Science and Math News

Before Elyse Rood started working on her senior physics capstone project, she didn’t envision herself working for a software company. But after the commencement ceremony on May 10, she is moving to Madison, Wis., to start a career as a technical solutions engineer at a healthcare software company called Epic Systems.

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.

Abraham Glasser, a fourth-year computer science major from Pittsford, N.Y, wasn’t certain where he would land after graduation. But he credits his co-op experiences at Microsoft and NASA for helping him determine that he didn’t want a typical 9-to-5 job. Instead, he realized that a career developing accessible technologies for deaf and hard-of-hearing people would fulfill a passion for research.

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.

The Women’s Council of RIT awarded 13 students with scholarships at the Women’s Council Scholarship Award Luncheon at Liberty Hill on April 17.

Three high school students working in a science lab for the first time made a surprising discovery with an RIT professor. Now, the young women are co-authors on a scientific paper announcing a rare bacterium that kills e-coli.

While many people flock to warm destinations for spring break, two RIT experimental cosmologists spent theirs 6,800 feet high on snow-covered Kitt Peak at the Arizona Radio Observatory. They were deploying an instrument to a 12-meter telescope for a project called the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME), which aims to study the universe’s first stars and galaxies.

Drones are adding a new level of precision to agriculture, giving farmers digital tools for cultivating better and more profitable crops.

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.

When the Seneca Park Zoo Society needed a way to create detailed 3D computer models of rare insects from Madagascar, they turned to RIT’s imaging science program for help. A multidisciplinary team of first-year students designed and built a new system to tackle the problem and will showcase the final product at the Imagine RIT festival.

New Atlas reports that NASA will fund a diffractive lightsails research project by Grover Swartzlander, professor in RIT's Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science.