News by Topic: Creativity And Innovation

A multidisciplinary team of first-year students has been working to develop an imaging system that can reveal information hidden in historical documents for their Innovative Freshmen Experience project-based course. But with the shift to remote classes, the students left campus with the device nearly complete. Although disappointed, they shifted focus to the opportunities the new situation would create.

Jeanne Christman thinks classrooms should be noisy. The more conversations between students and faculty, the more success she believes students will have in understanding and applying engineering and computing concepts. That approach to helping students understand and use today’s engineering concepts was one of the reasons Christman was honored with the 2019-20 Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching.

RIT’s utilization of nearly 71 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually represents more than 92 percent of its total power needs, placing it No. 21 on the EPA’s Top 30 College & University List of the largest green power users among higher-education institutions in the agency’s Green Power Partnership.

Jonathan Witmer ’91 (computer science) sits at the helm of WestPoint Home, one of the world’s most successful luxury linen and textile companies. But Witmer’s company has shifted its focus and its workforce is now using its textiles to produce reusable facemasks for the nation’s frontline workers.

Austin Gehret, an associate professor in NTID's Department of Science and Mathematics, was honored for his research project exploring the development of an e-learning model for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Gehret’s research is especially vital during the COVID-19 pandemic as remote learning for all students has become the “new normal.”

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.