News by Topic: Creativity And Innovation

As students at RIT have successfully transitioned to temporary online learning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve also found ways of connecting with their peers to continue their interests with clubs, organizations and performing arts.

An Ohio-based explosives company called Austin Powder has turned to RIT scientists for a creative approach to quantifying nitrogen oxide gases that on rare occasions are released during mining operations.

An RIT scientist has been tapped by the National Science Foundation to solve a fundamental problem that plagues artificial neural networks. Christopher Kanan, an assistant professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, received $500,000 in funding to create multi-modal brain-inspired algorithms capable of learning immediately without excess forgetting.

Associate Professor Brian Tomaszewski is working to create interactive coronavirus maps that provide deeper insight into the spread of COVID-19 in the hope that the public can use these mapping tools to help fight the pandemic.

One brick at a time — that’s how members of RIT’s Electronic Gaming Society are building a digital version of the RIT campus in the video game Minecraft. As universities across the country closed their campuses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students went to Minecraft as a way to stay connected with their schools. The game allows multiple players to collaborate on building structures and designing landscapes, including recreating physical places.

When the coronavirus pandemic spread to the United States, RIT faculty member Dr. Laurence Sugarman asked his students to apply their knowledge of placebos and the power of suggestion to the unfolding health crisis.

WKBW-TV in Buffalo, N.Y., features Caleb Harris, a first-year management information systems, and his mask-making business.

A federal grant matched by New York state and RIT is enabling university researchers to study a competitive solution to polyethylene mulch and identify a more sustainable alternative to conventionally used plastics in farming.

The American Council on Education has named Robin Cass of RIT’s College of Art and Design an ACE Fellow for academic year 2020-21. Following her nomination by RIT President David Munson and a rigorous application process, Cass was among 38 Fellows selected this year.

Ke Du and Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, both faculty-researchers in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, worked with an international team to collaborate on the design of a next-generation miniature lab device that uses magnetic nano-beads to isolate minute bacterial particles that cause diseases. This new technology improves how clinicians isolate drug-resistant strains of bacterial infections and difficult-to-detect micro-particles such as those making up Ebola and coronaviruses.

The Community Grants Program is part of the NYSP2I’s ongoing efforts to continue improving the health and environmental quality of New York state. Eligible applicants are invited to apply for funding to support community-based projects that promote public awareness, understanding and implementation of pollution-prevention practices

In early March, RIT alumnus Corey Mack ’11 (mechanical engineering technology) received an email from the U.S. Department of Defense asking start-ups and entrepreneurs to build emergency ventilators for under $300. Within a few days, his idea became a design that complied closely with the required pieces of emergency ventilators.