The First Annual Graduate Research Symposium was an overwhelming success. Over 200 attendees heard talks or saw poster presentations given by over 70 graduate students from all over the campus. The symposium was an opportunity for the RIT community to learn of the depth and breadth of our graduate student’s research activities.Awards were given out for the top oral presentations and for best poster. The award for best overall presentation went to Ray Ptucha, a Ph.D. student in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, for his presentation, “Facial Pose Estimation Using a Symmetrical Feature Model.”

Other award winners:

• Best in Session 1: Heidi Purrington, master’s degree student in microelectronic engineering, «A Multi-Sensor MEMS Chip for Humidity, Temperature, Pressure and Light”
• Best in Session 2: May Arsenovic, Ph.D. student in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, «Use of Remote Sensing Data to Enhance the Performance of Hydrodynamic Simulation of a Partially Frozen Power Plant Cooling Lake”
• Best in Session 3: Stephen Polly, Ph.D. student in microsystems engineering, «Reduction of Power Loss Mechanisms in InAs/GaAS Qd Concentrator Solar Cell Grid Design”
• Best in Session 4: Roberta DiLeo, Ph.D. candidate in microsystems engineering, «Free-standing Semiconductor Carbon Nanotube Electrodes for Lithium Ion Batteries”
• Best Poster: Benjamin Darling, Ph.D. student in color science, «The tangibook: A Tangible Display System for Direct Interaction with Virtual Surfaces”