Environmental Studies and Sustainability News

Advanced degree candidates were honored by the Golisano Institute for Sustainability during commencement ceremonies in May.

WXXI reports on RIT’s work on the Global Urban Evolution Project.

RIT environmental science students turned some heads when they stopped to pick white clover plants near a gas station along New York State Route 33A in October. But little did onlookers know that they were helping to conduct the largest evolution study outside of human genomics.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 14: Growing up in India, Shahana Althaf thought earning a doctorate was a distant dream. Despite potential roadblocks, she persevered and will receive her Ph.D. from RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability on May 10. Shahana talks with Associate Professor Callie Babbitt about how she overcame cultural pressures and the challenges of balancing home life with a young child to fulfill her dreams.

Five alumni from RIT’s College of Engineering Technology were honored with Rising Star awards during a campus reception last month. Given to alumni who graduated from CET within the past five to 10 years, the awardees were recognized for outstanding achievements early in their careers, for significant public service contributions and in helping to advance the careers of new professionals.

Images of plastic bags and bottles clogging beaches and oceans have some calling for a ban on all such products. But packaging experts say it’s not that easy to eliminate a highly effective material. Instead, researchers at RIT are looking to strike a balance: Find a way to produce plastics that retain their best qualities and yet are more environmentally friendly.

Imagine RIT visitors interested in learning about electric and hybrid-electric bikes get to participate in an interactive exhibit and discussion on the growing travel mode inside the Golisano Institute for Sustainability on April 27.

Meet Brady Smith, a fourth-year civil engineering technology student and captain of this year’s Concrete Canoe team.

Concrete canoes float—really. And bridges are more complicated to construct than putting up a few steel beams. Student-engineers who build both the unusual—yet attractive—canoes and complex bridge spans will display their designs at the 2019 Upstate New York Regional Student Conference taking place April 19-20 at RIT.

WXXI’s “Connections” program features Nana-Yaw Andoh, assistant professor of architecture.

Point2Homes talks to Nana-Yaw Andoh, assistant professor in the Master of Architecture program, about the ways in which growing cities expand. 

Some people see massive environmental issues as unsalvageable, but Kristen Denninger Snyder ’10 sees them as motivation to keep working toward environmental conservation. Later this year, she will open the Research and Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem (RISE​) in Tanzania and serve as the center’s head scientist.