to include a greater diversity of culture.

Callie Donahue ’18 (biotechnology and molecular bioscience) is helping to test thousands of compounds on human cells infected with live samples of coronavirus in search of medicine that can be effective in deterring the virus’s infection and replication cycle.

RIT is helping more students from nontraditional pathways get hands-on experience in scientific research early in their academic careers through a unique summer program focused on mentorship.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 20: Learning assistants bring a different perspective to a student’s educational experience. At RIT, the Center for Advancing STEM Teaching, Learning & Evaluation trains undergraduates to be learning assistants, and facilitate small-group or other interactions in the classroom. Dina Newman, associate professor in the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, and recent biology graduate Gretchen Horst talk about how the program works.