Office of The President
Frank Cost
College of Imaging Arts and Sciences
Phone: 585-475-5436
E-mail: fjcppr@rit.edu
College of Imaging Arts and Sciences Web site
Frank Cost was named interim dean of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences in July 2009. He is a long-time member of the RIT community, graduating from RIT in 1987 with a master’s degree in computer science.
Cost joined the faculty as a visiting instructor in 1982 in what was then the College of Graphic Arts and Photography. Having worked as a documentary photographer, Cost was looking for technical knowledge about printing to better serve his clients who were asking for help with publication design and print procurement. His original plans to complete a graduate degree in printing technology and then resume working as a commercial photographer changed when he was presented with a full-time opportunity to teach. Cost was promoted to the rank of professor in 1997 and in the same year was appointed as associate dean of RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences.
In 2001, Cost was a founding co-director of the Printing Industry Center at RIT, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Industry Studies Center. Cost is the author of the Pocket Guide to Digital Printing, published by Delmar Thomson Learning, and The New Medium of Print: Material Communication in the Internet Age, published by the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press.
His current research focuses on the impact of digital technology and digital culture on traditional forms of creative expression. His work exploring innovative uses for digitally produced books has helped RIT to attract funding for a number of research and development projects involving undergraduate and graduate students from the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences and the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences.