Research News

WXXI’s “Connections” program features Roger Easton, professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science; Lisa Enochs, second-year student double majoring in motion picture science and imaging science; and Zoë LaLena, second-year imaging science student.

While the scientific community grapples with the loss of the Arecibo radio telescope, astronomers who recently revived a long-dormant radio telescope array in Argentina hope it can help modestly compensate for the work Arecibo did in pulsar timing.

Imaging scientists at RIT have several new projects in the works to improve the way waveform LiDAR can be used to study forests. LiDAR currently does a good job of outlining the top portion of forests, but by using a more complex form of LiDAR, it can reveal much more detail about what lies beneath the forest canopy’s surface.

CIO Magazine mentions Manuela Campanelli, professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences, and her work with the TACC Frontera supercomputer.

Professor Seth Hubbard is an expert in designing, growing, and fabricating solar cells and said that if the cost of these highly efficient solar cells can be reduced enough, they could be used to help devices ranging from smartphones to drones to cars.

RIT is developing saliva testing protocols for campus as part of its plan to monitor the prevalence of the SARS-CoV2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19. Development of the testing process will be done by André Hudson and Julie Thomas, both faculty-researchers in the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences.

RIT students discovered lost text on 15th-century manuscript leaves using an imaging system they developed as freshmen. By using ultraviolet-fluorescence imaging, the students revealed that a manuscript leaf held in RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection was actually a palimpsest, a manuscript on parchment with multiple layers of writing.

Three researchers, including RIT Associate Professor Ben Zwickl, suggested steps that need to be taken in a new paper in Physical Review Physics Education Research after interviewing managers at more than 20 quantum technology companies across the U.S.

Scientists have developed new simulations of black holes with widely varying masses merging that could help power the next generation of gravitational wave detectors. RIT Professor Carlos Lousto and Research Associate James Healy from RIT’s School of Mathematical Sciences outline these record-breaking simulations in a new Physical Review Letters paper.

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration released a catalog of results from the first half of its third observing run (O3a), and scientists have detected more than three times as many gravitational waves than the first two runs combined. Several researchers from RIT’s Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation were heavily involved in analyzing the gravitational waves and understanding their significance.

Professor Emeritus Linda Barton is the 2021 recipient of the Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction.

Moumita Das, an associate professor in RIT’s School of Physics and Astronomy, received funding from the National Science Foundation to better understand the fundamental rules that allow bacteria to compartmentalize the functions within their cells.